from staff
State Sen. John Thrasher, a Republican from St. Augustine elected in October 2009 to fill the seat vacated by the death of State Sen. Jim King and subsequently re-elected, is preparing for an active legislative session. He’ll be working with new Gov. Rick Scott and a new chair of the Republican Party of Florida, a position Thrasher most recently held. Thrasher completed the final year for Jim Greer’s term after Greer was ousted and later charged for steering party funds to a company he controlled. Thrasher, who represents District 8, chairs the Duval Legislative Delegation. He served in the state House 1992-2000, and as speaker 1998-2000. He met with the Daily Record editorial staff Wednesday.
How are you going to plug the projected $3.6 billion state budget deficit?
It’s going to be awfully tough. It certainly isn’t going to be by raising taxes because we still have a million people in the state of Florida unemployed. Obviously that’s the No. 1 focus of our new governor. We’re looking at ways now to address a big hunk of it, and that’s the Medicaid program. If we can come up with some efficiencies in delivering those kinds of services, hopefully we can plug part of it. But we’re going to have to look probably at some places to continue to carve out a little bit, if we’re going to meet the needs of education and continue to meet the needs of the Medicaid program.
Are those the two issues that you’re going to be tackling?
No doubt about it. Education, we pretty much held it harmless last year, even in a down budget cycle which was bigger than what we’re facing this year, I might add. You know, we don’t have the (federal) stimulus dollars that were accepted a couple of years ago. They’re gone now, and so we have to figure out how to make sure we fund education appropriately. The Medicaid program is the big issue facing our state, and facing a lot of states for that matter, and it’ll impact us down the road even harder if we don’t start finding some efficiencies in the program in how you deliver the services, whether it’s managed care or whether it’s providing protection in the litigation environment for some of the people who provide Medicaid services. All of those things are going to be looked at very very hard this time.
(Editor’s note: The State Agency for Health Care Administration is responsible for Medicaid, which provides access to health care for low-income families and individuals. It contracts with other state agencies and private organizations to provide services. Medicaid serves about 2.97 million people in Florida. Estimated expenses for the current fiscal year are $20.2 billion. Federal regulations say that certain services must be offered by all states, but each can place some limits on the services.)
Isn’t the health care industry quite concerned about what’s going to happen?
They are. You know, I talked to my good friend (Baptist Health CEO) Hugh Greene, and the hospitals and the doctors want to be part of the solution. They realize that we’re faced with a huge, huge problem. They’ve been working with us, and will continue to do so. We’ve got some really good people. The governor has some good people that I think are working on his staff. I think we can come up with some solutions. In order to dramatically change the way Medicaid is delivered, you have to go to the federal government and get a waiver, and we will be doing that, but we have to do it very rapidly if we’re going to make these savings. You look at 40 percent of the budget going to Medicaid, and education, K (kindergarten) through the university system is about 32 percent of the budget. It used to be just the opposite of that. If we’re going to continue to have a world-class education system, we’re going to have to have the resources to do it, no question about it.
How do you raise the revenues that are going to be needed?
You don’t do it by raising taxes. There are people out there that say, well, we could do gambling. We had a big meeting the other day on gambling. I’m not a big proponent of that. I think trying to balance budgets on the basis of how many people come to a casino and bet money is not the way to do it. I think we’re coming out of this recession, but slowly. I think everybody understands that. Every business understands that. But we’ve got to also do no harm. We can’t do knee-jerk reaction types of things that really make the economy worse, and the quality of life for our citizens worse. So I think our job is to be austere, to look where we can make cuts and hopefully bring those programs back when the economy comes back.
Are you optimistic about the next version of Senate Bill 6, the teacher merit pay bill vetoed by Gov. Charlie Crist?
Yes. When we met with the school board (Jan. 6), it was a very productive meeting. (Superintendent) Ed (Pratt-Dannals) did a great job providing us with some of the things that we can do. As far as Senate Bill 6 itself, there are people in the Senate, House, other interested parties working on it. It won’t be the same as it was last year, but there will be some similarities. We’ve learned a lot. It’s all about evaluation, some kind of end product where you actually reward teachers for the good work they’re doing. We had a lot of conversation about the at-risk schools, the ones that are really tough, and encouraging good teachers to come into those schools. Those are all good things that came out of Senate Bill 6.
