Whether we are talking about what is allowed in terms of spending bed-tax revenues, how public sector advocacy associations are funded with public dollars, or what regulations control access/egress to public highway rest areas----Sometimes when we are trying to get things done we run into a regulatory or legislative brick wall. That's when, if the issue is important enough, logical enough, and supported enough-- you work to have the particularly troubling rule, regulation, or law amended, modified, revised, or repealed.
Because laws and regulatory language can be changed, amended, or modified.
Let's explore three examples/Issues/problems that have been solved or that could have been solved if appropriate language changes were sought or were achieved. Accessing public rest areas, extracting a percentage of bed tax revenue for public safety, and changing the law regarding how public organization dues are funded. Let's look at all three.
BLOWING UP A FLORIDA TAXPAYER FUNDED MONOPOLY
I was involved personally in a very relevant example of this over the span of two years from 2014-2016. Florida law at that time did not permit individual school board members from pulling their individual share of high-priced dues membership money from the then "only" professional organization for school board members, the Florida School Boards Association. The dues ran about $22,000.00 per year per 5 member school board, a price that many of us felt was exorbitant. For a number of good reasons, with persistence, lots of hard work, and the formation of a coalition for change-- the relevant statutes were changed two years later in 2016 to allow individual board members to fund their choice of support organizations individually and/or to withhold the money altogether to re-direct these resources back to the classrooms of local districts. Nobody gave us a shot of getting this changed, but a small group of us worked hard, spent lots of time in Tallahassee, and we got it accomplished and blew up a publicly funded monopoly, thereby injecting consumer choice into what was up to that time an 85 year monopoly within this niche advocacy business.
CHANGING BED TAX ALLOWABLE USE LAW
Another law was being modified in that same 2016 timeframe over in Tallahassee--having to do with a different issue--focused on allowable uses of the tourist development tax for counties and municipalities.
Okaloosa, Walton, and Bay Counties to our east each have a significant tourist and spring break footprint in their respective counties yearly--and this tourism industry was costing the citizens of these counties an inordinate share of their financial resources for the public safety necessary to support these visitors and tourists. So a group of lawmakers, led by Rep. Brad Drake, sought to
