Gov. Charlie Crist

One-hundred and 60 of Gov. Charlie Crist’s not-so-closest friends gathered this week to give him a parting gift on his way out of Florida’s Governor’s Mansion.

Buoyed by the election of supermajorities in the House and Senate and of Gov.-elect Rick Scott on a pledge to make state government even more conservative than it has been in years of Republican rule, the Florida Legislature stuck around its traditional organizational session just long enough to stick it to Crist one last time before he leaves office.

Crist was never best friends with doctrinaire conservatives in the Legislature. Then he lost many of the friends he had by bolting the GOP in his race for U.S. Senate. Lawmakers vowed to never forget it, and this week they showed they haven’t, vetoing seven bills and a budget item Crist had taken his pen to in the spring.

It happened quickly, with little debate and little opposition as lawmakers put "return to sender" on Crist’s vetoes. It was just the third time in 24 years a governor has seen vetoes overridden.

Among the overrides was a $9.7 million budget item vetoed by Crist for Shands Teaching Hospital in Gainesville that makes the state eligible for another $12 million in federal Medicaid matching money. Supporters of turning back Crist’s veto said the spending would help provide health coverage for an additional 18,000 uninsured Floridians, even if it bruised the outgoing governor’s feelings. Not that there was much concern about that at the Capitol this week.
Lawmakers also revived legislation that would give them the authority to block state agency rules that could cost businesses $1 million over five years and another that spends $31.3 million in federal stimulus money to cover rebates owed thousands of Floridians who installed qualified air-conditioning systems or made solar improvements.