Greyhound Racing Survives Florida Legislative Session
By Jim DeFede
© CBS4 - Miami
Sunday, May 9, 2011
MIAMI (CBS4) – Among the scores of bills that died Friday at the end of Florida’s legislative session was House Bill 1145 – a measure that would have hastened the demise of greyhound racing in Florida.
On its own, dog racing is a dying industry. Once a fabled part of Florida culture, greyhound racing no longer caries much cache. Grandstands are empty and the tracks lose millions of dollars every year.
The only way places like Flagler Dog Track and Mardi Gras make money is through their slot machines and poker rooms. But under current law, tracks have to keep racing dogs in order to keep their casinos open.
This legislative session, Mardi Gras’ Dan Adkins and other track operators were pushing bills that would allow them to stop racing dogs and yet still keep their casinos.
Adkins claims he is losing close to $3 million a year on dog racing. He would like to replace his oval track with a new state of the art casino.
“I make no bones about that, my goal is to become a destination resort here with a hotel and a full casino,” Adkins told CBS4’s Jim DeFede.
For dog trainer and kennel owners Joe Trudden the legislative bills pushed by Adkins and others are an act of betrayal.
“The big tracks that have gotten rich and wealthy from the dogs are trying to kick the over 300 small businesses to the curb and put us on unemployment,” Trudden said.
The greyhound association in Florida claims that greyhound racing employs 3,000 people and pumps more than $50 million into the economy. Both the tracks and animal rights activists dispute those numbers.
Joining the track owners in pushing the bill were animal rights groups who view greyhound racing as cruel and inhumane.
“This is a bill that is going to help thousands of greyhounds,” said Carey Theil said, president of Grey2K, a national organization that fights greyhound racing across country. CBS4 News caught up to him in Tallahassee during the final days of the session.
“Dogs live lives of terrible confinement many dogs suffer serious injuries; that is why every major animal protection organization in Florida and across the county opposes this industry and it’s why we are fighting hard to help these dogs,” he said.
Theil admits it is strange that two groups which were once enemies – the track owners and the animal rights activists – were working together to try and pass the bill,
At the time CBS4 spoke to Theil, he was feeling mildly optimistic. Versions of the bill had passed both the House and the Senate. The Senate bill offered tax credits to track owners to allow them to gradually bring a halt to dog racing. The house bill did not.
“There are a lot of forces working to kill this bill and a lot of forces working to pass it,” Adkins said on Wednesday. He also noted it was amazing that a group as dysfunctional as dog track owners appeared to be acting well together.
But in the final hours of the session, whatever comity the group had, fell apart,
At one point Friday, it looked like a deal was in place to pass the measure without any tax credits for the track owners. But then, according to various sources, some tracks, including the Palm Beach Kennel Club, refused to go along at the last minute.
The kennel club wanted those tax credits. Ultimately key legislators from Palm Beach County pulled their support and the bill died.
Session meltdown overshadows productive session
By Brent Henzi
© The Current
Saturday, May 7, 2011
The 2011 session ended in an acrimonious meltdown that overshadowed much of the work that the Republican-controlled Legislature had done in the previous 60 days.
The question is whether or not the bumpy ending will have long-standing ramifications going ahead over the next several months.
Sen. J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales and Senate budget chief predicted that once everyone got some sleep that they would forget about the chaotic ending of the session on Saturday morning.
But there's no doubt it was messy and it prompted terse exchanges from Republican leaders in both chambers.
It started when the Senate decided to overwhelmingly kill a professional deregulation bill led to a House decision to retaliate and kill a Senate bill dealing with Citizens Property Insurance Corp.
But then the House refused to pass a lengthy tax cut bill that included the sales tax holiday as well as a handful of other tax credits. HB 7203 also contained a provision that House Republicans said could open the door to expanded gambling at dog tracks and horse tracks.
Both sides were forced to approve an extension of the session beyond the scheduled midnight ending time. An angry Senate President Mike Haridopolos then at around 1 a.m. sent senators home for the night and said he would wait for House Republicans to pass the bill.
"Republicans ran on tax relief," Haridopolos said. "And to hold tax relief hostage just doesn't make sense to me. I thought that would be the first bill the House would want to send me."
