MAF Political E News for October 2009

MAF Political E News for October 2009

The tone for the 2010 Session of the Florida Legislature is being set as you read this article. Organizational meetings for the House and Senate are taking place during the month of October. Bills for the Spring Session can now be filed. Committee Weeks have already been announced for January and February.

The average session will see over 2000 bills filed. We can see up to twenty percent of those pass and head to the governor. But, we know last year wasn’t very typical.

Just a few short weeks before the 2009 Session began, Speaker of the House Ray Sansom resigned amid serious allegations of improper conduct, and House Member, Larry Cretul was selected as the new Speaker. Then the Chief of Staff for the House resigned, which also contributed to delays in getting things accomplished in the House of Representatives. Considering all the time spent on trying to balance the budget with the help of the Federal Stimulus Package, it is amazing that 236 bills actually did pass during the 2009 Session and were sent to Governor Crist for his signature.Speaker Cretul has already notified various interested parties that he is looking to only pass about 200 bills in 2010. One would naturally expect the budget issue to be foremost topic that will dominate the time available during the sixty day session. The other emotional issue that readily comes to mind that you will hear a lot about is off shore drilling for oil.

Wade Mullins
wmullins@qualityprecast.com