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SAMUEL PROCTOR ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM at
the University of Florida
FP52sum
Terrell Sessums
This is an interview with Terrell Sessums, speaker of the Florida House of Representatives.
The interview was conducted by Jack Bass and Walter De Vries in Tallahassee, Florida, on
May 20, 1974. The interview is from the Southern Oral History Program in the Southern
Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill.
pp. 1-3: Sessums recounts his one-year term, 1973-1974, as speaker of the House, and being a
legislator since 1963. He recalls his years serving as a legislative aide to Sam Gibbons in the
Florida Senate in 1959. It was a time of turmoil over integration and debate over
reapportionment. Sessums was much in favor of reapportionment because he felt the legislature
was representative of only a small percentage of Floridians who lived close to Tallahassee--the
Pork Chop legislators--rather than the urban areas in Central and South Florida. Sessums wanted
change. He describes running for elected office in 1963 when a few new seats were added in
Hillsborough County before reapportionment came four years later. He says the legislature
needed a "revolution" or "divine intervention" to change the status quo. But it was the U.S.
Supreme Court that added the "impetus to efforts to reapportion."
pp. 3-6: Sessums describes the momentum leading up to reapportionment in 1967 and the
changes that occurred due to restructuring the legislature's representation. The incoming
legislators who came in as a result of reapportionment wanted change, according to Sessums. He
talks about the growth of Florida after World War II, which changed the population distribution
radically and also created a different kind of population mix, that is, racially and culturally.
pp. 6-11: Sessums discusses the changes in profiles of legislators after reapportionment: now
they are younger; they are in more leadership roles; they are more visible, more aggressive and
better educated; and they are representing more sophisticated constituencies. Sessums credits the
University of Florida as proving grounds for many of his colleagues who were active in student
government and participated in inter-collegiate debates. They are now using these debating skills
very effectively in the Florida Legislature. He also credits Florida Blue Key as producing
skillful, active, and competent legislators and gives several examples. Most of these new
legislators who entered the political scene with Sessums were anxious for change and innovation.
pp. 12-14: Sessums concurs with the interviewers that Florida legislators are reasonably
regarded by their constituencies. He feels that the Sunshine Law and the public disclosure law,
two laws which complicate a legislator's ability to function, are beneficial. He thinks that a
financial disclosure law will prevent many from running for office. According to Sessums,
Governor Claude Kirk, in office in the late 1960s, may have prompted the disclosure bill.
pp. 14-18: Before the days of reapportionment, Sessums expands upon the role of the legislature
versus the governor--the legislature playing a back seat role. He turns attention to the 1966
Democratic primary race between Mayor Robert King High from Miami and the incumbent
governor, Haydon Burns, both men coming from diverse geographical backgrounds--South
Florida versus Pork Chop territory of North Florida, respectively. When High beat Burns in the
primary, Sessums saw the face of Florida politics beginning to change--the political balance was
moving from North Florida to South Florida. The next few months after Kirk became governor
in 1967 were a time of change and disarray, according to Sessums, in that Florida had to deal
with the district court promulgating a new reapportionment plan and so new elections had to be
held. He focuses on the antagonism between Republican Governor Kirk and the legislature, a
division which made legislators more assertive. Reapportionment, he says, reflecting the post-
war population distribution, and also a Republican governor competing with Democratic
majorities in the House and Senate were the basis for creating a new political climate. Sessums
relates that Kirk told the legislature that he would not interfere with revision of the Florida
Constitution and that left the door wide open for the legislators to move ahead.
pp. 18-21: The interview then focuses on the rotation of the speakership of the House and the
presidency of the Senate. Sessums feels there are advantages and disadvantages to the rotation
system. Continuing that position through several legislative sessions creates stability but it also
brings an overwhelming weight of authority. Changing leaders with new sessions brings in fresh
ideas and enthusiasm. Sessums leans on the side of rotation. He also favors selecting the
speaker by a caucus before the next legislature convenes because it gives the speaker time to
organize. He calls attention to the stability of the position and his role in creating committees
and appointing their leaders. He also cites the speaker's practical limitations regarding his
authority and power.
pp. 21-23: In reference to Florida's cabinet system, Sessums thinks that an elected cabinet is a
political dilemma. He offers a brief history of the system starting with the Pork Chop Gang years
when the cabinet officers were the "good guys" who were more responsive to the urban voters
than the legislators. Then after reapportionment, the profiles of the legislators changed and
members of the House and Senate related more to their constituents. He feels that trying to
change the cabinet system would be much too difficult because it is so deeply entrenched in the
political system. Sessums says that the 1968 Constitution increased the power of the governor,
but it did not impact the cabinet system. In discussing the question of the cabinet system,
according to Sessums, many criticize a cabinet officer rather than the department itself.
pp. 23-24: Sessums, retiring from the speakership, discusses the speculation of his running for
lieutenant governor. He talks about the difficulty of moving his family and coping with a law
practice. He is not actively campaigning for that position and is not interested in a cabinet
position.
pp. 25-26: In assessing the role of the Democratic Party in Florida, Sessums feels that the party
has not been too strong or influential. He discusses the apathy on the party's county executive
committees, but on the state level he thinks that party members are more active. Despite having
a Democratic governor and a U.S. senator, Sessums believes that the party has not acquired
"muscle or experience or the money" to be effective. Sessums claims, however, that the Florida
Democratic Party's time is coming, that is, to be stronger and more involved.
pp. 26-27: Sessums has no regrets about his legislative career other than the time spent away
from his family. He campaigned for reapportionment and saw it transform Florida politics. He
advocated the equalization of public school finance and saw that come to fruition. Sessums says
he would encourage anyone to run for legislative office who wanted to serve the people.
