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Daniel Ruth: Fancy digs, foul intentions

 
The Florida Senate chamber was renovated at a cost of $6 million. Included: new paneling, carpeting, leather chairs and stained glass.
The Florida Senate chamber was renovated at a cost of $6 million. Included: new paneling, carpeting, leather chairs and stained glass.
Published Dec. 26, 2016

Last month the Florida Senate unveiled its newly renovated $6 million chambers and quite a thing of beauty it is, too. New fancy wood paneling. Fresh paint. Lovely carpeting. Stained glass. There's even a remodeled Senate seal that eliminates the Confederate battle flag, which reminded everyone of a time when the body was populated by redneck goobers. Thank goodness those days are over (cough, cough).

Oh and the senators also will do their work for the people sitting behind some hotsy-tot impressive desks, including elegant leather chairs to gently comfort their keisters while they go about the business of further transforming the state into something out of Boss Hogg meets Foghorn Leghorn.

The coming Florida legislative session certainly has some big issues to contend with — climate change, energy policies, taxes, a crumbling prison system, transportation and, of course, there's always some statesman who will propose arming infants in their hospital bassinets.

And then there is that walking Age of Enlightenment, Sarasota Republican Sen. Greg Steube, who has proposed dumping a state law passed two years ago that provides in-state university tuition rates to undocumented students who attend high school in Florida.

In a rare paroxysm of bipartisanship, both houses of the Legislature agreed to provide the tuition break for undocumented Florida students who may have been brought to the state through no fault of their own. Even Gov. Rick Scott, whom no one has ever accused of being soft on illegal immigration, not only signed the measure into law but called the passage of the bipartisan bill "an historic day."

But in the black hole of Tallahassee extremist ideological pandering, 2014 was a thousand years ago.

In announcing his intention to shaft young people merely trying to improve their lives through higher education, Steube claimed that while he was running for his Senate seat he heard from countless constituents how troubled they were over: (a) threats to their Second Amendment rights and/or (b) the audacity of the Legislature to extend a college tuition break to undocumented students.

As for the tuition help, Tampa Bay Times reporter Claire McNeill pointed out the 2014 bill simply helped about 900 undocumented residents for the 2015-16 academic year out of a total Florida university population of approximately 341,000 students.

The tuition break is invaluable. Without it, these young people would be required to pay an out-of-state tuition rate, which at the University of Florida adds up to around $28,658 a year. Florida residents, however, pay about $6,380. It's not as if these kids — who, again, are in Florida through no fault of their own — are trying to scam the state to buy them a car, or a house or a vacation in the south of France. They are Florida residents who are only trying to educate themselves to become productive members of society. And Steube along with his grumpy Sarasota constituents have a problem with that?

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Back in 2014, the tuition break faced no small amount of Republican opposition. But its chief champion, Clearwater Republican Sen. Jack Latvala, used some deft legislative maneuvering to push the bill through to passage.

Alas, one of the tuition waiver's opponents in 2014 was Joe Negron, who is now Senate president. Uh-oh! And Steube's effort to use the full force of the Florida Legislature to stiff 900 college students also has support in the House from fellow Sarasotan and fellow-traveler of myopia, Rep. Joe Gruters, R-Wouldn't These People Be Better Off Mowing My Yard Than Wasting Time Sitting In A Chemistry Class?

The disconnect from simple rationality is hard to avoid.

Over the past few months the Florida Senate blew through $6 million to upgrade their digs with lavish decor, comfy furniture, elaborate glass designs, Ionic columns, fresh paint and other assorted geegaws as a testament to the power and glory of the state's upper chamber.

And for what? So the likes of Sen. Greg Steube, R-What We Have Here Is Failure To Communicate, can use his perch of influence to suppress a minute percentage of Florida's university population the opportunity to better themselves.

It's probably not too late to reinstate the Confederate symbols in the Senate logo for the sake of truth in advertising.