Human Flower Project
Blooms Fill Florida’s Loophole
The State of Florida has outlawed gifts from lobbyists to legislators, with one glorious exception.
Florida State Rep. Greg Evers got a bit drowsy amid all
the bouquets on the Legislature’s Opening Day March 6
Photo: Phil Coale, for AP
No more front row seats at the Gator basketball games, no more 5-course dinners, not even a cold mug of A&W root beer. Lobbyists in Florida can’t cozy up to the state lawmakers with gifts anymore. In December 2005, both houses of the Florida Legislature passed by huge margins a ban on goodies from interest groups.
Blessedly, they made one exception: flowers on the Legislature’s Opening Day. What a spate of March Madness for Tallahassee’s florists on Tuesday, and what a sight at the Capitol. When all the state’s influence peddlers must “say gimme with flowers,” the floral competition gets bold, bright, and wide. Capitol reporter Aaron Deslatte said the well-wishing also got to his sinuses. “And if your allergies seem to be peaking on opening day, you can blame the lobbyists....They load up the desks of House and Senate members with so many flowery bouquets the floor looks like a Jackson Pollack explosion.”
Joe Follick of the Herald-Tribune reports: “The House and Senate chambers looked more like a greenhouse than a legislative hall during the session opening. Three-foot high arrangements adorned most desks; other lawmakers received only a few small vases.” What a wonderful way to put political pecking order on full view!
Florida State Rep. Phillip Brutus fielded phone calls and flowers on Opening Day 2001.
Photo: Marjorie Valbrun
The gift ban seems a brilliant blow to political corruption—with a lovely and appropriate exception. That is until you read the fine print: legislators may not be able to take air balloon rides or accept bottles of chi-chi wine, but, what else? According to this commentator, “The gift ban essentially says that a lobbyist can’t buy an elected official or legislative staff member a cup of coffee; however a lobbyist can still contribute thousands of dollars to a legislator’s personal 527 organization.” Flowers may have made it through a legal loophole, but there’s a sinkhole handy.
Sorry. Don’t mean to spoil the fun, for opening day of any U.S. state legislature is an ego Sensurround like no other. Strutting their stuff, female members of the Florida House, we learn, all wear red on Opening Day. (If you can’t beat ‘em or join ‘em, out dress ‘em.) With the ladies in red and competition among arm-twisting bouquets, the scene in Tallahassee must be a knockout.
Oh yes, there are a few issues for the Florida legislators to work on between now and May 4, including conserving the state’s wetlands, juggling property taxes and stem cell research, and (Remember Election 2000 and the Stepford Secretary of State?) creating paper trails in elections.