FROM THE S.O./'.P., 7 -- .
SOUTHERN HISTORICAL COLLECTION, THE LIBRARY OF
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL
This is an interview with Terrel Sessums, speaker of the
Florida house of representatives. The interview was conducted by
Jack Bass and Walter De Vries in Tallahassee, Florida on May 20, 1974
and was transcribed by Joe Jaros.
Jack Bass: One of the things that I was intrigued by here is the
fact that someone like you, who is relatively young, being speaker
of the house and retiring, as I understand it.
Terrel Sessums: Well, in Florida, we have developed the tradition of
rotating the leadership in the house and the senate both and I have
really, I guess, relatively little senority compared to many legislators.
But I have served since 1963 and I will have, by the end of this term,
checked off my list most of the major legislative concerns that I had.
And while I have enjoyed being speaker for these two years, yet I have
had about all of it that I can afford and would be quite willing to
turn the gavel over to my successor. I first ran for the legislature
back in March of 1963 when Florida began to start reapportioning the
legislature. In.college, I had been a political science major, had
been very much interested in government and then went on to law school
and went to Tampa to practice law in 1958. And after I had been there
about a year, our state senator at the time, who is now Congressman
Sam Gibbons, represents our district in Congress, invited me to serve
as his aide during the 1959 legislative session and then at the 1961
From the Southern Oral History Program, #4007, Interview /A-S9 in the Southern Historical Collection,
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page 2
legislative session, I took a leave of absence from my law firm and
came up here and worked with him just during the sixty day session.
That was before we amended the constitution in '68, so the legislature
met every other year. And it was a very interesting experience for
me. At that time, Governor Collins was still the governor, we were
having a great deal of turmoil over the integration of the public
schools and a great debate over reapportionment and it caused me to
believe that perhaps the most important thing that needed to be done
in Florida was to reapportion its legislature, because most of the
men that I encountered up here who served in the house or senate
generally represented a point of view held, oh, I guess a majority of
the citizens within about a fifty or seventy-five mile radius of
Tallahassee and were not overly representative of the people who lived
in the more urban parts of the state in central and south Florida. It
was just sort of like going to a different world when you came to
Tallahassee. And our Senator Gibbons had defeated a senator from our
county who was quite well accepted by what we used to call the "Pork
Chop Gang" and many people in our area felt that he did not do a very
good job of representing our interests. And when Sam served in the
senate, there was a very great antagonism on the party of a great
majority in both houses to any suggestion of reapportionment. In
fact the problem was to preserve as many as a third of the senate to
uphold the governors veto of last resort legislation to close the
public school system and some things of that nature. And I became
pretty committed to seeing what could be done to reapportion the
legislature and assisted in well. the majority approach up here was
From the Southern Oral History Program, #4007, Interview 9-59 in the Southern Historical Collection,
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page 3
to do something, but to do as little as possible. And there were some
campaigns on in fact, their approach was not to use the statutory
approach to reapportionment, but simply to pass out a constitutional
amendment that made some change and delay the thing until the people
voted on it iand then they had very little to vote on anyway. So, we
went through one or perhaps two of these constitutional amendment
elections and finally, in 1963, they did add some new seats to some of
the larger counties. I ran and was elected to one of the seats added to
Hillsborough and I think that most of the new people that were elected
then came up feeling that the most important thing that needed to be
done was to continue to reapportion the legislature. And that was the
main tug of war, really, from about 1963 to 1966-1967. And with the
background in history and political science, I began to feel that we
weren't ever going to get anything done unless it was done by revolution
or divine intervention, because the people that controlled the
legislature were not willing to be persuaded that it was right to not
allow them to exercise control. Finally, the United States Supreme
Court added a lot of impetus to efforts to reapportion. That was the
period when I came into legislative service and I think that we have
now properly reapportioned the legislature and many of the things that
needed to be done have been done. We are a long way from the millennium,
but we .
Walter De Vries: You said that in 1966, you didn't think that there could
be any changes unless it was short of revolution or something like that.
Now that you look back eight years, and we look at this legislature
compared to the other states in the South and outside of it, and the
enormous changes that have occurred, would you have believed that looking
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page 4
back now at all the changes that have occurred, could have occurred
in that period of time?
Sessums: Well, it would have been a little hard to realize prior to
1967.
W.D.V.: What prompted that whole momentum?
Sessums: I don't know if you can pick out a single fador. I think
that probably a combination of circumstances. One, of course, many
states have reapportioned and not just Florida. I think reapportionment
was one of the keys and without it, very little change would have occurred.