People weren’t happy with it, but I’ll say this: It started a conversation that is now really going on around the country. Everybody understands that reform is coming and that we’ve got to move ahead if we’re going to have a world-class education system.
I am very optimistic. I think that with a governor who’s interested in it, and he’s thrown out some other ideas, too, about reform that might be even more controversial than Senate Bill 6. So we’ll see what happens.
The governor is proposing to eliminate some departments or combine some departments, and he’s cutting jobs as he also calls for creating them. Your comments?
Obviously we’re going to look over seriously everything he says. Very, very seriously. Combining organizations, if you (combine) the Department of Transportation, the Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Community Affairs, what I’m really more interested in is the functions they provide and how they treat the citizens of the state, the recipients of their services.
Taking a deep breath and seeing if we’ve got too many (departments) is a good idea. I’m not sure combining agencies, though, is necessarily any more than rearranging the deck chairs. Because when that governor’s gone, those agencies tend to grow, grow, grow. I’d be more interested in focusing on the function that they provide and making sure they’re doing them in an efficient way. That’s what I think our committees will be doing.
Are there any in particular?
Community Affairs is probably the one that everybody looks to. It regulates so much of the opportunity for new growth in the state of Florida. There’s a strong linkage between local governments and the state, and many people think the pendulum has swung more back to the state, and the state really controls more than they should and that it should really be more regionalized in terms of addressing those growth issues. I kind of agree with that. So that’ll probably be one of the areas we look at the hardest.
This year you’re chair of the Duval Delegation. What will you expect as head of that 11-member group?
We’ve got great delegation members. They make it real easy. The biggest hat that I’ve taken off was the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida. I did that last Saturday, and I’m pleased with the year we had, but I’m glad it’s over. I’ll basically spend my full time on the Senate, and I think there are going to be a lot of issues between now and the end of the Senate session that we’ll have a lot of time to work on.
We’ve got a great delegation. I’ve got some really senior members in Senator (Steve) Wise and others. We’ve got a great House delegation, so we’ll work well together. Most of the issues that deal with Jacksonville and Duval County
in North Florida, they’re not partisan issues. They’re not Republican/Democrat issues. They are where we can do something that relates to the good of this community, whether it’s education or the river, all of those are positive things. We had our first River Caucus the other day.
How did the caucus go?
The caucus went well. We had almost 20 members. We identified about 50 members who represent folks along the St. Johns River’s 310 miles. We had the Riverkeeper there, we had Kirby Green from the Water Management District there, we had the River Alliance there, we had a lot of folks interested, and had it in the Senate chamber. It was very positive. Everybody felt good about what we’re going to do. Now we’ve got to look at some projects that go to water quality. I think that we can hopefully get done this session, or at least begin to start, funding some of those projects that will make a difference in nutrient levels that are in the river that everybody seems to think caused the algae problems that we had this past year.
Florida TaxWatch released a report that ranked Florida 48 out of 50 states in per capita federal grant receipts. Is that a revenue stream that Florida needs?
We need to make sure that gets in the hands of our new governor and he starts pushing that, no question about it. I suspect a lot of it’s in the transportation area, also.
We need to be working with (U.S. Rep.) John Mica, who’s the new transportation chairman in the House. Any of those things certainly would make a difference to us.
The one thing we’ve got to be careful about, though, and this happened with the (nonrecurring) stimulus money, eventually it goes away. If you start using those kind of dollars for recurring projects and recurring funding, there comes a time when you have to pay the piper. And we’re doing that.
What’s Florida’s relationship with the Obama administration? How do you see that working?
That’s a function of the governor and he hopefully will be a person that travels to Washington and works with the administration. We have a lot of good members now in Congress that are in leadership positions, particularly in the House. (U.S.) Senator (Bill) Nelson is no doubt a very senior person. Obviously, (newly elected U.S. Sen.) Marco Rubio takes a strong reputation to Washington. Even though he’s new, he certainly has the ability to get things done for our state. Rick Scott will hopefully create, as all governors have, a Washington office that really gets after some of the kinds of things you talked about and works well with our delegation in Congress.
