How an easy wind-down to session spun out of control

State Senate President Mike Haridopolos visited with a group of reporters on Friday afternoon and nearly beamed at how successful the 2011 legislative session had been.

"We're going to bring this in for a landing," he said, aiming for touchdown long before the midnight deadline.

But around 1 a.m. a shaken Haridopolos, who's running for U.S. Senate, faced those same reporters, saying he didn't understand how the session had "landed in a ditch."

Both the House and Senate finally passed a $69.7 million budget and a major tax cut bill, but lost along the way were some priorities that leaders had promised to get through.

They included bills requiring closer monitoring of high school athletes with head injuries and compensation for a South Florida man, Eric Brody, who suffered a serious brain injury in an accident caused by a Broward County Sheriff's deputy.

Cracks in the process began to show midway through the evening when the Senate killed a bill deregulating six professions, including hair weavers and interior designers, complaining the measure hadn't been properly reviewed by the Senate.

"We need to send a message back to the House: Don't send us bills we've had no chance to discuss," Sen. Dennis Jones, a Seminole Republican, said. "Don't come around the back door and expect us to swallow it."

House Speaker Dean Cannon later said this sent a signal, "a very disconcerting signal."

At that point, the House slowed to a crawl. Members were already disturbed by a gambling provision the Senate had inserted into an already agreed-upon tax-cut bill.

The Senate went on to pass the budget, but when it was clear the House wasn't going to act, Haridopolos sent the senators home, saying he'd sleep in his office, in case the House acted. He told Senators that when they reconvened, only bills that had gone through conference committees – that is, negotiations between both chambers -- could move forward, leaving to die Brody's bill, the head injury bill and others.

Speaking to reporters he said he was "flabbergasted" that the House waited all night to pass its two most important bills, a budget and a priority $300 million tax-cut package.

He said he would even apologize if Cannon was upset about the deregulation vote.

Soon after, the House went back to work, passing remaining bills without a word to explain the session's busted deadline.

Shortly before 2 a.m., it voted 79-39 to approve the state budget. It then moved to the tax-break bill with the gambling provision, which involved slot machine-type terminals at pari-mutuels. They passed it, after moving all the tax-breaks into another bill and stripping out the gambling elements.

The House adjourned at 2:07 a.m., with Cannon saying a few minutes later, "In light of the Senate's inability to meet that obligation, I've decided that our chamber would take the high road…and send it all to the Senate tonight, and leave no ambiguity."

Soon Haridopolos called his Senators back in, with some members violating the chamber's standard dress code. St. Petersburg Sen. Jack Latvala, for instance, lacked socks.

They passed the tax cut bill and adjourned at 3:35 a.m.

"I apologize for having called you back here this late at night," Haridopolos told his fellow senators. "I did not anticipate it."

He said the "silly games of the last two weeks were unacceptable."

lpeterson@tampatrib.com