Because the legislature had to reflect much more adequately the concerns
of the people of Florida and until we reapportioned in '66 and '67, it
just didn't do that. So that once it was reapportioned, there was a
great desire on the part of the new majority in the house and the senate,
to catch up and to change things. Now, to go beyond that, there are a
couple of other factors that maybe you need with Florida. One, we
probably had more changing to do than most states. I doubt very
seriously if there are very many states that were more malapportioned
than Florida. I have not researched the point or looked back, but it
seemed to me that the majority of the house and the majority of the
senate in Florida could be elected by between twelve and thirteen
percent of the population, basically those who lived in the smaller and
middle and northwestern counties of Florida. So, we were quite
malapportioned and until we did get reapportionment. And also, I guess
that starting with 1944, '45 and the end of World War II, Florida just
continued to excelerate in growth and change the whole population
distribution throughout the state. And as a consequence, although many
states reapportioned, the new legislature reflected a population of a
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page 5
state that had undergone tremendous change itself within a twenty
year period of time and it involved just not a growth in population, but
really a different kind of population, a complete of geographic emphasis
within the state. Ya'll, I'm sure, are quite familiar with Florida's
population development, but our capital was selected simply because
it was about halfway between the two population centers of the state,
that is, St. Augustine on the east coast and Pensacola on the west
and our whole population axis ran from the St. Augustine-Jacksonville
area through the north and west part of the state to Pensacola until
I guess, really the turn of the century. And in the 1920's, population
began to develop in the lower east coast, the Gold Coast area and in
central Florida and the west coast area, so that today, the bulk of
Florida's population really lives in central and south Florida. And
they are people who have in-migrated from other states, who come in
with a variety of backgrounds, so that once we were reapportioned, the
balance of power shifted geographically and it shifted to a different
population mix. For instance, in terms of racial composition, I would
say that the attitudes from Jacksonville.through this area and
Pensacola are quite similar with those in south Georgia and Alabama.
And I would say though, that in the rest of the state, you have had
many people did not grow up, whose parents and grandparents had lived
in the area, and areas that were never in a black belt with any type
of an ante-bellum economy, not that they are automatically liberal on
racial issues, but they didn't have the same type of conditioning. My
grandparents came into this state in the 20's, one set from Wyoming
and one set from Tennessee, in time for me to be a Floridian, but many
people who lived in central and south Florida came from many other
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page 6
places. And the black population, you tended to have in-migration of
whites and you tended to have out-migration of blacks, so that even
on racial matters, the population in my district has gone from slightly
over 20% black, down from that to about 14% black and I expect that by
the time of the next census it will be less than 10% black. In terms
of absolute numbers, the black population will probably have some slight
increase, but the increase has been the in-migration of whites.
(Interruption on tape.)
W.D.V.: It is apparent to us that the Florida you say that the
Florida legislature had so far to go in terms of malapportionment, but
what about in terms of its operation, its staffing, the quality of its
members, the product that it produces? As you look at other states in
the South, do you see a difference in what you are doing?
Sessums: Well, I don't know how to compare the quality of our members
with the members of other legislatures, perhaps you could do that better
than I, but well, within the state, I can give you an illustration.
Before reapportionment, the chronological age level of the house was
much greater than it is now. And I think that in the more settled,
rural environment, a greater emphasis on stability and seniority and
everything like that, there were just many old timers around and the
urban areas were really under-represented. Their seats were so worthless
that the so called "vested interests" didn't worry too much about them.
They didn't really count up here anyway, with rare exceptions, so that
the young idealistic lawyer or somebody else could generally run for
the seats and no one was too concerned with getting him elected or
crowding him out and I think that we had some extremely able people
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page 7
serving from the urban areas before reapportionment. The problem was
that they were just submerged. I could give a number of illustrations.
My own delegation from Hillsborough County had three houseJembers and
I would say generally that one or two among the three were among the
most able men in the legislature, with all of the credentials with
anybody else. But they would come up here, they would not be in the
majority bloc, so they would not be selected for any leadership post
or committee chairman, they would not be assisting in developing
important legislation, so that a contemporary of theirs who came from
the right area, namely De Walt Connor, for instance, who is now the
Commissioner of Agriculture, who came up here from Stark, was no more
able, perhaps not as able as some folks from urban areas, he just
simply got thrust into leadership pretty well by his caucus so that
he went onward and upward very rapidly and the others began to get
just completely frustrated about the whole thing and would drop out
or run for something else. We had a fair turnover in the urban areas
with fairly good people, they were just not too visible or too many of
them. And it could very well be that Florida is a slightly more urban
state than some of our southern sister states, although I understand
that things are changing in many of those. And I think generally, though
not necessarily, a representative from an urban area is apt to be a little
bit I can again think of some very notable exceptions, but he is
generally apt to be a little bit more aggressive, a little bit more .
