Gov. Rick Scott ran for office in 2010 as a hard-charging tea party conservative who would crack down on illegal immigration, slash state spending and cut business regulations.
Scott’s first budget proposal called for a $5 billion reduction, which would have been the largest budget cut in state history. He rolled back environmental protection, fired a state ombudsman who had angered the nursing home industry and suggested abolishing a database tracking opioid prescriptions.
Tuesday marks the beginning of Scott’s final legislative session. He will depart the governor’s mansion later this year because of term limits.
Scott is going out on a much different note. Rather than cutting spending, Scott wants to increase the budget by $2.4 billion. Rather than focusing on hard-right issues, he is pitching ideas that have broad appeal, sometimes in direct contradiction to his past positions.
The Republican governor now wants to strengthen the prescription drug monitoring database and spend an extra $53 million combating the opioid epidemic. He’s pushing to boost environmental funding. And he wants tougher nursing home regulations.
What changed? Scott is benefiting from a much stronger economy and improved state revenues. He faced a budget deficit of $3.6 billion when he first took office. On other issues — such as opioids and nursing homes — Scott’s staff and supporters say he has simply evolved or reacted to new problems that arose, such as a series of deaths in a Broward County nursing home in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma.
But some view Scott’s legislative agenda this year as a political calculation designed to boost his appeal heading into the 2018 election season, when he could challenge Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson.
Scott hasn’t announced whether he will take on Nelson. He was widely expected to get in the race but recent reports indicate he may be wavering after a string of GOP losses over the last year, including in the Alabama U.S. Senate race.
“I haven’t made a decision about my future. That race is in 2018; it’s still 2017,” Scott said recently.
Political considerations
Even if he eventually bows out, in order to keep his options open he must start preparing now. Scott’s Senate ambitions are expected to be one of the driving forces this session, and election-year politics could influence the two-month lawmaking period in a variety of other ways.
Scott isn’t the only prominent lawmaker eyeing another office. Republican House Speaker Richard Corcoran is considering a run for governor and two GOP House members are running for attorney general. And the entire state House and half of the state Senate is up for reelection.
Political considerations always play a role in what legislation advances in Tallahassee.
“The bottom line is you’re never going to take the politics out of politics,” said state Sen. Bill Galvano, a Bradenton Republican who is in line to be Senate president next year. “People have their immediate goals, their long-term thoughts.”
But the political positioning is likely to be more pronounced “than your average year,” said Sarasota GOP state Rep. Joe Gruters.
“You’ve got two of the most powerful people in state office running for a different office and they control the agenda,” said Gruters, a strong Scott ally.
If Corcoran runs for governor, he will face a tough GOP primary, with Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam already in the race and at least one other prominent candidate poised to jump in.
Corcoran likely would try to position himself as the most conservative candidate in the race. One issue he has seized on is tougher immigration enforcement, an issue Scott also touted in his 2010 GOP primary but has not emphasized in recent years.
Corcoran has taken shots at Putnam’s immigration record on Twitter and is touting a bill in the House that would punish Florida municipalities that do not fully cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
The “sanctuary city” bill is expected to sail through the House and will help burnish Corcoran’s conservative credentials. For the same reason, some political observers believe that other immigration enforcement proposals could receive elevated attention in the House this year, along with conservative legislation on everything from guns to abortion.
Yet election-year politics could also make more partisan proposals harder to pass this year.
While Corcoran and others would benefit from passing more conservative measures that appeal to primary voters, going along with such proposals could hurt GOP candidates facing tough general election contests in swing seats targeted by Democrats.
Changing climate
The political environment looks favorable for Democrats this year and a number of GOP-held legislative seats in districts that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton carried are particularly vulnerable. Meanwhile, Scott is unlikely to face a tough primary but would have a bruising general election against Nelson. Statewide races in Florida typically are extremely close and Scott would benefit more from pushing proposals with broad appeal than simply playing to the GOP base.
This dynamic already may be helping to elevate some bills and kill others. State Sen. Anitere Flores, R-Miami, helped kill two gun rights bills in a Senate committee recently. Flores is rumored to be exploring a run for mayor of Miami and supporting pro-gun measures could be used against her.
At the same time, popular bipartisan proposals such as penalizing texting while driving, tackling the opioid crisis and bolstering nursing home regulations are expected to advance.
Some of this legislation could help shield lawmakers from critics charging they failed to act on key issues.
Scott was criticized after Irma on his response to the dire situation in the Broward nursing home. The operators of the home — where 12 patients’ deaths have been attributed to the sweltering conditions that arose after the facility lost power — said they repeatedly called Scott’s cellphone seeking assistance.
