Senator Tom Lee and Representative Lawrence McClure met with members of the Greater Plant City Chamber of Commerce Tuesday for a pre-session legislative round table.
The event was designed by the Chamber to “create avenues” for its members and get them politically engaged. Following last year’s Capitol Coffee event, where the Chamber invited a variety of elected officials to “check in” with their constituents and discuss hot-button items, several of the politicians said they wished they had the opportunity to sit down with the voters before a session started rather than hearing their thoughts after the year was essentially over.
“I always thought that we do these wrap-ups after session and then we sit in our cars after and go, ‘Man, I wish I had heard that earlier,’ or we wish something had been brought to our attention at the start of session so we could have maybe focused on that a little more,” Lee said. “An event like this helps us know where your minds are, where your passions are, before we really get into the new session.”
Structured as a formal Q&A, the chamber had members pre-register their questions and each was given three minutes for a response.
Both McClure and Lee said Florida’s budget has long been focused on healthcare and education. They briefly discussed some of the items they expected to see on the floor next session and both took a moment to highlight issues they will forever be passionate about. Lee talked about working a lot “in the education space” right now and discussed deregulating the public school system. McClure frequently brought up his passion for agriculture and his desire to find a way to get the desperately needed help for the strawberry and citrus farmers in the area.
Mayor Rick Lott opened the evening by sharing the city’s perspective. Three years ago, they hired a lobby firm to make sure Plant City’s interests were being represented. It’s “just how the process works,” according to Lott, and he formally highlighted the two main issues he would seek help with from our elected officials this year: help for the McIntosh Park project and for pushing for the local courthouse to have the ability to try felony cases.
The room was full of community leaders from all walks of life and the questions pitched toward the politicians reflected that diversity. Some wanted an insight on Florida’s amendment system, which they believed to be flawed. Others asked for clarification on the state’s stance on hemp. Several were worried about the push to raise the minimum wage. Because of Plant City’s heavy focus on agriculture, the topic of immigration as well as the use of E-Verify was a point of heavy discussion.
One attendee from the Florida Strawberry Growers Association said as a country, we can either “import our labor or import all of the food that we eat. I think we’d be a lot better off importing labor than food.” He said there needed to be a pathway from the federal government to bring in help and make it a viable means for both farmers and their workers.
In response, Lee broke down the dynamics of Florida’s labor issue. He said there are 800,000 undocumented immigrants working and living in Florida. He said we are paying billions of dollars for them via Medicaid and in the school system, but that our economy has become reliant on them. He said we are “a hostage to these people.”
“It’s frustrating, and to me there’s a couple stages of this,” Lee said. “The first to is, ‘How do you stop the bleeding?’ How do you keep 800(k) from becoming a million? Then of course you have the 800,000 that are here and how do you keep any program you put in place to verify that they’re here legally from affecting our companies, our businesses and other people in the agriculture industry?”
After much discussion on the issue, the conversation turned to a few more industry-specific topics, like how different healthcare related bills would affect hospitals, issues with current practices in relation to the motor industry and the impact of of autonomous vehicles on franchise dealers. As the evening went on, the elected officials motioned toward their notes and said this put them in a great mindset going into their next session.
“I just want to say on behalf of all of us, thank you,” Lott said. “We’ve had a long relationship and worked together and the projects are countless that you go through and you have Senator Lee’s handprint on. It’s from legal to healthcare to housing to you name it, you’ve been a big benefit to our community and we all know that if we have something to discuss we all have the opportunity… I know it’s only been two years, Representative, but wow what a two years it has been. You really have come in and what I like about both of them is they don’t come in and tell us how to run our city, but they come and ask ‘How can I help your city?’ I love that relationship.”