have a little bit more in terms of educational attainments some things
of that nature. And it could very well be that the vested interests didn't
have the situation organized so that with reapportionment, a great deal
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page 8
of representation was added to the urban areas, you had a host of eager
young men and a few women who were ready to rush in and tilt with windmills,
and who came from relatively sophisticated constituencies. Well, that's
probably not right, but I think the urban make-up of the state and it's
population mix contributed somewhat to this. I don't know, if I had to
look beyond it for any other factor, I would say that there are a fair
number of people up here who all went to the University of Florida and
who were fairly active in a student government organization that again
was perhaps not typical. I would say that the University of Florida,
comparing it to other state universities in the region, has had several
traditions that are relatively unique. The University of Florida has
never compared very favorably with the University of Alabamaor
Mississippi in football, we've been trying, but we have never quite done
it. But in terms of inter-collegiate debate, the University of Florida
has been virtually, at least in the southeastern region, the Notre Dame
of the debate world. And when I was an undergraduate, we would have as
many as fifty debators on the road any one weekend competing in debate
tournaments ranging from Chicago to Dallas to Atlanta or wherever you
might have. So, that any young man or woman who went to the University
of Florida who was interested in government and politics felt that a
valuable part of training to be prepared for that was to participate in
student government at the University of Florida where students, perhaps,
were given more responsibility than they were at many other universities
and was a big thing and inter-collegiate debate. And I can look around
state government and find many of my colleagues who served with me in
student government at the University of Florida who were active in
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page 9
inter-collegiate debate and who were in Florida Blue Key and who have
continued that activity in the legislature. And that could be one thing
that is lurking in the background, but I don't know how that compares to
other states.
J.B.: Who are some of those people?
Sessums: Well, let's see. Our present governor was fairly active in
it, though he was not at the University of Florida, he did his undergraduate
work here at Florida State in Tallahassee. And he is probably the first
student who is a product of the Florida State system, which when they
became coed was quite similar to the one at the University of Florida.
He did his law school work at Florida. Bob Sheving, who is on the cabinet,
who is our attorney general I would almost have to get out a list
real quickly, but I can probably pick out a dozen or two Blue Key members
who are fairly active in both chambers, who are committee chairman and
such as that. I can ..
W.D.V.: Is there a general emphasis at the university of public savice
and .
Sessums: Florida Blue Key really was the founding chapter of what became
nationally the Blue Key organization and later it felt that the quality of
the organization was being diluted, so it withdrew from the national
organization that it helped found and it has just continued to be unaffiliated
with any national organization. And looking at the senate, Senator Home,
the president of the senate, was chancellor of the honor court in our
student government system and a member of Florida Blue Key, Senator de la
Parte, the senate pro tem, was the president of the student bogy at the
University of Florida, although he was not selected for Blue Key, primarily
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because he did his undergraduate work at Emory. He came back and was
very active in student affairs as a law student and was a summer school
president of the student body and if he had had a little undergraduate
involvement, he probably would have been selected. Dick Pettigrew was
a president of Florida Blue Key and was active in debate, although
he was not one of the varsity debators, Bob Sheving, whoserved with him,
Ken Myers Ken was not in inter-collegiate debate, but he and I
were partners in the law school moot court competition. I can look
through the house here, Jack Shreeve, who is chairman of our committee
on criminal justice was a Blue Key president. Bill Birchfield, who
serves as chairman of one our committee was very active in student
government. I think that perhaps .
W.D.V.: Were these people that you are naming and yourself, all at
the University of Florida all at the same time?
Sessums: Pretty well, but it spreads out. United States Senator
Holland was in his student days, active. Senator Smathers was active
in debate and was the president of the student body. I would say that
if I had the list of all these people, I could move through and pick them
out fairly quickly, but .
W.D.V.: Were they basically in the late fifties and early sixties that
they were at the university?
Sessums: Well, Holland and Smathers were there prior to World War II,
but ..
W.D.V.: No, I was thinking about the group that you mentioned?
Sessums: But you find there, pretty much that they came in in '48, '49
and through the mid-fifties. And I think that they activists of the day,
instead of going out with petitions and things like that, generally tended
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page 11
to get active in student government and also to participate in inter-
collegiate debate and such as that and to look forward to and to prepare
himself for some type of service role in state government.
W.D.V.: Has that continued, has that tradition been followed at the
university?
Sessums: Reasonably well. I don't know, it's not, I don't think, an
overly conscious deliberate thing. That is, it will dissipate a little
because we have had considerable expansion of the state university system
since then, but .
J.B.: But when you got here then, in the first four of five or six years
here, you began to run into a lot of people that you already knew?
Sessums: Oh yeah.
W.D.V.: From that group that started right after the war and went through
about '55?
Sessums: Uh-huh.
J.B.: I mean, these were not strangers?
Sessums: Oh no, I knew many of the guys before I ran and when I came up
here. For instance, the Congressman, when he was our state senator that
I came up here to work for, had been a member of Florida Blue Key and
active in student government at the University of Florida.
J.B.: Was there a conscious feeling, particularly on the part of those
who came three or four years after you, during that period and into the
middle sixties, of coming up here to turn things around?
Sessums: Oh, yeah. I think that most of these people, with the exception
of one or two who came from rural areas who felt reasonably comfortabb with
the status quo, tended to settle by and large in urban areas,to reflect
that point of view and were quite anxious to change and to catch up.
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J.B.: Somebody told us that in Florida, that being a state legislator
has status, more so than probably any other southern state.
Sessums: Well, I don't know. I would say that it's I would think
so, I would say that it reflects credit to be a member of the state
legislature here, rather than not. I think that the public in Florida,
like the public generally, may have a tendency to depreciate elected
public officials somewhat, but I think that individually, most members
of the legislature are reasonably well regarded by their constituencies.
We lose more people out of the house because of attrition, that is,
because they quit or they run for some other office than because they
get defeated at the polls. Although, there are occasions when that
occurs. I would say that most of the members of our legislature are
reasonably well regarded.
