You Can Say That Again

Wednesday’s House Floor session drew an unusually large crowd, from white T-shirted members of the anti-tax group Citizens for a Sound Economy to sex expert Dr. Ruth Westheimer.

Some CSE members in the open-air gallery got a little carried away after conservative Republicans chanted their mantra of smaller government and less taxes during a heated debate on the floor. A chorus of cheers erupted.

House Speaker Tom Feeney politely warned “the guests in the gallery” not to participate in the debate. Then he left them with a civics lesson they might never forget.

“This may seem like a football game or a circus, but it’s your legislature,” Feeney said.

– Jim Ash

Gov. Bush reads palms

Governors and legislators are adept at playing cat and mouse with reporters. Public officials walk a fine line when it comes to complying with laws that require meetings of government officials to be announced and open to the public.

Gov. Jeb Bush takes care of the requirement by flashing e-mails to a media list moments before meeting with House and Senate leaders. Capital reporters often see them too late to respond. Except for Wednesday, when Bush dashed to the office suite of House Speaker Tom Feeney to do some arm-twisting before a controversial vote on civil service reforms.

Only one reporter slipped into the crowded suite and stood quietly behind Bush as he lobbied for the bill. Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan, always alert to potential public relations disasters, wrote the reporter’s name on his palm and flashed the warning to Bush while the governor spoke with a wavering lawmaker.

“It’s just a tattoo,” Brogan said when the reporter asked to see the message.

– Jim Ash

That’s easy for you to say . . .

The gridiron is not the only place where North and South rivalries play themselves out in Florida. The dome of the House is held in place by the dynamic tension between lawmakers from the competing regions.

It’s inherent not only in the language of bills but also in the accents that pepper floor debates.

On Tuesday, Rep. Jerry Melvin, a Republican from Fort Walton Beach with a clipped Southern drawl, was on the same side of a school voucher debate as Rep. Renier Diaz de la Portilla, a Republican from Miami. But that was hard to guess by the way Melvin mangled his introduction of Diaz de la Portilla.

“I would like to yield the floor to Representative Deeya de la Peela,” Melvin said.

“I think that’s me,” de la Portilla said.

– Jim Ash

Senate Leader Visits McMansion

Gov. Jeb Bush and Senate President John McKay of Bradenton are both Republicans, but their relations have dipped from cool to Arctic. McKay announced two weeks ago that he would not consider the more than $300 million in tax cuts that Bush has been pushing.

On the other side of the aisle, House Speaker Tom Feeney has been more than compliant, passing a $222 million tax cut for investors (Feeney’s lieutenants call them “senior savers”) before state budget forecasters even released their latest revenue estimates.

Small wonder McKay made his stop at a Thursday morning legislative breakfast at the governor’s mansion as brief as possible. But before rising early to dash off to a meeting, McKay told Bush about his first trip to the mansion, in 1990. A wise-cracking freshman, McKay approached an intercom at the front gate and pressed the button.

“I drove up to the mike out there and said, ‘I’ll have a quarter-pounder with cheese and fries,’ ” McKay said. “The FDLE (Florida Department of Law

Enforcement) guy was pretty quick. He said, ‘drive to the next window.’ “

– Jim Ash

Hold it right there

Sen. Kendrick Meek, a black former state trooper from Miami, was explaining the practice of racial profiling to members of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee when a colleague on the panel told him he knew exactly what he was talking about.

Sen. Victor Crist, who once sported a hairdo of tight curls, now wears his black hair slicked back against his skull. The new look evidently compels security officers at airports to search his briefcase, Crist, R-Temple Terrace, reported. Committee Chairman Alex Villalobos, R-Westchester, could barely contain his glee: “Senator Crist, if I saw you coming, I’d want to search you, too.”

– S.V. Date

Let there be giggling

The Rev. Donald Roberts, a Methodist minister, once again brought his irreverent humor to the Senate chamber this year, opening a session last week that had senators and spectators giggling beneath bowed heads.

“Oh God, we confess we know our schools have infrastructure problems out the wazoo, our mental health strategies need to be updated, Medicare and Medicaid increases are the bull in our budget’s china shop and our very own constitution prohibits rational tax strategies,” prayed Roberts, a friend of Senate President John McKay.

Afterward, Rules Committee Chairman Tom Lee, R-Brandon, announced, “I’ve been enlightened this morning. I didn’t realize wazoo was a biblical term.”

– Mark Caputo