Scott has said his team referred the calls to the appropriate agency and that the nursing home should have called 911 if the situation was life-threatening. But at the same time, the governor is pursuing changes to state law that would force nursing homes to have backup generators capable of powering central air conditioning.
The bill could help give Scott political cover on the issue, although he is still likely to face criticism over his record when it comes to nursing homes, which includes firing an ombudsman who was considered an aggressive advocate for nursing home residents and loosening regulations on the industry.
And with 5,725 opioid-related overdose deaths in Florida in 2016, there are plenty who argue Florida leaders have not done enough to address the epidemic. Scott could be vulnerable to to those charges after initially opposing the prescription drug database based on privacy concerns and not pushing for more funding on the issue in the past.
This year Scott is backing legislation that would force doctors to check the database before issuing prescriptions. The bill also limits the quantity of opioids that can be prescribed and has other provisions aimed at curbing abuse.
The governor also is asking for a big increase in state money for substance abuse treatment, something addiction experts say has long been underfunded.
Shifting stances
Scott’s approach to a range of other issues has shifted over the years. When he first come into office he rolled back environmental protections, gutting the state’s growth management regulations and repealing a law requiring septic tank inspections. He forced steep budget cuts at water management districts, limiting their ability to protect environmentally sensitive lands. Now he wants to significantly boost funding for environmental initiatives, including land conservation and converting from septic tanks to central sewer.
Democrats charge that Scott’s positions on everything from opioids to the environment and nursing home regulations are purely political and meant to obscure his past record on the issues.
When Scott released his budget, Florida Democratic Party spokeswoman Johanna Cervone called it a “feeble attempt at rewriting history.”
“Governor Scott’s latest budget is little more than an attempt to cover up seven years of cuts to education, health care and the environment, which have left half of Florida’s counties with fewer jobs and fewer opportunities,” Cervone said.
Scott spokeswoman Lauren Schenone argued that the governor’s budget is simply a reflection of the economic turnaround he helped spark.
“Let’s remember — in the four years before Governor Scott took office, Florida lost over 800,000 jobs and since then we’ve created nearly 1.5 million private-sector jobs,” Schenone said. “As our economy has grown, we have been able to make historic investments in education, transportation and the environment.”
When it comes to Scott’s changing stance on the prescription drug database, Schenone said “significant security enhancements have been made” to the system since the governor took office. And she said it’s “blatantly false” to say the nursing home ombudsman program was weakened by Scott when he fired the ombudsman. She said Scott signed a number of bills that took “meaningful steps to keep patients in residential facilities safe.”
Asked whether Scott’s priorities have shifted since he first took office, Schenone said the governor’s “top priority has always been to grow the economy so more jobs are created by the private sector for families across Florida.”
University of South Florida political scientist Susan MacManus said Scott had some “deep growing pains” as a governor. But she noted he has softened his approach over the years and improved his image, and she expects his final session to continue that trajectory.
“He knows after eight years that you have to get some of that independent vote; you cannot win with the straight line party vote,” MacManus said. “And some of the things he’s doing are very appealing to younger generations, some of his education ideas, the opioid thing.”
Gruters said there’s no question Scott has evolved as a leader during his time in office and modified his approach to certain issues. But he said the governor has been a relentless and consistent on important kitchen-table issues, such as the economy and keeping the cost of living low.
“I think he is a different person completely since he got elected but his drive and his passion for jobs and improving the economy has always been there,” Gruters said.
State Rep. Jim Boyd, R-Bradenton, joined the Legislature the same year Scott was elected. He argued the governor “has accomplished what he sought to accomplish” when it comes to growing the economy and other key issues.
“I admire the fact that when he came into office he came in for a purpose and he stayed focused on that,” Boyd said. “Yes, maybe it rubbed some people the wrong way but he stayed focused on jobs, on improving education.”
Early on, Scott’s aggressive conservative agenda sometimes put him at odds with more moderate members of his own party. But in recent years he has clashed with conservatives on a number of issues, including expanding Medicaid in Florida and taxpayer funding for economic incentives. The incentives issue roiled the session last year.
But the intra-party GOP warfare could be less pronounced this session. Last year Corcoran and Scott were deeply divided on the incentives issue, to the point that Scott traveled the state bashing Corcoran and anyone who voted against funding incentives, including Boyd.
Noting that Democrats are energized and that the GOP likely will face a tough election cycle in 2018, Gruters predicted more harmony this session.
“My guess is it’s going to be a lot more cordial overall and people are going to be working together and trying to have fewer conflicts,” Gruters said. “People can see the writing on the wall. We have some vulnerability as a party going into the 2018 cycle and the last thing we need is to have discord and confrontation spilling out into the public in Tallahassee.”
Information from the News Service of Florida was used in this report.