The empty Florida Capitol is ‘a monastery, but with fewer virgins’

TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Legislature requires close and constant supervision, and right now, it’s getting too little of it.

The current session is only a week old. But already, a leading Republican says the lack of access to the Capitol has gone too far and it’s time to open the place up.

“Absolutely,” said Sen. Jeff Brandes of St. Petersburg, who discovered that with nobody around, a basic element of democracy is lost. “The best part of the job is the human interaction — meeting with people, students coming to visit, the discussions you have with your colleagues and the thought leaders of the state. You can only get so much from Zoom. You miss out on the serendipity.”

As Brandes describes Florida’s deserted Capitol, “It’s a monastery, but with a lot fewer virgins.”

Brandes himself is among those who most bears watching, as he always has one of the most ambitious legislative agendas. He pursues big, bold ideas that often involve expanding personal freedoms. He wants to legalize recreational marijuana use for all adults 21 and over, legalize online sports betting, reform Florida’s cruel sentencing laws and much more.

He’s also leading the charge to broadly shield businesses, even for-profit nursing homes, from COVID-related liability unless the owner commits gross negligence. Lawyers and others say that will harm vulnerable people, including defenseless seniors, while depriving Floridians of their only tool to hold businesses accountable: the courts.

As the Senate remains off-limits to the public, it’s becoming clearer that the big losers once again will be the powerless, those without well-connected lobbyists to help them navigate a legislative maze that’s maddeningly difficult in the best circumstances.

Lobbyists are experts at working around obstacles of all kinds. Most of their offices are within a five-minute walk from the Capitol, so lawmakers can easily meet lobbyists on the lobbyists’ turf. How cozy. The private Governor’s Club is open, and so is the lounge next door, so legislators are free to socialize with lobbyists there too.

“There’s no regulating what happens in private offices, and those meetings are happening,” said Senate Democratic Leader Gary Farmer, D-Lighthouse Point.

But the lobbyists who advocate for the poorest, sickest and youngest among us have too few voices to speak for them in normal times. Now, they’re literally locked out of the process, and it’s not right.

Legislators need to strike a better balance between protecting public health and providing the maximum possible public access to government. If schools, restaurants, bars and hotels can be open, why can’t the state Capitol? If hospitalization and recovery rates are improving, it’s time to re-think restrictions that deny people reasonable access to their government.

For more than four decades, Karen Woodall has worked diligently on behalf of farm workers, immigrants and others. She’s a big believer in bringing those clients to the Capitol in their street clothes where they (used to) stand out in stark contrast to those in their $1,000 suits. As Woodall tells it, showing up was the whole point.

“Members (of the Legislature) have to look at the people whose lives they are impacting with the policies they pass,” Woodall said. “Just shutting off that access, intentionally or unintentionally, is unacceptable.”

Woodall and representatives of about 30 other groups have asked lawmakers for a few modest reforms: expand the use of remote technology, allow all written testimony to be included in meeting records and improve access for people with disabilities.

If restrictions aren’t eased, tensions are likely to escalate, because a steamroller of controversial legislation championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and his Republican allies is aimed directly at all Floridians. The physical alienation from the Capitol heightens the sense of powerlessness.

Inside that 22-story monastery that towers over Tallahassee, both House and Senate are fast-tracking bills to restrict the First Amendment right to protest, expand school vouchers and restrict voting by mail in the next statewide election.

If hardly anybody can watch them, why wouldn’t they?