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The History of Florida's Cabinet · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

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  Just in case Steve Stewart's still listening. The reason you didn't have sound on
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  your headphones is you had it unplugged. We just blew up doctor Ed Moore's
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  e or canals by plugging it back in. Welcome friends to the third hour
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  of the Morning Show with Brustin Scott laughing. Over there at Studio one A
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  is Grant Allen. I'm here in Studio one B, and I am joined
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  by doctor Ed Moore. Time for a little more history. Hello, my
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  friend, are you I've already explained to everybody that the we're going to go
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  back to explorers and pioneers next month, that I can see how this happened
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  for you after last month you just started, you know, you know,
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  we really ought to. So here we are. We're going to talk about
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  Flora's cabinet. Well, yeah, what prompted actually was there a little change
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  is that two people that I knew that served Florida both passed away within the
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  last month, and I started thinking about them, and I actually worked in
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  the cabinet process back when they served, and I thought it'd be worth all
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  because so many people are here that weren't here, And that's what you realize
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  Florida's changed, and we'll talk about numbers later, but it's changed so radically
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  since that time. You mentioned Bill Gunner to people, and they just go
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  Bill Gunner, Who who is that? The insurance office on Thomas Vill Road.
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  I mean, they don't have that sense. You mentioned Bob Graham.
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  Even you think we wasn't that long ago, But to a lot of people,
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  it was that long ago because they weren't here, They lived somewhere else.
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  And these guys served in a very interesting time. And I was fortunate
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  to first work for the legislature when Bob Graham was a US I'm in a
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  state senator from Miami Dade. And what an interesting group of characters served during
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  that era. There are people that have written books Golden Age and like to
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  call that time framed Golden Age. You could also write a book called the
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  Age of Corruption because of what was going on in Florida during that time frame.
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  Just within the cabinet itself. What timeframe would that be, I've said
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  nineteen seventies. If you just clocked across the seventies, Ruben ask you got
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  elected governor in seventies, and of course he never had one scandal involved him,
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  but in his administration, there were quite a few members of the cabinet.
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  In those days, the cabinet was a seven member cabinet, all independently
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  elected. Florida is the only state that's had that form of government where most
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  states have a very very strong governor, and we've moved towards that since that
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  time, really actually since the nineteen ninety eight constitutional revision took place in two
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  thousand and three with term limits for everybody. It changed the nature of government
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  in Florida. But in those days we always had term Actually in the sixties
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  and prior to the governor served only one term in Florida, and the cabinet
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  members could serve for life. So we had a lot of people that were
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  there for a very very long time. So does your look at Florida's cabinet
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  for today, are you focusing on those roaring seventies or are you going back
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  to the very beginning. Well, we could go back to the beginning.
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  Eighteen forty five. They created a government in Florida when Florida became a state,
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  and you had cabinet positions then, but in those days, largely they
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  served at the will of the governor. Or served the governor. Even in
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  the constitution that took place after the Civil War when a new government was put
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  in place, basically inserted. Was it friends of the governor at the time
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  or was it people that the governor said they were capable for this task.
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  May not be friends, they might be friends both. It wasn't largely a
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  meritocracy, you know it. You know, it was more like you knew,
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  yeah, any Preston, will you come help me out? And you
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  people that you met, and that's how you formed the cabinet in those days.
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  The public got tired of that. From eighteen sixty five to the eighteen
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  eighty five we had a constitutional revision occurred in eighteen eighty five, and that's
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  when you have the independent cabinet members seven from that time forward, and they
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  all were all independently elected and could serve lifetime. You had to run for
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  reelection, but it was tough to defeat them because they were the incumbents.
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  They incumbencies very strong. This is the Morning Show with Preston Scott eleven minutes
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  past the hour of the Morning Show and Doctor Ed Moore picking up with the
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  change where we started. What were the seven cabinet positions. What were they?
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  What were they? Well, you had the governor obviously as the chairman
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  of the cabinet, and you had an attorney general. You had a state
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  comptroller, you had a Commissioner of Agriculture, you had the insurance commissioner,
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  state treasurer and insurance commissioner, and a Secretary of State. Wide range of
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  people. One would have thought that generally, if you think about politics,
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  people would run, say I'll run for Secretary of State and then serve awhile
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  and then I'm going to be the US Senator or the governor or whatever.
