Despite calls by environmentalists, mayors and county commissions in the spring of 2009 to veto the legislation, Florida Governor Charlie Crist signed SB 360, a controversial bill that re-wrote Florida's then 25-year-old growth management law, mainly by allowing developers in the most urban counties to add more housing developments without expanding roads, and allowed counties and cities to designate new urban areas that also would be exempt from certain road-building requirements.

Crist signed the law in private, without any fanfare, and over the objections of his own Department of Community Affairs Director, Tom Pelham. His signing the bill surprised some, considering the governor had worked hard in his first two years in office cultivating the reputation as being an environment.

But of course, Crist even back then was paying attention to Marco Rubio, who  was starting to make some noise even that far back in the GOP race for Senate.  It would compel Crist to go further right on a number of issues than he ever had previously, though in the end Crist realized he was in a losing battle over who was more authentically conservative in the Republican Senate race, and less the party less than year later.

Whatever. Crist will be gone soon, and critics thought SB 360 was as well, after a judge ruled in August that the law was unconstitutional.  Second Circuit Court Judge Charles Francis ruled that the bill  was an unfunded mandate passed in violation of a 1991 statute aimed at protecting local governments from having to fund legislative actions.  That statute required that the Legislature should pay for significant new mandates to local governments unless the legislation was approved by a 2/3rds majority of both the House and Senate.

But the man behind the legislation, Bradenton state Republican Senator Mike Bennett, isn't taking any judge's decree as the final word.  As chairman of the Senate Community Affairs Committee, Bennett is bringing the bill back, but in different pieces so it can withstand constitutional muster – and with Republicans dominating both houses of the Legislature, getting that 2/3rds vote ish (In 2009 the House passed the bill 76-41, just 4 votes shy of the 2/3rds necessary.  There are now more than 80 Republicans in the new House).

This article appears in Dec 9-15, 2010.