J.B.: The combination of the Sunshine Law and the public disclosure
law, aside from the obvious public benefits of both, what effect does
that have on the members insofar as putting pressure on them, I guess
that's what I'm trying to say? Is that a deterrent against them?
Sessums: The Sunshine Law?
J.B.: Combined with the disclosure law?
Sessums: Well, I don't think that the Sunshine Law is any deterrent
to serving. To some extent, it complicates the way we work, but I think
that it does it in a way that is beneficial. I could illustrate. When
I first became a member of the appropriations committee, near the end of
the term, we passed a general appropriations act. I was selected to be
one of the house conferees on the conference committee. It was the first
time that I had served on a conference committee and I felt it was a big
deal and I was looking forward to it. One of my house conferees was Bob
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Graham, who is the chairman of the senate education committee. Well,
Bob had been real active in the student government at the University
of Florida. He had been chancellor of the honor court and was in
Florida Blue Key and was a good student. And so, I was discussing with
Bob what we needed-:to do to be effective on this conference committee,
because we were the two junior members of it and we had a strong
position that we wanted to maintain in the allocation of funds for
higher education. And we felt that we were going to have an uphill
battle because of the greybeards on the senate side, Jack Mathews,
who was the president of the senate, and Mallory Home and Reubin
Askew and some others who were fairly tough conferees. Well, Bob
had checked out of some library the treatise written by a doctoral
student at Harvard analysis the success of conferees on conference
committees in the Congress. And we both read that to be properly
prepped for this experience and it seemed to indicate that the most
effective conferee frequently was just the one who was the most
obstinate. So, we tried to fortify our position, not only with logic
and reason and everything like that, but with a great deal of obstinacy
also. And I departed a little bit from your question, and bring me
back into it if you will well, you were asking about the
.Sunshine Law, well that conference committee did its work in a weekend.
We went out to Mallory Home's lake place and the house and senate
conferees were there with the staff director and we went through the
issues and people were very candid and except for the primary thing that
Bob and I were interested in, the whole thing was done over the weekend
and then we had to wait a week to rationalize a way of compromising our
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page 14
issue, but it was done out of the sunshine. Now, when a conference
committee meets, there are going to be 150 people in the audience and
the newspapers are going to be there and it is generally going to take
more time, not necessarily, but generally. But that the other fact of
that is that the public has a much better awareness of why changes are
made and what they are and I think that there is a greater feeling of
acceptance on what is done and I think that perhaps we avoid some
mistakes that we might make by letting people know what's coming before
it arrives, get a reaction from them before we finally wrap it all up
and it is done. The effect of financial disclosure, I don't know what
that really will be. Ma ny people are doing it voluntarily now and
I suspect that this session will pass some legislation. I have an
idea that that will probably keep some people from running. Some of
them will be people that you may not want to run and others will be
people that that is the straw that just breaks the camel's back and
it just makes it that much more complicated. And it tends to be more
complicated for a part-time public official than one who is perhaps on
the payroll full-time. One other thing that I think may have made a
difference in Florida that has not occurred too often, and that is we
had a Republican governor, who was elected in 1966. And I think that
he may have contributed unintentionally a great deal to .
(End of side A of tape.)
Sessoms: .. .over the years, if it ever really had been strong.
So that when the old legislature came to town, most of the major legislation
was prepared by the governor, or by the cabinet officers and they pretty
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page 15
much farmed it out to their friends as the people who sponsored it and
then handled it. And the legislature had little or no capability of its
own to really do anything. They had one or two staff people and the
clerk and the sergeant and that was about it. You depended heavily,
no only on the lobbyists, but very heavily upon the executive branch
of government which lobbied a great deal. And legislative leadership
did not too often challenge the executive. Governor Collins had his
problems with the legislature, primarily over a racial matter, but
the rest of the executives supplied most of the legislation. Well,
in 1966 I'm trying to get my years straight, Florida did, I
think, finally legislatively do a pretty adequate job of reapportioning
itself. The new members were elected and in the same election, Governor
Kirk was elected. And that was, if you will recall the situation, we
had an incumbent governor, Eden Burns, who was a Democrat, who served
a two year term. And then he was defeated in the Democratic primaries
by Robert King High,the mayor of Miami. He was really the first
breakthrough of a man who came of a south Florida, one of the left out
areas. Governor Burns came from Jacksonville, a relatively large urban
county, but it by virtue of geography and tradition, had always been in
the Pork Chop Gang, northwest Florida group. And it had been accomodated
pretty well within that group and it had never really related with the
guys from central and south Florida. Well, when Mayor High, who was the
mayor of Miami, beat Governor Burns in the primary, it represented a
shift of the political balance really, somewhat from north to south
Florida. But the people with Governor Burns were so unprepared to
accept this that they did not support Mayor High and they vigorously
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page 16
supported the Republican candidate, who I think without that factor,
would never have been elected. But he was elected, although we did
elected strong Democratic majorities in both houses. But Governor
Kirk came to state government without ever having held a public office
before and without any real knowledge at all of state government. And
in his inaugural address, he surprised everybody by calling us into
special session a couple of days later. And we had finally finished
that up and gotten home when the district court then promulgated a
new reapportionment plan and we had all new elections. And the court
plan, I think, probably did apportion us a little better, but there
were probably really only about four or five seats that were where
guys could not run for re-election under the court plan under our own.
