Fla. Senate president to offer insider look at new legislative session

February 3, 2011

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos will provide a preview of the upcoming 2011 Florida legislative session on Feb. 10 at the University of Florida’s Bob Graham Center for Public Service.

Haridopolos, who is also a lecturer at UF, has been dubbed a “conservative’s conservative” by political pundits. He recently announced that he likely will seek the Republican nomination to run against incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson for the U.S. Senate seat in 2012. He will speak in Pugh Hall’s Ocora at 6 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Among the most pressing problems facing the legislators when the session begins in March are an estimated $3.6-billion budget shortfall, an unemployment trust fund that’s in the red and the highest jobless rate in three decades.

While the Legislature’s own economists predict about 7 percent growth in revenues next year after four straight years of negative growth, the new money isn’t nearly enough to cover expected increases in Medicaid and other crucial services such as education, health care, public safety and transportation, according to a Jan. 14 report from the Florida Legislative Office of Economic and Demographic Research.

As part of the Haridopolos event, visitors to the Bob Graham Center website can weigh in on the decisions facing the legislators. With the new online, interactive budget application, www.bobgrahamcenter.ufl.edu/budgetapp, users will be challenged to balance the state budget while maintaining critical services for state residents.

Glenn Robertson, former state budget director under Gov. Bob Martinez and Gov. Bob Graham, said the center’s budget app provides a unique opportunity: “The application allows us to talk about what’s really involved in our state government and what the political decision-making pressures are … it addresses the balancing act, one where political rhetoric meets budget reality.”

Those who submit proposed budget cuts using the center’s budget app will automatically be entered into a random drawing for an iPad® 3G. The winner will be announced by Haridopolos Thursday night.

In addition to the budget shortfall, other key issues facing the legislators are:

• Whether to open the state’s coastline to oil and gas exploration after a two-decade ban. Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, is the chief proponent of oil drilling in the Senate.
• Modifying class-size rules that cap classes at 18 students for kindergarten through third grade, 22 in grades four through eight and 25 in high school. The law requires schools to move to actual classroom counts this fall, a move that worries many Florida school boards and superintendents.
• Attempting to pass a renewable energy package that could require utilities to produce 20 percent of their energy through renewable and clean energy sources by 2020. When Senate leaders refused to take up a House oil drilling bill last year, House leaders took a pass on the Senate’s renewable energy policy.
• Creating a state water distribution system that could pipe water from water-rich regions of North Florida to fast-growing areas farther south with the establishment of a central regulatory commission that oversees Florida’s water resources and supply development.

This event will also be streamed live on Feb. 10 and archived from the Bob Graham Center website www.bobgrahamcenter.ufl.edu.

The Bob Graham Center for Public Service is a community of students, scholars and politically engaged citizens, devoted to enhanced citizenship; the training of current and future public and civic leaders who can identify problems and spearhead change; and the development of policy on issues of importance to Florida, the United States and the global community.