By DONNA BALANCIA
TALLAHASSEE — Florida’s Sen. Thad Altman (R-Rockledge) has accomplished much since getting elected to the Florida Senate in 2008. He has worked to help Florida’s military families, he promotes space exploration, and he is an avid supporter of the restaurant and tourism industries.
His one regret: He couldn’t do more to keep in Florida a high-speed rail, a project that he says could have employed 50,000 people — many of them displaced aerospace workers. The project which was cancelled last March, still represents a sore spot for Altman, who waged a court battle to keep the Florida portion of the project alive.
Altman says Gov. Rick Scott’s wanted to sabotage President Barack Obama’s plan for the first phase of the high-speed rail — as well as all the jobs and the $2.4 billion that went with it.
“Gov. Scott is a pick-pocket,” Altman said. “Gov. Scott pick-pocketed the people of Florida.”
In an exclusive interview with The Florida Law Journal’s publisher, Donna Balancia, Altman opens up about his hopes, fears, disappointments and his vision of the future in Florida.
DB: What happened to the high-speed rail that was a top initiative here in Florida?
TA: By December of 2010, we had a $1.3 billion grant that was negotiated and ready to sign into law. In fact, Charlie Crist could have signed it and I called him and asked him, he said he wasn’t aware of it, nobody brought that to him during the transition. So, in the first part of January, Scott came in and he sat on it and sat on it. Then, he said he was going to kill the high-speed rail. He didn’t give leadership in the house any information — our response was, ‘By what authority?’ So we filed a quo warranto lawsuit.
DB: That’s pretty bold.
TA: U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood, said he was going to take the money away. So, Paula Dockery (R-Lakeland) got together a letter of 26 senators, Republicans and Democrats, who basically said, ‘Please don’t take our money.’
We filed a quo warranto, which challenges the governmental privilege. The governor never backed down, LaHood gave us a week. I went through 10 different law firms, a lot of the firms couldn’t take our case. But Clifton McClelland agreed to do it pro bono. There was a lot of help behind the scenes, but Cliff did a lot of work with different transportation planners, firms that did that type of work, transportation experts, so we got a lot of assistance in preparing the quo warranto. I was optimistic.
Cliff flew up in the morning of the hearing, but his plane descended quickly and he lost his hearing when the plane landed. I met him in the library, he couldn’t hear what I was saying. The proceedings started and he couldn’t hear what people were saying. Justice (Barbara) Pariente finally yelled, ‘Can you hear what I’m saying?’ Finally he said he couldn’t hear, he couldn’t hear any of the justices to his left, and he told that to Chief Justice (Charles) Canady. They gave him a device for his hearing but it really didn’t work.
DB: Sounds like things didn’t get off to a great start.
TA: Well, we didn’t feel like we really had our day in Court. So Pariente asks Scott’s attorney Charles Trippe, ‘How much have you spent?’ of the money that was allotted and Trippe said ‘$110 million.’ But we knew the number was really $20 or $30 million and that the attorney misrepresented the facts to the Court.
Gov. Scott’s duty is to faithfully implement the law. When the governor took office, money was being spent on the project, the survey, acquiring the right of way and then the governor took office and says, ‘I’m not going to support the project.’
Later, Trippe wrote a letter to the Court saying that there had not been $110 million spent, but instead $20 or $30 million, just as we thought. Trippe violated a sacred principle of candor before the Court. But the Court believed Trippe when he initially said $110 million and that biased the ruling so the Court didn’t grant the petition. Also the Court had the letters from the Senate President (Mike Haridopolos) and the Speaker (Dean Cannon) who wrote letters supporting the governor.
DB: Ok, so it appeared they were spending the money, implementing the project and not violating any law.
TA: In early March, the Feds took the $2.4 billion and gave it away. The money went to other states, other transportation projects that are not half as exciting as ours.
It’s frustrating because our only hope here was the Supreme Court. When any branch of the government is operating incorrectly, our only hope is the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is not like the Circuit Court. If we were in Circuit Court, you’d have the ability to ferret out the issues. the Supreme Court is pretty much issues of law, they pretty much have to take the face value of the oral arguments.
Clearly it was a bad ruling on the part of the Court. They took Gov. Scott’s word over ours, the $2.4 billion was a huge public concern, the proper ruling would have been to stop the governor from holding up the project, that would have pushed it back into legislature, and let’s face it, technically the governor is supposed to inform the legislature of all money passing down. This should have gone before the Joint Legislative Budget Commission. The governor’s counsel probably knew that.
They had two main documents attached to the brief before the Supreme Court, one was a letter from Mike Haridopolos supporting the governor and the other was a letter from Speaker Dean Cannon supporting the governor. But we had companies involved that wanted to go for the request for proposal. GE, Embraer and Siemens said they would commit to hiring at least 15,000 displaced aerospace workers with the end of the Shuttle program. Both Central Florida members could have supported the high speed rail. I think the Court looked didn’t have enough time, and said, ‘We need more information.’
DB: What does it mean to the people of Florida that this project went away?
TA: It was an exciting project. This was the most modern rail to date. The governor took our money, it was like pick-pocketing. He took $2.4 billion of our money and gave it away. No governor in the history of Florida has taken so much taxpayer money and has given it to another state. On this issue, Gov. Scott hurt the people of Florida more than any governor since the days of the Civil War when we seceded from the Union. This was a public policy foible so great, I challenge anyone to find any decision that was any worse.
DB: Gov. Scott contends Florida taxpayers would have been forced to pay billions in cost overruns or pay if the train project fell flat.
TA: In this issue, Gov. Scott put politics over the people. Barack Obama brought up high speed rail in his State of the Union Address, the next day after the State of the Union, he traveled to Tampa and had a big rally. Gov. Scott dislikes Barack Obama and it’s irrational regarding this issue. I think his dislike clouded his judgment and to get back at the President, he used $2.4 billion and the most exciting project — and killed it for Florida. He gave our money and some 50,000 jobs away. It was an unfortunate action on his behalf.
We had 14 Republican members who signed the bill to implement it, as well as well as 12 Democrats, we had a majority of members. I did not have much opposition. some Tea Party folks were opposed, but when I talked to them about why I was doing this, they appreciated it because I’m a strict constitutionalist. It’s unfortunate the court did not make the proper ruling. Gov. Scott did not have the authority to reject the project.
DB: What was the Court’s role in this decision?
TA: The Court wimped out. There was a little bit of trepidation, the three liberal justices are up for retention this election year. And the conservative Tea Party people will make a motion to have them voted off the bench. People were postulating we would have trouble with this Court. You know they wanted to split the Court.
DB: I know your fight for the high-speed rail didn’t take up all your time this year. What are some positive things that are in motion?
TA: As chairman of the Military Affairs, Space and Domestic Security Committee, I spend a lot of my time looking for opportunities to support veterans and military families and to make us more competitive in commercial space flight. We provide support to NASA to help in the transition to the new launch vehicles they may have. We’ve increased funding for Space Florida and improvements with the Cape to make it more competitive. We want to make Florida as viable as we can for commercial launches. The big three industries in Florida are Tourism, Agriculture and Aerospace & Technology. We’re beginning to see the fusion in Brevard County, in particular, between Tourism and Space; launches for tourists to see, and launches tourists can go on.
DB: What about the future of the Florida Supreme Court?
TA: There is more to come on that. Stay tuned.
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