From the Jacksonville standpoint, we’ve got (U.S. Rep.) Ander Crenshaw, who does a great job for us. Mica certainly will be helpful in transportation. (U.S. Rep.) Cliff Stearns, also. Obviously (U.S. Rep.) Corrine (Brown) does a good job.
It’s all about making sure the agenda gets heard, and the folks up there understand it. I don’t think because the president’s a Democrat and our new governor, obviously, a Republican, it should make a difference in these things.
We’re a big state and we need to be very active, particularly in the area of transportation. We’re a donor state when it comes to transportation. We send a lot more dollars to Washington in tax dollars, in gas taxes, than we get back. And we need to equalize that.
What role will you play with the port of Jacksonville?
First of all, (former Federal Maritime Commissioner) Paul Anderson, the new director, is a longtime, very good personal friend of mine. He is a talented guy. He knows how to get along in Tallahassee, in Washington, around the country. His leadership will mean a great deal to our area.
(State Rep.) Lake Ray, I give him all the credit in the world. He’s made the port probably his No. 1 priority in his legislative agenda, and done a great job in the House.
We all need to be working with the governor to ensure that the dollars that we can take back truly are a return on investment. You can see those dollars coming in and jobs being created.
We’ve got to sell our port. We’ve got to make sure that everybody in Tallahassee understands the value of this particular port, and I think it becomes one of the top echelon priorities for our community and for our members of the Legislature.
You mentioned education, the port and the river. What other issues will the delegation work on?
As far as creating jobs and as far as doing something that again gives the business community a little more predictability, that’s tort reform. I think clearly litigation reform, whether it’s in the health care arena, or generally, it’s something that people still feel we need to look at.
There are a number of areas which we are going to be really looking at this session in that area. A number of friends on the trial lawyers’ side are not anxious to see that happen, but again, I think there’s a lot of interest in that area, and a lot of people feel it does bring the business community to some understanding that government is working for them and trying to create fairness and predictability.
Another big issue this year, starting and carrying over to next year, is reapportionment every 10 years. That will be a dynamic issue. I’m on the committee and our plan is to start doing some things this year and getting prepared. We’re going to have a series of hearings throughout the summer throughout the state. We actually come back in 2012, when the legislative session will start in January as opposed to March, so that we can adopt a plan, have it reviewed by the courts, and the Justice Department, and hopefully have it in place by the time that people start qualifying for the 2012 election.
There are no limits in the Senate in how many bills you can present, while there is in the House. Should there be more or less?
I’m the Rules (Committee) chairman of the Senate this year, and it’s actually a pretty good job, and I can get involved in a lot of issues just from the standpoint of working on the agenda for the Senate, particularly as we get into the last days of the session.
Rules works very closely with the (Senate) president in getting the agenda done for the Senate. I’ll introduce some bills and get involved in as many as I can get involved in, but I’m (also) on the Judiciary Committee, so I’ll be right in the middle of all those issues.
I’m (on the) Community Affairs (Committee), so I’ll be involved in those reorganization issues as they come up. You don’t necessarily have to introduce bills to make things happen.
The House has to have a number. Simply because there are 120 members, and if you let everybody introduce as many bills as they want, you bog the system down.
Hopefully, we’ll introduce bills that really make a difference.
How do you see working with local government? Jacksonville will have a new mayor, several new City Council members and others. Are you involved?
I know all the folks who are running for mayor. I think all the members of our delegation do, too. If you’re political junkies like we all are, you certainly want to know those folks.
Any of the people that are out there running, I think we could work with. We work very closely with the current mayor (John Peyton). Personally, I think he’s done an outstanding job, given the tough times that we’ve been in. The relationship the Legislature has with the mayor’s office is the most critical. And the sheriff, I might add, is also very critical.
We try to work with all of our constitutional officers. Matt Shirk has done a great job as public defender, and Angela (Corey, as state attorney).
We’ll work with all of them, and each has issues. If it’s the judges from the courts or the State Attorney’s Office, making sure that they are adequately funded, all of those folks will come to us during the course of the year, and our job is to make sure they get taken care of as best we can.
