BlogWood: MT Archives

Byrd bullies Bucher

TBO.com

A spokesman for House Speaker Johnnie Byrd said the speaker has asked a committee to look into recent comments by Rep. Susan Bucher, who suggested that campaign contributions fueled a health care bill's move through a House committee.

Byrd spokesman Tom Denham said there had been complaints about Bucher's comments, and said Byrd asked House Rules Committee co-chairmen Sandy Murman, R-Tampa and Dennis Ross, R-Lakeland, to recommend what action, if any, should be taken against Bucher, D-Lantana.

Bucher's comments came this past week as Republican leaders limited debate on a bill to create a new health care profession, anesthesiologist assistants. The measure was approved.

"It is just amazing what contributions have purchased here today," Bucher said.

Bucher said Friday that Byrd's request that the Rules Committee consider whether she should be punished was "a threat to democracy.

"I think the system is broken when a state legislator cannot come here and ask questions about issues in the process of representing their constituents," Bucher said. "I believe that this is an attempt to intimidate the members and I think that this is a form of prior restraint."

The real outrage, of course, is the dollar-driven corporate and fat cat friendly system of “democracy” that we live under. Bucher should be praised for questioning the status quo, but instead she’ll probably be censured. This is what happens when greedy, unprincipled bullies gain a safe position of power - they attack the weak. Actually, taking on a fellow Rep., even if she is just a member of the minority party, and has absolutely no power compared to Johnny Byrd’s Speaker position, is a step up for Johnny. As one of the leaders of the State GOP, he prefers to gang up with his colleagues and hurt children.

Two years after voters demanded tax-paid pre-kindergarten, conservatives in the Florida House voted Wednesday to create a program with scant accreditation standards, few educational requirements for teachers and only three hours of daily instruction.

The bill, rushed through the education committee, would also allow parents to home-school their children with state-paid educational books and websites.

Before the bill passed on a party-line vote, Democrats, pre-K advocates and a representative of Gov. Jeb Bush spoke against it. They said the bill needed to resemble Bush's proposal, which calls for an extra hour of instruction and details standards to ensure that 4-year-olds receive an education rather than taxpayer-paid baby sitting.
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House conservatives are reluctant to regulate the voucher program and the pending preschool initiative and describe Bush's proposal as not conservative enough.

''It's too demanding. It's too much bureaucracy,'' said committee chairwoman Rep. Bev Kilmer, a Quincy Republican. ``The bottom line for me is making sure every dollar we spend touches a child positively. And I don't want to touch bureaucracy.''

Kilmer and Miami Republican Reps. Gus Barreiro and Ralph Arza don't want the state Department of Education to oversee the program, in part because many religious lobbying groups have an abiding mistrust of the agency and its secular regulations.

Oh, those horrible regulations and rules! Why, it’s almost impossible to obtain a faith-based education on the government’s dime these days. The shame!