Chamber Fiesta: Your Legislators Show Up and Listen

Today the Chamber of Commerce is convening its pre-legislative session cabal. Jacob Stuart, president of the Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce, has summoned the “Central Florida Legislative Delegation” to a retreat at the Daytona International Speedway.

Legislators will enjoy a noon “luncheon” hosted by the Board of Directors of BusinessForce, the political arm of the Chamber. After an hour and a half closed meeting, the group will convene in another two hour meeting hearing the priorities of the Chamber interests. The fun doesn’t end there for our legislators. An evening cocktail hour, which is slated to actually be almost 3 hours, promises to give regional business leaders “a chance to show their support of your leadership role as a member” of the Chamber’s delegation.

The Central Florida Partnership, yet another one of Stuart’s Chamber arms, is the actual host and will present on the “shared agenda” to promote business interests that have typically gone directly against middle-class, working class, and poor Floridians. Despite having just concluded a decisive election, the Chamber of Commerce will spend hours schmoozing our local senators and representatives and spoon-feeding them their orders before the legislative session begins.

Look out, the Chambercrats are attempting to expand. It gets worse. It appears Stuart has actually coined this “Central Florida Legislative Delegation” and his various arms of the Chamber will host the event. A nice attempt to shield the true purposes of the meeting from the public and those pesky constituents the legislators are supposed to work for.

After delivering the welcome message, Stuart will turn the program over to a slew of Chamber insiders. Speakers will include International Speedway president Joie Chitwood, UCF President John Hitt, as well as a regional transportation update from MetroPlan Executive Director Harold Barley, CEO of Lynx John Lewis, and Executive Director of the Expressway Authority Max Crumit. MetroPlan’s Chairman Brandon Arrington was recently caught up in a local controversy when he had to resign abruptly after it was discovered he took a high paying job with a company that won a MetroPlan bid he voted for.

The reality is Orange County’s delegation is now bluer than ever, electing Democrats throughout the county. Stuart must expand the boundaries in order to ensure his numbers in the “legislative delegation.” This meeting is nothing more than a “the Chamber sets the agenda and you better show up and listen” kind of event. Our elected officials also will travel away from their districts to see the Chamber president and kiss his ring before they really get to work in Tallahassee.

It seems all of the arms of Jacob Stuart’s Chamber will take part in the day’s activities. WONO is able to confirm that Rep. Linda Stewart will not attend, but was unable to verify plans of other members of the Orange County delegation, whose local offices are still being established. Stewart will be holding a town hall meeting in her district that was previously scheduled.

Learning details of the meeting brings back memories of the Orlando protests which included prominent chants like “the Chamber or the People, Who do you choose?”