The new constitutional cabinet - "Florida's four".

• Author: Perez, Kent J.

This is a follow-up article to a review of the Florida Cabinet system previously published in The Florida Bar Journal, November 2000. (1) The 2000 article gave the reader a quick understanding of the cabinet system in Florida and acknowledged the significant changes that were likely to occur when the cabinet was reconfigured by the Florida voters, which was effective January 2, 2003. The new and still historically unique and significant Florida Cabinet system is almost five years old. (2) Today, the governor and cabinet consist of a stronger Florida governor and three constitutionally recognized, independently elected public officials who serve as cabinet members: the attorney general, the chief financial officer (CFO), and the commissioner of agriculture. (3) This article looks at the cabinet fundamentals that haven't changed and point out those that have. While the duties and dynamics of the governor and cabinet may be different, the overall function, operation, and procedure of a truly unique example of plural executive branch government remain essentially the same.

Cabinet Beginnings

The cabinet system in Florida government began as an outgrowth of ministerial duties and powers of public officials who sat on ex officio boards. Additionally, the governor of Florida started out as a stronger player in 1885 only to become a member of a true plural executive. (4) Florida's system of governance was often recognized as acknowledging a governor as the supreme executive power, while providing a reconstruction era check on the governor by creating a cabinet. (5) An excellent explanation of the origins and development of the cabinet system can be found in a March 1969 article by current Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum in The Florida Bar Journal Special Legislative Issue, "The Florida Cabinet System--A Critical Analysis." The cabinet as it existed for years was given formal recognition in the 1968 Florida Constitution. (6) Beginning in January 2003, the long standing seven-member body, collegial for the most part, became a group of four. The Florida Cabinet today is still considered unique among the 50 states.

Change Happens

Sweeping cabinet changes were made to the Florida Constitution effective in 2003 in response to recommendations made by the 1998 Constitutional Revision Commission. Before those changes, the governor was essentially an equal to the other six elected officials. The seven-member governor and cabinet acted primarily by a "majority" or "simple majority" vote. There were several statutory governor and cabinet duties that specified the vote required for action as one of "[g]overnor plus three," requiring the governor to be in the affirmative on an issue. (7) There were also some statutory duties that specified action by a super majority vote of five of the seven members. (8) The new Florida Constitution that became effective January 2003, however, downsized the cabinet from six to three members and made the governor more powerful. In addition to the governor acting as the chair of the many boards and commissions by which the governor and cabinet function, a simple majority vote of the governor and cabinet became a trump card for the governor. Yet as the governor became more powerful with a smaller complement, so did each of the cabinet members. In fact, some existing statutory language was never changed following the new constitutional revisions resulting in some appointment powers being spread equally among the four public officials.

Art. IV, [section] 4 of the new Florida Constitution provides that in the event of a tie vote by the governor and cabinet, the side on which the governor voted shall be deemed to prevail. (9) Simply put, this was the Constitution Revision Commission's solution to doing business as a body of four. F.S. [section] 14.2001 was passed early in the 2003 legislative session to redefine the terms "majority" and "simple majority" vote, as those terms applied to action by the governor and cabinet. Action taken pursuant to that side of a tie vote on which the governor voted, now by statutory decree, satisfies the requirement that action be taken by a "majority" or "simple majority" vote. (10) Notwithstanding the history behind the recommendations of the 1998 Constitution Revision Commission, the logic and practicality of an odd member voting body became obvious. (11) It seemed almost inconsequential that the governor became more powerful as a way to solve the voting mechanics of a four-member body. The two-member cabinet model originally discussed by the 1998 Constitution Revision Commission may have actually empowered the governor more, especially if new statutory language such as "[g]overnor in the affirmative" would have been used for all the extraordinary voting requirements that existed for the seven-member governor and cabinet.

Despite the early adoption of the changes to the constitution, the numerous references to the governor and cabinet throughout the Florida Statutes were not rewritten or addressed until the 2003 legislative session. This failure caused the new streamlined governor and cabinet to refrain from taking certain executive action until the legislature could catch up with the necessary statutory changes. This was the case when the governor and cabinet were sitting as the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund. Existing statutory language required an extraordinary vote of five of the seven board members when action was taken to sell, lease, or otherwise dispose of state-owned land. (12) The disposition of state-owned land is often a large part of what the governor and cabinet do at their meetings, and with only four members now on the board, business was at a stand still in January 2003, until the new extraordinary vote language was passed during the 2003 regular legislative session. Governor Bush signed the cabinet reform legislation as one of the first bills to become law in 2003. (13)

Not all of the previously existing statutory language that was tailored specifically to a seven-member governor and cabinet was changed by the 2003 legislation. Language relating to the number of votes needed for some key appointments by the governor and cabinet remained the same, resulting in a majority vote requirement under the old cabinet structure now becoming a unanimous vote under the new cabinet. Suddenly the new and more powerful...