Is Florida about to get all Wisconsin on its public-employees

From the Orlando Sentinel

by Aaron Deslatte

Is Florida about to get all Wisconsin on its public-employee unions?

To christen the Tuesday start of the 60-day lawmaking session, tea party groups will be hosting rallies in Tallahassee, with transportation help from the David Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity. They'll duel with public employee and teacher unions that are fighting proposals to cut Florida's budget and make pension benefits less lucrative.

Both sides claim the other will be busing in "out-of-state" activists to liven up what is usually a ceremonial opening week of collegial speechifying and dull committee drudgery.

It may sound eerily similar to problems in the Badger State, where Gov. Scott Walker has tried to break public unions' collective-bargaining power.

Last week, Florida Gov. Rick Scott told CNBC he feels the same way, although he'd need a constitutional amendment to ban Florida public employees from banding together to adopt union representation.

"I believe that collective bargaining hurts the most effective, the hardest-working employees," Scott said. "That's the problem with collective bargaining. What you have to do is pay somebody who doesn't work as hard, or is not as effective, the same amount… That's why I think we ought to get rid of it."

Union-bashing may be the latest way Scott has tried to plug the enthusiasm gap surrounding his administration.

The governor, a first-time public official, has aggressively reached out to his fledgling political base. He has fought to get around the mainstream media filter, build a national profile and win over anti-tax activists by scuttling a $2.7 billion high-speed train.

In the process, he's offended some legislators and big-city mayors; energized Democrats; and isolated himself from traditional GOP allies, such as law enforcement groups. The strategy has worked so far because the "starve the beast" message still resonates with tax-weary voters, even in a state that has been under Republican control for the last 12 years.

"I'm generally displeased with government as a whole," explained Robin Stublen, a Punta Gorda organizer with the Florida Alliance, which is helping to rally tea party groups supporting Scott. "We have a government that has gotten too large … We are the only group of people that have been out there protesting for less."

But there's a problem: Polls show voters don't like the idea of cutting programs like Medicaid and Everglades spending. So Scott may need a strong tea party presence to pressure the Legislature to give in to his demands: $1.7 billion in tax cuts for corporations and property owners; reorganization of government agencies; and benefit cuts for police, firefighters, teachers and state workers.

To push back, unions will be holding "Awake the State" rallies in cities across Florida. Florida AFL-CIO lobbyist Rich Templin said the rallies were "designed to be smaller-sized events around the state with no single big events."

Orlando political activist Susannah Randolph – wife of Rep. Scott Randolph, D-Orlando – said the Democrat-aligned groups were feeding off the "outrage that middle-class Floridians have over the governor and Legislature's draconian budget that seeks to exempt millionaire's yachts and multi-million dollars corporations from taxes."

All the sides have downplayed the chance of a Madison, Wis., repeat in Tallahassee, with protestors staging "live-ins" in the Capitol. But with Scott parroting the Wisconsin talking points, tensions could be heightened.

An angry union outburst could be just what the tea partiers need.

Said Patricia Sullivan, another Tea Party organizer who will be loading her faithful onto buses in Lake County, "We really don't want to interfere with them while they're committing suicide."

adeslatte@tribune.com or 850-222-5564. Follow him on Twitter @adeslatte.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/politics/state/os-capview-column-deslatte030611-20110304,0,6675257.column