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  But that really isn't the case. Charlie christ and since the sixty eight nineteen
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  sixty eight Constitution revision to now, Charlie Chris, I'm pretty sure, is
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  the only one that was a serving cabinet member that became governor. No way
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  Charlie seeking another office. Well, and that's what he did. He did
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  what most people thinks happened happens with all of them, as Commissioner of Education,
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  attorney General, than governor. It's like kind of like the children's pastor,
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  the youth pastor, the associate pastor becomes the pastor. You work your
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  way up you would think that would happen. There's been three US Senators Graham,
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  Bob Graham, and then Dick Stone and Bill Nelson that were served in
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  a role on the cabinet and then became US senators from Florida. That's it.
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  Out of all of those people over all that long period of time.
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  So it's not necessarily that proving ground, training ground, let the people evaluate
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  what kind of job you do, kind of thing doesn't happen that often.
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  We're more and largely it's because of the population shifts in Florida. In my
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  view, Florida has changed so radically since the nineteen seventy election, and now
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  that people that live here don't know who these people are. I mean they
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  well, you dropped some names I'd never heard of. Yeah, well dick
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  Stone was Secretary. Bill Nelson, I mean, next thing you're gonn tell
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  me he was an astronaut. He was an astronaut, and now he's the
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  head of the Space program. You know, So the kind of lateral arabesque
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  I was, Yeah, but got like dick Stone Secretary of State and then
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  ran for the US Senate, ran actually against Bill Gunner back then, and
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  dick Stone ended up eking that out. I worked in that campaign. I
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  knew dick Stone and a good man and did a good job, and Paula
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  Hawkins beat him. I mean paul Hawkins came off of the old statewide elected
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  Public Service Commission that had three public service commissioners. Paula was able to always
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  be the no vote. She was a Republican and two old time Democrats.
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  So when he came for rating increases and all those things that everybody hates,
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  Paula would vote no. Everybody loved her. She went to the US Senate
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  back in the day, and you define that however you want. Did the
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  cabinet matter, Yes, it mattered a lot. It's what governed the state.
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  A lot of agencies. Back in the those days, a lot of
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  the state agencies were under the purview of the cabinet, Natural Resources, Environmental
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  Protection, Department of Revenue. They were all cabinet agencies. There were thirteen
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  fourteen agencies that function under. Now we're down to four and there's four members
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  and it takes only how do you get a majority on a four person board?
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  Well, you say, well, the governor has the weighted vote.
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  So if the governor's on the affirmative side. He just needs one vote to
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  get his way, and so that's what occurs frequently. Now. They still
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  sit over a number of agencies and of State Board of Administration, by example,
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  it's the board responsible for managing the investments of all the state money.
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  Pretty big. I mean you're talking billions and billions of dollars. Three of
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  the four cabinet members sit on that. One Commissioner of Agriculture, No,
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  they're not part of that. So it's an awkward structure. I'm an old
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  cabinet guy. I like having those seven people there. I think that gives
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  public a lot more access places they can go, they can I was going
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  to say as large as government, I mean, granted, Florida as lean
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  as any state government is, but that's in kind of per capita staffing.
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  I would think you'd want more cabinet members. Over the last thirty years or
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  so, Florida has drifted towards the national norm of having a very strong governor
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  and holding the governor accountable. I kind of like the diffusion and having more
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  people engaged, but we're not there. Final segment, Doctor had more more
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  history and the Florida cabinet no good. You had asked before about consolidation when
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  we went from seven to four. Yeah, I always found the precipitated that
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  goo goose, they call them good government type people. It's too much.
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  We don't like the cabinet, let's shrink it down. Can't get rid of
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  it at all. I find it interesting. One of the ones that survived
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  out of all that was Commissioner of Agriculture stayed as a cabinet with four votes.
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  They consolidated the Treasurer and the comptroller CFO, put them together as a
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  CFO. Secretary of State got removed. If I were in a track or
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  a mindset of running for office, probably one of the ones I would be
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  best suited for them, or of like being Secretary of State of Florida.
