History
Until January 7, 2003, Florida was unique among states in that its cabinet consisted of six independently and constitutionally elected members who each held an equal vote with the state Governor in executive decisions. The original Cabinet positions were:
- Attorney General
- Commissioner of Agriculture
- Commissioner of Education
- Comptroller
- Secretary of State
- Treasurer/Insurance Commissioner/Fire Marshal
In 1998, Florida voters voted to amend the Florida Constitution to shrink the Cabinet from these six members to its current three members. This amendment took effect in 2003, following the 2002 election.
Under the reforms adopted, the Secretary of State and Education Commissioner became appointed officials under the Governor who would oversee their respective agencies, while the positions of the Comptroller and the Treasurer/Insurance Commissioner/Fire Marshal were combined into the position of the Chief Financial Officer of Florida.
The Cabinet lost its control over the Florida Department of Education; management of K-12 education and community college education which was shifted to the new Florida Board of Education and management of the State University System of Florida to the new Florida Board of Governors. Some environmental policy powers of the Cabinet were shifted to other officials as well. The reforms were seen as ways to strengthen the power of the Governor.
Read more about this topic: Florida Cabinet
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“History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.”
—Henry Ford (1863–1947)
“Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.”
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741–1794)
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)