Will you have any input or advice regarding the City’s negotiation on the pension issues, especially with the police union?
We are going to be looking at the pension issue on a global basis in Tallahassee. Revenue, that’s another issue that we’ve got to take a serious look at. We’re not going to go back and take away anybody’s current benefits, but we do have to realistically look down the road. Have we created systems that are too generous and cannot be sustained by taxpayers? We’ve got a committee that’s doing that. It’ll be a big discussion.
Isn’t that a politically charged issue?
Big time. Big time. You have to look at what’s best for the taxpayers. The union folks are going to do their job, and the mayor has to do his job, and at the end of the day, hopefully they can work it out. It’d be nice if they could.
Six months from now, a year from now, what are the issues and resolutions going to be?
You never quit talking about education. You never quit talking about making sure that our kids get a world-class education. Reform is always out there, and success is never final in these things. That’s a quote from my good friend (former Gov.) Jeb Bush. He’d be mad if I didn’t put in a tribute to him.
But it’s true. You’re always looking for better ways to do things, and I think in education, particularly, we’ve sat by and looked at the way we did it 10 or 20 or even 30 years ago, or even longer, when I was in school, and think those are still the ways to do it.
But we’re learning more and more now that kids progress at different speeds. They have different levels that they can reach. I think virtual education is going to become a big part of education. I think more choice is clearly coming, whether it’s charter schools or whatever. More choice is going to come. That ultimately makes the public schools better, but we’ve got to find a way of addressing the real problem of schools in this community that are holding kids back from achieving their dreams. We know where they are and we know what to do about them, and we’ve got to make some really tough decisions in those areas. I don’t think education will ever go away.
The quality of the St. Johns River, a big issue for all of us, is going to take a number of years to address.
In the economy, we’ve got a governor now who I think is going to get up every day and worry about how he can push his agenda for making sure that this a great place to do business. And if it’s a great place to do business, then it has the ramifications of helping all these other programs that we need in the state. We’re never going to quit talking about that until we get our country back where it should be.
As we wrap up, here are three more questions. No. 1., how is your relationship with the governor? No. 2, speaking of Jeb Bush, what are his political aspirations? He’s been mentioned not only for the presidency, but also for perhaps Bill Nelson’s U.S. Senate seat. No. 3, what are your political aspirations?
Let’s start with Rick Scott. I have a great relationship with him. I think it ended up really good. You know, we had a couple of rocky moments there during the primary. I think I’m going to do just as I did when I was speaker, when Jeb came in, his first two years. I think it’s our job to try to make him successful. And if he’s successful, he’ll lift all boats. So I’m looking forward to working with him. I really am, and I feel real comfortable with him right now.
As far as Jeb is concerned, I think if he has presidential aspirations, it would be in 2016, after we see what happens in the next cycle.
He’s not going to run this time, I can assure you of that. I don’t think he wants to be a United States senator. He told me one time that it really didn’t appeal to him to go up to Washington and just stand around and talk. He’s a CEO type of person. I think if he runs for office, it’ll be the presidency. But it’ll be down the road.
Me, personally, I’m happy being a senator. If I end up staying, which I plan on doing, I’d like to be (Senate) president because that’s where you get the most done for your community and for the state. I’ve done it once as a (House) speaker, and I think I know how to do it. We’ll see what happens.
What’s your gut feeling on how the economy will look in 2011?
Trends are getting better. We see this from our economic research people, but it’s not something that’s going to happen overnight. We’re not as bad off this year as we were last year, so hopefully things are getting better and better. Part of it is, honestly, is the attitude. People get up every day in government, and if they’re trying to do good things and positive things about the economy, it has a kind of ripple effect, and we’ve got a governor now that really believes that. I honestly believe he cares about making this economy work, and getting people back to work. That ought to be his focus. He ought to be the chief economic development office of the state of Florida, clearly.
(There are) a lot of things he could worry about, but there are two or three big things and governors and people in the Legislature need to think about big things. The bigger thing is making sure this economy is good and strong and if we do that, that’ll help a lot of the issues that we have, whether it’s criminal justice, education, whatever.
We can do that despite the condition of the national economy?
We can start it in Florida. Absolutely. We’re one of the biggest economies in the country now.