If you haven’t noticed, the two chambers of Florida’s legislature haven’t been getting along so well lately. It seemed to start during the spring legislative session, when they couldn’t agree on whether to accept federal Medicaid dollars. The Senate bent over backwards coming up with a compromised plan, loaded with terms that ought to appeal to Republicans, but the House rejected it because, well, NObama! State House Speaker Steve Crisafulli adjourned session three days early despite not accomplishing the one job it had — passing a budget both chambers could agree on. So they had to go back in the summer for a special session, and got a gold star for actually doing their job. But when they had to come back to redraw Florida’s congressional districts, they came to a similar impasse (though kudos to them for not leaving early) and here we are in limbo again, dear reader.
This article appears in Sep 24-30, 2015.