Incoming House speaker recreates committee to eye public corruption

House speaker-designate Samuel Garrison Thursday night sent a memo to members announcing two new House standing committees and re-establishment of a third committee focused on public corruption.

The memo didn’t include details of who would chair the panels or their membership. Unlike his contemporary, Senate President-designate Jim Boyd, Garrison, a Republican from Fleming Island, did not release the names of the House members who would control key committees.

“I am committed to making committee time meaningful. I want you to dig into ideas, hear from the public, and truly study your colleagues’ bills, because behind every bill, every policy, and every budget item are people — our people,” Garrison said in the memo.

“With those goals in mind, we kept most of the current structure and made changes to focus on long-term policy and fiscal impacts, coordination, and emerging issues to help us address problems that extend beyond a single session, term, or time in Tallahassee.”

The Public Integrity Committee Garrison plans is similar to the Public Integrity & Elections Committee, part of the House structure under Chris Sprowls, speaker between  2020 and 2022.

In addition to focusing on public corruption, Garrison said, the panel will look at lobbying, financial disclosure, and conflicts of interest.

The Hope Florida scandal was uncovered in part by the House Health Care Budget Subcommittee, which generally focuses on creating the health care portion of the annual state budget and considers substantive healthcare bills that will require public spending.

The Public Integrity Committee and the other two new legislative panels Garrison announced are all “standing” committees. Standing committees in the House can consider and introduce legislation. By contrast, a “select” committee is created to address a specific task, and whether it can introduce legislation or vote on legislation is tied to the action that created it.

Garrison has created a Policy & Strategy Committee to address issues that transcend one policy area. “Its jurisdiction includes long-range planning and fiscal stability, Garrison said in the memo.

“I want the House to consider where Florida needs to be in five or 10 or 20 years and what steps we should take now to get there. This committee is where we will do that work.”

The third new standing committee is the Advanced Technology & Digital Security Committee. It replaces the Information Technology Budget & Policy Subcommittee created by former Speaker Danny Perez.

“The committee will focus on state technology governance and modernization because we need agencies to be capable of implementing the laws we write. It will also cover artificial  intelligence and emerging technologies, cybersecurity, digital privacy, data governance, and critical  infrastructure security,” the memo noted.

And, unlike, the committee it’s replacing, the Advanced Technology & Digital Security Committee will focus only on policy. Spending decisions, Garrison said in the memo, will be considered by the full Appropriations Committee and its subcommittees.