TRIAL BY FIRE: FLORIDA LEGISLATIORS FEEL THE HEAT.

• Author: Morgan, Lucy

Nothing had prepared the Florida Legislature (full of freshman lawmakers) for the role of picking the president.

It's not what they expected. Florida legislators were due in Tallahassee for training sessions designed to help 64 freshmen learn how to handle life as lawmakers. In office only two weeks, they suddenly found themselves caught up in the middle of a worldwide drama that was about to force them to pick a new president of the United States.

They had no Capitol offices, no telephones, temporary parking places, and were learning how to cope with state-issued laptop computers when they arrived in Tallahassee in early December and found CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC and FOX news laying siege to the Capitol.

After days of counting and recounting ballots in several south Florida counties, George W. Bush led Al Gore by 537 votes in a state where 6 million voters turned out. Florida's vote would determine the presidency, and legislative leaders were pushing for a special session to approve the Bush electors and ensure a Republican victory.

"It almost feels like the freshman class of Congress whose first vote was to go into war--Desert Storm," said Republican Representative Bob Allen. He manages rocket scientists in a space technology business and is in his first month as a citizen legislator.

Thanks to eight-year term limits approved by voters in 1992, 51 members of the House and 11 members of the Senate were tossed out of office in November. The House wound up with 63 new members, and 12 new senators were elected. All but one of the senators previously served in the House, but only two members of the House had previous legislative service.

They had expected to face serious budget problems and a continuing war between trial lawyers who want the right to sue HMOs and business lobbyists who want to limit litigation--but nothing had prepared them for a role in picking a president.

The possibility of legislative intervention was initially floated by House Speaker Tom Feeney when he learned that a little known provision of the U.S. Constitution called on legislators to appoint presidential electors when all else failed to give a state's electors "safe harbor." It was a provision of law that had not been used in modem times and legal experts disagreed over how it should be used.

FEAR OF NO LEGITIMATE ELECTOR SLATE

As lawsuits flared up in Miami, West Palm Beach, Sanford, Tallahassee, Deland and Fort Lauderdale, Feeney and Senate President John McKay began talking to experts and looking at the possibility that Florida would not have a legitimate slate of electors by the time they were scheduled to vote on Dec. 18.

Legislative leaders initially feared that so many new members would create a situation that would be hard to control, but it quickly became clear that the new members would vote along partisan...