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  The stuff that's within that agency, stuff that is a tremendous interest to me.
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  But it's gone. It's an appointed position now. So you're down to
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  four. We'll see. There's no real push anywhere to do any changes or
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  consolidation on anything that's there now. Is that because the perception is that Florida
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  is well run and it's working. Yeah, and we have. We've gravitated
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  towards a much stronger governor that works when the governor's doing things that you like
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  and you want to have happened. And if you get a governor that we
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  almost got two elections ago, that people would have scratched their husband. Go
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  where's Florida going now? But right now, you know, if you're a
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  conservative, you like what's happening here. If you're not, it's bothering you.
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  But there's still no real change. But it's proven magnetic. They want
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  to take the office back, but I'm not hearing anywhere. Hey, you
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  know, we ought to get some other positions here. We can put our
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  people in. You've had some diversity. Alex Sink is a Democrat. I
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  mean there's been Would she be a Democrat today, by definitely, you know
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  what I mean, conservative business person and that's what I'm saying. I mean,
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  she wouldn't fit inside that mold anymore, you know, I don't know.
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  I mean it was an opportunity for her. She ran one nice lady,
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  did a good job, and it's gone. Nikki Freed was a Democrat
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  on the as the Commissioner of Agriculture and not a traditional person that you would
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  think, but it was available and she took that position. Will there be
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  a Democrat after the next election in Florida. On that probably not And a
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  lot of those people that are sitting there, people are speculating they want to
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  run for governor, so what's going to happen? And they're term limited,
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  largely termal limited, so we'll have a pretty fresh slate. When DeSantis leaves
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  office, you're going to see a lot of new cabinet members and so that
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  changed the nature. But first I want to talk about the numbers. I
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  went back, he asked earlier eighteen forty five, when Florida became a state,
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  we A Mosely defeated Richard Kall in a governor's race three two hundred and
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  ninety five to two thousand, six hundred and seventy nine. Statewide, that
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  was it Miami Dade. Then it was just Dade counties at sothwher Mosely won
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  sixty to five. I think Florida has changed a little bit since eighteen forty
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  five. Yeah, yeah, and then you go when you go more recently,
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  eighteen forty five forty five, Florida had approximately sixty six thousand people,
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  mostly across the top of the state in the panandle So you know, we've
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  changed When Aski was elected in nineteen seventy, one million, seven hundred and
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  thirty thousand plus votes were casts. One million, seven hundred and thirty Okay.
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  We had a total population of six million, seven hundred and eighty nine
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  thousand people in nineteen seventy six point seven million people. The Desanus election in
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  twenty two, Florida had twenty two million people. Seven million, seven hundred
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  and twenty thousand people voted. Okay, seven million, seven hundred thousand voted.
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  When ASCU won, the state population was less than seven million. I
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  mean, when you see numbers like that, it's crazy aftermation that Florida is
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  growing. We're probably netting people moving and coming, probably netting two hundred two
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  hundred and fifty thousand people a year still, and we've been doing that for
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  a long time. Where it ends nobody knows, But all I see is
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  development occurring. So I think that those the Santus numbers of people seven million
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  voting is going to be ten million voting soon. And I mean we're big
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  players on a national stage. We still have yet to have anybody make that
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  national stage, but I pray that it's coming. We need to be represented
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  in DC by a president from our state. Love to see it happen.
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  In my lifetime. We've had people try not so good so far. You're
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  smiling at me, but you know, twenty three million people in this state.
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  We're growing, California shrinking even though they're so still so big, they're
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  still shrinking. You know, we're players. We should be players and continue
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  to be players. The cabinet helped to build this state and created the environment.
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  I think as a group, those strong people out of the seventies,
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  not the ones that went to jail, and a number of men ended up
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  going to jail. Commissioner of Education, the state treasurer went to jail.
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  I mean, it wasn't all pure right, but there were good people involved.
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  In to their credit, guys like Bob Graham and Bill Gunner served did
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  well and stepped aside and stayed available and engaged. I've served on boards with
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  Bill Gunner, a nice, wonderful man, and I'm sorry to see them
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  go. Thanks for the time. Doctor edmore with us this morning twenty seven
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  minutes after the hour of the Morning Shaw with President Scott