It occurred to me the other day, after Matt Gaetz released his eye-popping campaign finance report for his 2016 State Senate campaign, that the son of the current Senate President may just be the most powerful legislator in Florida.
Well, maybe not at this current moment; that title still belongs to a host of other lawmakers, such as Papa Gaetz and House Speaker Will Weatherford. In fact, Gaetz refers to himself as just “middle management.”
But if you measure someone’s power in joules, the SI unit for measuring potential energy — the energy of an object due to the position of the body or the arrangement of the particles of the system — Matt Gaetz just may be the most powerful legislator in Florida
This says something considering that Gaetz in 2010 was elbowed out of becoming Speaker Designate, even though he was a red-shirt freshman elected in a special election, thereby giving him a head-start on the rest of his class.
Gaetz’ potential energy can be measured (assuming he is elected and subsequently re-elected to the Florida Legislature each time he is on the ballot) by the notion he could serve up to thirteen more years in Tallahassee. In this era of term-limited lawmaking, that’s an enormous advantage.
Representative Gaetz still has three more years in the Florida House before he will succeed his father in Senate District 1 in November 2016. He’ll be up for re-election in 2020, but with the next round of reapportionment set for 2022, he will be on the ballot again that year — either for a two- or four-year seat. If he lucks into a seat that isn’t up again until 2026, Matt Gaetz will have served a full sixteen years in the Legislature, likely without facing another competitive primary, much less a genuine threat in a general election.
That’s because Gaetz’ House seat and his father’s Senate seat are about as conservative as they come in Florida. These districts skew to the right of Attila the Hun. And Matt Gaetz, without being a reactionary, is as red-meat conservative as his constituents. Meaning he likely won’t have to worry about a challenge from his flank.
Imagine that kind of political job security. It’s all but unheard of throughout the rest of battleground Florida. Even for those State House members currently representing safe seats, they have no guarantee that their night out at the ball won’t end after their eight years. If they wish to continue in the Senate, they’re likely to have to face-off against three or four of their House colleagues for that privilege.
But not Matt Gaetz. He could very well be in the Legislature until Hillary Clinton or Marco Rubio have left the White House after two terms.
So the next time you see Representative Gaetz, don’t just look at him as the razor sharp, smart-alecky House member from lower Alabama. No sir. In Matt Gaetz, you should see the one concept sorely missing from the current environment in the capital … institutional knowledge.
