Over the last two weeks – since the tragic events in Tucson – there has been a great deal of commentary at the national level on the scope and nature of our public discourse.

Some of it has been insightful and worth considering, and some of it falls in the category of exploitation of a tragedy to further a political agenda. But the conversation set me to thinking about the status of the dialogue that exists here in Florida between those who make the news and those who report that news.

I fully acknowledge and embrace the role of the press in a free society. Institutions only succeed when accountability exists, and accountability exists only when there is scrutiny. I could stand here and tell you that I learned that lesson as a journalism major at the University of Florida or during my time in radio, but the truth is that I really only learned that lesson as a member of the Florida House. 

Sometimes, as in the case of Ray Sansom, the press exposes things we did not realize were true and would have preferred our institution not to have had to face.

Sometimes, as in the case of the 1st DCA courthouse, you say out loud what everyone intuitively understood. In fact, over the past few months, I have been fascinated to watch politicians falling over themselves with shock and outrage over a courthouse that anyone with a pair of eyes could see over the last two years was the construction of an edifice of arrogance.

Given the dynamics of accountability and scrutiny, a healthy tension should always exist between a legislature and the editors and reporters of Florida’s news outlets. But I will admit that over the last few years, I have watched that tension become strained and then that strain grow into outright hostility.

It manifests itself in sometimes amusing ways.

For example, every single recommendation for legislative or public records reform is enthusiastically endorsed by every editorial board in the state without regard to its practicality, its efficacy, or its motive.


Conversely, I deliver six lines in my organization session speech about the Supreme Court’s handling of legislatively proposed constitutional amendments, and I send those same editorial boards into a frenzy.

When you manage to get an enterprise that is founded on the basic idea that criticism of government is healthy and necessary to say “how dare you criticize a branch of government,” then you know something has gone very wrong.

However, I am not here today to diagnose what went wrong or to lay blame. Maybe we stopped talking because you stopped listening, or maybe you stopped listening because we stopped talking.

But either way, we have reached a point where we talk past each other, and that is a problem for the Legislature, for the press, and most importantly for the people who rely on lawmakers to properly represent them and trust the press to accurately and fairly tell the story.

I am committed to working through this problem and to maintaining an open relationship between the Florida House and members of the press corps. One of the ways I hope to address this problem is by confronting the frequent critique of government and lack of transparency. Over the last several years, and through the improved use of technology, I have seen the Florida House go to great lengths to improve transparency; yet for many, the legislative process remains complex and difficult to understand.

What I have found is that while lack of transparency bears the brunt of criticism, the real culprit is lack of clarity and failure to utilize plain language.

Additionally, over the past several years, many communications from the House have been sent purely by the two partisan offices. While these offices play an important role in the legislative process, many of the issues addressed by the Florida House are not partisan in nature. So to address this problem, we have expanded the House’s Office of Public Information and Appointments.