SAUSAGE MAKING
Just Don't Watch!
The one constitutional mandate given to the Florida Legislature by our state constitution: pass a budget. Our dysfunctional bicameral body couldn’t even get that done as required this year; they reached a compromise budget of $114.5 billion just this week, after a special (read: extra costly) legislative session.
Of course we will have to wait and see what our esteemed governor does with his line-item veto power. During a keynote address to a Federalist Society Meeting on May 22, DeSantis acknowledged he vetoes money for projects championed by legislators who oppose his agenda and priorities. (Thanks to The Florida Phoenix for this news tidbit.)
The budget contains increases for the court system, and specifically addresses salaries for Assistant State Attorneys and Assistant Public Defender; somehow, despite the fact that both of those offices here in the Fourth Judicial Circuit are understaffed with overworked lawyers and support staff, the legislature deemed it reasonable to award prosecuting attorneys a $10,000 pay raise and public defenders only $3,500.
I invite our legislators to come sit in any courtroom here in Clay, Nassau or Duval County, and see how hard the attorneys on each side work. Attorneys on both sides went to the same law schools, have the same student loans, have the same living expenses and certainly face this same stress every day. No rational reason exists for the disparity. Get it right, Florida Legislature, and give some credence to the Sixth Amendment! Equal pay for equal work.
As the American lawyer/poet John Godfrey Saxe wrote, “Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made!” Definitely don’t watch them in the making. See, Fred Shapiro, The Yale Book of Quotations.
Example of what a small man Dee is:
From the Tallahassee Democrat: Florida lawmakers have attempted to establish a pilot program that would provide one free, 15-minute monthly phone call to well-behaved prison inmates. However, Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed the funding for the initiative three years in a row. The money for these programs was earmarked to come from the Inmate Welfare Trust Fund—which is funded through commissary purchases and telephone commissions—rather than general taxpayer revenue. Studies of similar programs show that they encourage better behavior among inmates, which in turn makes DOC employees' job conditions better.
The Legislature didn't even bother to take up the measure this time around. Maybe Lord Byron will sign off next session.
BTW: No bets up on Polymarket yet as to whether Murdaugh will walk any time soon.