It did not represent that big a change. And it was a real surprise to
those of us from the urban areas as well as those from the rural areas.
We had new elections and Congressman Gurney, who is now our United
States Senator, did a lot of t.v. work in the lower east coast. And
the court elections were special elections and the only people on the
ballots were legislators. There was a very low turnout for the elections
and you had a new Republican governor who was at the zenith of his
popularity, which did decline constantly thereafter, with the help of
one of the most vigorous Republican Congressmen who was trying to prepare
his campaign for the U.S. Senate. And we just had a very bad time in
that election. We had a substantial increase in the number of Republicans
elected, in fact, all incumbent Democratic members of the house from
Miami north to Volusia County, the Daytona Beach area in through Orange
were basically wiped out. And so we came back then, just as the term
was getting under way, with a Republican governor and with suddenly
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page 17
significant Republican minorities in both the house and the senate,
capable of upholding the gubernatorial veto. And I think that this
had a dramatic effect on the legislature and operated with these other
things to cause the legislature to really start asserting themselves
as a co-equal branch of government. And the governor was if we
had had a Democratic governor, I don't think that we really would have
cut ourselves clear of the apron strings as quickly or as easily. We
would have been inclined to try to agree and still lean on the governor
for a lot of help and leadership. But the positions became so antagonistic
that we developed, we decided that the legislature had to be prepared to
sort of really govern Florida whether the governor liked it or not. And
so we undertook to write the general appropriations bill and to start
acquiring staff for our committees and to put our own house in order. And
I think that the combination of reapportionment, reflecting great change
in the state, the combination of a Republican governor with a competition
with Democratic majorities in the house and senate, are two of the factors
that helped most of this jell. And the governor himself, for instance,
when it came to the subject of constitutional revision, he said to a
privately to a number of us, he said, "Look, we want to revise the
constitution." Well, the proceeding number of Democratic governors
had said the same thing. But then here is where he parted greatly
with them. He said, "Frankly, I don't care a whole lot what you put
in it, I just want a new constitution. I would like to be able to
appoint the cabinet rather than have them elected, but I don't honestly
see much chance of ya'll agreeing to that, so go ahead and revise the
constitution and let's get a constitutional commission working on it
and get the job done right and I won't bother you." And he didn't
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page 18
really, he had very little imput in what was done there, so that a
Democratic governor would have been full of ideas and direction and
everything like that and chances are that very little would have been
done. So, I think that all that helped a great deal and I don't know
of any other southern state that has had well, there have been
several other southern states that have had Republican governors. I
don't know if any of them have had Republican governors quite like the
one that we had or that we could have had similar experiences with a
different type of Republican governor, one who had not too really a
good understanding of what state government was all about, did not
have the benefit of a very experienced staff, although he had some
talented people working with him. And it gave us a challenge that
we may not otherwise have had to move out.
W.D.V.: How do you feel about the tradition of rotating the speakership
and the presidency of the senate?
Sessums: Well, I would say that in many ways it has been beneficial
and I realize that the overwhelming weight of authority, including
intellectual thought is that it is bad. But I have felt that it
continues to keep our system more open, to new ideas and new
enthusiasm, and it I think that it causes more things to happen than
if we were to settle down with more stable leadership and continuity
of leadership. There are risks involved in it and there are limitations
involved in it. I can see now some real good reasons for having a
permanent speaker that I didn't see before I became speaker. On the
other hand, I think that our process will probably be more stimulated
by a changing of the guard than if I or another person was to continue
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page 19
on as speaker. I have not really set down to sort it all out, but I
think that our rotation of leadership has been more of a plus than a
minus.
W.D.V.: How about the practice of the selection of the speaker by the
caucus before the next legislature comes in?
Sessums: Well, I think that's a desirable thing to do. It gives the
incoming leadership a little warning and a time to organize their
program and thoughts and to set up. We have changed our caucus rules
somewhat to do it in a slightly different way in the future.
W.D.V.: It's being challenged now, isn't it?
Sessums: Not the system, the individual. Yeah, so that of course,
that can happen anytime. I would say that Florida, like any state could
suffer if the membership makes a poor choice of leadership. And there
are some who could provide more effective leadership than others. Now,
the speaker in Florida is a little bit different animal than he is in
some states. I'm sure that you have seen many different variations on
this. In some ways, I enjoy, probably, a lot more strength or stability
or power than the speaker in say, a state like California, who ostensbily
is a prominent speaker, but still, a motion with the greatest dignity
in California is a motion to declare the chair vacant. Now, this may
make the speaker, although he's a prominent speaker, it may make him
quite responsive to his majority bloc. But I am elected for a
constitutional, two year term. I have the right to be re-elected, but
the tradition has been otherwise, not any formal rule or provision.
And I can pretty well decide what committees we will have, who the
leaders of the committees will be, who will serve on what committee,
what staff we will have and a number of other things. It would appear
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page 20
by itself to be almost a tremendous grant of dictatoril power and
some speakers can determine also what bills are going to what committee,
although there are some restraints on that. But after everything is
said and done, you still have to have majority of the members who are
in general agreement with what you are doing. So that although they
are not all written or spelled out, they are very pracitcal limitations
on the authority and power of any speaker. He still has to get people
to do things because they want to do, and not because they have to do
them, if he is going to be consistently successful in getting something
done. And because of that, I don't think .
