Piece by piece, Tallahassee grabs control of local issues

Florida’s lawmakers this year intensified their aim of reserving for themselves alone regulators powers that they in the past shared with cities and counties or left entirely to local governments. That moves farther and farther from the people the control over their own lives.

All of us like to feel empowered. We want to be heard on legislation we strongly favor or oppose. We can be better heard as one of a few thousand city voters, not as well as a county voter, and by the time we get to state or federal levels our loudest shouts are lost in the ether.

Likewise, the people who represent us at the most local levels are far more likely to understand our concerns. As the salesmen sang in The Music Man, “You gotta know the territory.” How many of the legislators in Tallahassee have ever even seen your town or neighborhood?

This year, state legislators voted to end or alter local abilities to regulate vacation rental properties, wages requirements in local government contracts, requirements to protect workers exposed to intense outdoor heat, sleeping in public, preservation boards’ power to prevent demolitions, food deliveries by outside organizations, EV charging stations, investigations by local watchdog commissions, use of community ID cards, and employment of minors. 

In every case, the rules will affect Miami-Dade County, its municipalities or both, weakening them in their attempts to serve the needs of local residents. 

I say “attempts” because we don’t support everything local government has done in these areas, and in almost every case the shifting of powers to Tallahassee will actually mean less regulation here. We generally think “that government is best which governs least,” and Tallahassee will be far less stringent than Miami-Dade has been or wants to be.

But less local knowledge or concern and loosening of regulations will also come at a price. 

Miami Beach is concerned that it will lose more of the historic structures that appeal to both residents and visitors with less ability to control demolitions. The county will lose living wage requirements that have existed since 1998. Every coastal community worries about loss of control over short-term rentals. Every inspector general quakes at new rules that will limit local corruption investigations. The list goes on.

As we’ve said before, not every rule that reserves to the state alone specific regulatory powers is wrong. We can understand the need to limit some taxing powers such as levying of income taxes to the state rather than have each county decide on its own whether to have an income tax and how high it would be.

But when it comes to, for example, protecting historic buildings, in much of rural Florida that is not an issue. In Miami Beach it’s pivotal. Every community is different.

And that’s the point: every community is different, and in Florida one size definitely does not fit all. I’d trust the local city council to know our needs more than I would Washington or Tallahassee. 

Every legislative body everywhere has flaws and blind spots, but those closer to home at least have a better chance of knowing what you and I need.

Nonetheless, the state legislature seems hell-bent on amassing as much control over everything as possible in Tallahassee, meaning that the folks back home have less and less control over their own lives. 

Before you vote in the next state legislative election, ask candidates how they stand on protecting the ability of your local governments to serve you.