The House finally passed the nearly $70 billion budget shortly after 2 a.m. and then passed a separate tax cut bill - HB 143- that did not include the controversial pari-mutuel provision. House Speaker Dean Cannon then sent House members home for the summer. Cannon defended what happened by saying that the House had a deal and when the Senate started killing House bills then the House the right to ask to pass a different tax cut bill.
Cannon had contended that his chamber had taken the "high road."
The Senate came back in shortly after 3 a.m. and approved the bill before ending the session. Several senators openly questioned whether legally the bill could be taken up. Haridopolos said he was "embarrassed" by what had happened and he said the "silly games" that had been played the last few weeks by the House was unacceptable. But then the Senate passed the tax cut measure and ended the session.
The back-and-forth between Republicans overshadowed what had been a hectic, but productive day where lawmakers signed off on a significant overhaul of the Medicaid program, cracked down on pill mills, agreed to an overhaul of the state's unemployment compensation system and then finally approved a nearly $70 billion budget for the coming year.
The final budget called for heavy cuts to education, health care and transportation, while providing a small amount of money for tax cuts to businesses. Rep. Denise Grimsley, R-Sebring and House budget chair, added on Friday that the bill eliminates 4,500 state jobs and nearly 1,300 currently filled positions.
Republicans contended that the budget was a difficult balancing act that required them to fill a nearly $4 billion fiscal shortfall without raising taxes or fees.
“This has got to be one of the most difficult budgets in the state of Florida,” said Alexander. “I think every one of us will go home knowing we made a workable budget under very adverse conditions.”
While Democrats blasted the large cuts as an attack on the middle-class and poor, Republicans stated there was no other way around them due to the state’s current economic condition.
“Yes, it is not where many of us would like to see it, but it reflects the state’s current condition,” Rep. Marti Coley, R-Marianna, said regarding education cuts.
However, Democrats argued why there would be a need for tax cuts at a time of such significant revenue deficits. Rep. Darren Soto, R-Orlando, added that it is likely to be found later that many currently unknown “budget turkeys” will be discovered.
“I have no doubt we will inevitably be reading about the next ‘Taj Mahal,’ or the [next] Destin airport hangar in this budget in the coming months,” said Soto.
Republicans have reiterated their mission statement of “jobs, jobs, jobs” throughout the session and on Friday the message was again stated over and over. Rep. Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, explained the tax cuts are to give businesses a chance to rebound from the economic downturn and should generate the revenue that would allow for increases in funding for the areas that were cut this year.
“If you reduce the state budget, what you are doing is you are taking the foot government has on the neck of small business and removing it,” said Weatherford. “You are giving them room to breathe.”
There were also numerous conforming bills passed on Friday.
One of those required public employees to contribute 3 percent to their retirement plans. The move was a substantially scaled back version of Gov. Rick Scott’s initial request of five percent, but legislators noted it would still save the state $1.1 billion and put Florida in-line with the private business model.
“I believe that we faced a $4.7 billion shortfall in our budget and that we could leave no stone unturned,” said Rep. Ritch Workman, R-Melbourne and House sponsor. “We can’t look each other in the face and say ‘go ahead and cut education or health care funding,’ while fully funding pensions that we simply can’t afford.”
Democrats, however, called it a tax on state workers at a time when they have not received a raise in more than five years. Rep. Alan Williams, D-Tallahassee, even blasted Scott for bringing the idea forward in the first place.
“I think the idea [Scott] has brought forward is simply wrong,” said Williams. “It is shortsighted and misguided.”
The Legislature also passed a measure that would create the Department of Economic Opportunity, which will collapse elements of the Agency for Workforce Innovation, the Department of Community Affairs, and the Office of Tourism, Trade and Economic Development.
House sponsor Rep. John Legg, R-Port Richey, called it a way to “get government out of the way of government to create jobs,” while even some Democrats applauded the move.
“I’ve had my differences with the governor, but I think he needs these tools to make good on his promises to create jobs,” said Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda, D-Tallahassee.
But other Democrats pointed out the significant power it will give the governor, which Rep. Dwayne Taylor, D-Daytona Beach, called “dangerous.”