(interruption on the tape)
so that I would say that a bad speaker will probably not be as
big a calamity as some would fear and that a great speaker may not be
quite as great a speaker as some of his closest friends or zealots would
think, because of the fact that you've got many other people whose
opinions and points of view have to be taken into account and sometimes
they don't do exactly what you want them to do. In the case of a good
speaker, that may be bad and in the case of a bad speaker, it may be
good. The one thing I would be reasonably sure of, I think that when
speaker Pettigrew made some move toward having more permanent leadership
that they put the cart before the horse in a way. I would say that if
they want to have a permanent speaker or permanent senate president, that
you will have one provided if you make the job one that someone would
be willing to hold and perform on a permanent basis. But it is, in our
system, just about a full-time job with party-time compensation and
everything else. And most speakers that I have known, have been delighted
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page 21
to pass the gavel on to the next speaker. They have needed to get back
to their business or their profession and I think that the thing that would
do more to provide for a permanent speaker than anything else would be to
take the salary and double it and then if you had a fellow who really liked
being speaker and a membership that wanted to continue him, he would be in
a circumstance to continue. And Florida has not done nearly enough as a
number of our sister states. Georgia, Massachussets and many others, their
speaker or senate president can afford to continue.
W.D.V.: How do you assess the cabinet system?
Sessums: Well, it's one of our political dilemmas. If I were designing
a system of government, I would not have the elected cabinet. However, it
is one that has been fairly deeply engrafted into our tradition. Now, to
make you, to help you understand why it is a little hard to change that
tradition during many of the Pork Chop years, before our legislature
was reapportioned, the cabinet were the good guys. The cabinet were the
ones who ran statewide, who tended to be deferential to the urban areas,
much more so than the legislature. So, the urban areas began to sort of
forget about the legislature, let the bright young lawyers run for those
jobs, the power structure really related with the governor and the
cabinet. And they felt that they had some input there because the guys
had to stand statewide elections. So that it has probably not been until
1968 or so that you began to, with the emergence of a different kind of
legislator, that you began to sort of confuse that image, so that some
of the cabinet officers now are beginning to look like the outpost of
the industry that they deal with and are little bit more of the bad guys.
I think that the cabinet system could work very nicely for Florida if the
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page 22
voters ever selected a governor and cabinet officers who had reasonably
similar points of view or philosophies. The odds of that occurring with
any consistency are, I think, remote. The question I've had is whether or
not the cabinet system is just too deeply engrained in our tradition and
constitution and everything else to successfully make any change in it.
Most of us felt that the effort to change it would be so extreme and the
chance of success so remote that there would be nothing productive to do
it, but to not hit the cabinet system head on and to try and make it
work as constructively as possible for the state.
J.B.: We've heard it defended on grounds that it brings executive
decision making into the open.
Sessums: I don't see that. If anything, some issues it can ver-well
obscure it. I think that executive decision making is most visible
when one executive makes and is accountable for the decision.
W.D.V.: But as a practical matter, the authority of the legislature
has increased in the last eight years, hasn't it?
Sessums: I would say so, yes.
W.D.V.: In the appropriations process and other things. And as has
the governor since the new constitution.
Sessums: Well, the new constitution did not hit the cabinet system
head on. It continued it, but it did do a great deal to strengthen the
governor's position in the scheme of things.
W.D.V.: So, you may be accomplishing that obliquely, even if you didn't want
to.
Sessums: To some extent, yes. And I would suspect that, well, there may
be a tendency on the part of some who have strong disagreements with some
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page 23
cabinet members to question the system rather than the officer, but
they may not question other cabinet officers. For instance, I would like
to hear a discussion on this subject between, let's say, Dick Pettigrew,
who has been, I think, generally opposed to the cabinet system and
reasonably well thought out in his approach to it, and Bob Shevins, who
is the attorney general and serving on the cabinet. I think that Dick
would generally strongly approve of Bob Shevins as a cabinet officer
and he may not approve of the comptroller or the commissioner of
agriculture or some others. I would say that some people who are opposed
to the cabinet system would be much less opposed to it if there were
different cabinet officers. I think that as time goes on, the cabinet
like the legislature, will be more rather than less inclined to accept
the dominant view of the majority of the state. And I think that the
cabinet, although it was ahead of the legislature in reflecting the
public will, at this point as a whole lags a little bit behind it and
has not made that adjustment. When it does, the cabinet may get along
a little bit better with the governor and the legislature and it may
work a little bit more smoothly than it is at the moment.
W.D.V.: Now, you are retiring as speaker and also from the house,
does that mean that you are going to drop out of state politics?
Sessums: There is some speculation that I may be a lieutenant governor
candidate, but that is all it is, and ..
W.D.V.: How do you feel about it?
Sessums: I have avoided giving it a great deal of thought. If the
governor came to me and said that he would like for me to do it, I
would get in high gear and think about it and it would be a little
bit of a dilemma. I enjoy public service to some extent, but I have
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page 24
grown quite weary of moving my family up here every year and moving back
to my district and trying to cope with a law practice under all of this.
