Flablog: Tallahassee knows best

2/18/2005

Tallahassee knows best

The leadership seems unwhelmed by Jeb Bush's plan to consolidate election control in Tallahassee. (Herald version here.)

"I have seen very good policy die because of a flawed process and an unwillingness or inability to get a buy-in from all the stakeholders," Senate President Tom Lee, R-Brandon, said Thursday. "I think that will hurt the secretary of state in the Legislature when she goes to try to accomplish this objective."

Translation into English:

"Good ideas die ugly deaths when the geniuses who came up with them think they don't have to talk to anybody beforehand. Glenda doesn't have the votes and nobody outside the governor's office wants to help her get them."

The bill would grant her the authority to seek fines and criminal charges against county supervisors of election who fail to follow her interpretation of elections law.

You know, like arresting any supervisor who, say, doesn't use a howlingly messed-up felons list developed for them in Tallahassee.

(Flashback - Defede on the felons list fiasco last July.)

The Tallahassee Democrat's editorial page expresses wonder:

It's also troubling that this 200-plus-page rewrite of the election law comes less than three weeks before the 2005 legislative session, too late for supervisors of elections to find sponsors for and file alternative bills. And, oddly, this whopper of a change wasn't even mentioned in a joint house-senate committee meeting on election reforms two weeks ago.

Ms. Hood, this takes some kind of nerve.

AP notes "a firestorm of criticism."

# posted by Lane @ 2/18/2005