I, well, the governor put it to me this way when he was running. He
said that he had gotten to the point where he either had to get into
full-time public service or get out of it. And I am at that point. And
either alternative is reasonably attractive. But the governor has many
good choices to make and I'm not sure that I would be the best one for
him and I'm not campaigning for it and ..
W.D.V.: How about the cabinet?
Sessums: No.
W.D.V.: There ought to be some vacancies there, shouldn't there?
Sessums: Yes, I have encouraged Ralph Turlington to run for commissioner
of education and he was appointed to the vacancy that occurred there and
I am not interested in being commissioner of agriculture or any of the
others. I might conceivably be, just because of the secondary role
that the cabinet has as the state board of education, but no, I'm not
interested in running for cabinet office. I think that what I will do
will be to go back and practice law and try to be a little bit more
helpful to other candidates. I have always been a candidate myself
and perhaps a little bit more reserved about being involved in other
campaigns, at least in the primary stage. And I think that I can probably
be a little bit more active and helpful to people there. Then, if I get
many opportunities many opportunities for service arise, so I
figure that if I get too unhappy with the practice of law, feel too
restricted in it and want to get involved in some grand debates, I can
find an opportunity to do that. They come along with probably greater
frequency than we like. So, that's probably what my situation will be.
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J.B.: How do you assess the role of the Democratic party in state
politics?
Sessums: Well, it has been changing a little bit. At home, generally
the elected Democratic official has given the party as wide a berth as
possible. The party has had little influence, it has not always enjoyed
too good a reputation and the dilemma for the Democratic office holder
is whether or not it is worth the effort to try and straighten it up or
to try and ignore it and be identified with it as little as possible.
I think that the attitude most public officials now have is that you
cannot or should not ignore it and that the party ought to be improved
and strengthened to play a more active and useful role. And I think
that is the direction we are inclined in, but I'm not sure that the
party has really made it or that the party itself is too strong or
influential.
J.B.: Has the problem on the local level been control by party
organization by people that are more strong on ideology than anything
else?
Sessums: Well, frankly, people at the local level have been involved
in the party in the past, well, they have been well, there has been
such apathy that it has been very difficult to even get people to
serve as precinct men and precinct women on local county executive
committees. And generally what will happen every few years is that
someone will make a run at electing a majority of the seats to select a
chairman and then tries to keep them filled through appointments by
filling vacancies and things like that. And they have been more concerned
with survival and petty things than they have with anything of real
substance.
J.B.: The position I hear is that organizationally, Republicans tend
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page 26
Sessums: Yes, I would say that is quite true. Well, at home, some of
us decided that it would probably be better to shake the party up and
so, my aide at the time was elected well, we offered a slate and
we obtained the control of the party and elected the chairman and such
as that. It is sort of an intermediate stage now, they at least enjoy
some slightly improved reputation and they are generally working to
help elect Democratic candidates in the general elections and they are
not blowing what money that they have on just advertising themselves.
But I think that at thes state level, the party is much more actively
involved than at the local level except in a few counties. I think
that the party generally has fairly good leadership and I think that
the governor and our junior United States Senator are both quite
supportive, but not enough time has gone by and the party has not
acquired muscle or experience or the money or anything else to really
call too much of a tune.
J.B.: Do you see then, a stronger role for the party in the future?
Sessums: Yes, I think that it will become stronger and more involved
rather than less. But we have a long way to go there.
W.D.V.: Any regrets about the last eleven years?
Sessums: Oh, not really.
W.D.V.: Anything that you would do differently?
Sessums: No, most of the legislative programs that I've been really
interested in have worked out fairly well. I was a zealot for reapportionment
and we are reapportioned about as perfectly as can be done. My next major
subject area was in the equalization of public school finance and we have
been pre-eminently successful in that. I've got a long laundry: list
of things that need to be done and some suggestions that I would make to
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page 27
the next crowd. Because I'm sure that there are many more important
legislative battles to be won. In fact, I can now see a number of new
subject areas that have not occurred to me before that would want a
great deal of time and effort. But I don't have any particular regrets.
I would still recommend legislative service to anyone who I thought was
really,interested in doing it and who had the confidence enough to be
helpful. But many of us have different personal circumstances. I've
got young children in my family and I have not just well, the
first time or two that I came up here I commuted. My wife didn't like
it, I didn't particularly like it. It was a matter of chasing home on
Friday afternoon and coming back up here Sunday night or Monday morning.
And it was very difficult to keep my law practice going or my law
partners happy. And my children are now at an age, well, they are ten,
twelve and eight and they are beginning to be involved in more things
and after the first time or two of commuting, I found that it was just
much better just to move them up here with me, so every session, I have
generally leased an apartment and moved my family up here and stayed
up here during the session, except for one or two trips back on Saturday.
And then, we moved back at the end of the term, but my children are now
invovled in school activities, boy scouts and little league and if I had
to take a democratic vote, my family would no longer come up here and
I .(interruption on tape) this last year I had the gross
income of right about $50,000. That included the sale of assets and
my income from public service and my law practice has been in the
neighborhood of $30,000 to $35,000 a year. And I can't I mean,
you can live very comfortably on that (End of tape.)
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