Bill Cotterell: Florida's $61M renovation: Bullet-proofing the Capitol Complex

When Florida’s high-rise Capitol was on the drawing board more than 50 years ago, Gov. Claude Kirk Jr. complained that state lawmakers were erecting a multimillion-dollar monument to their own egos and called the huge complex “princely and ponderous palaces for political potentates.”

It wasn’t so much the big buildings that irked Kirk, a larger-than-life Republican who warred daily with the old school Democrats who had controlled the state Cabinet and both chambers of the Legislature since the Reconstruction era. The original Capitol, which is now a big museum in front of the real seat of state government, was a drafty, leaking old relic dating back to 1845 – which had metastasized with various add-ons over the decades.

A modern, fast-growing state like Florida needed a new headquarters. But Kirk’s alliteration was prompted by the $43 million cost of the 22-story shaft flanked by twin domes of the House and Senate, which since 1977 have put a startling silhouette on Tallahassee’s skyline – and an amused smirk on faces of many newcomers.

Like their governor, many Floridians grumbled about state leaders spending tax money on their own comfort and convenience. It’s a common complaint, since so many people see government – city, state and federal – as big, bloated and immune from financial realities we commoners endure.

Recently, you’ve probably seen news that the state is spending $61 million to replace windows in the big white Capitol complex. That’s 41% more than the place cost to build in the early 1970s. And the big difference, what reporters call the “news peg” of the story, is the timing of those 1,656 bullet-proof windows.

There’s more than a touch of hypocrisy there, as any mention of gun control is dead on arrival in Florida government. Just this year, legislators repealed the requirement of state permits for carrying concealed weapons. Several lawmakers are eager to go one step further and legalize open display of firearms, O.K. Corral-style.

There’s some logic to wondering why powerful politicians will work behind bullet-proof windows while regular folk outside have no way of knowing who might have pistols in their pockets. But there’s one other leap of logic none of the critics seem to be questioning.

Why target-harden the tallest building in Tallahassee? Maybe – it’s doubtful, but maybe – some lunatic with a rifle might shoot at the first five floors, so perhaps the impenetrable protection makes sense there. But above 150 feet or so, the kooks might as well throw rocks.

This new glass will be tinted to reduce sunlight and save energy. So people in the Capitol won’t be visible from ground level.

It’s said that timing is everything in politics and the “new” Capitol, as it’s still called, was born at an unhappy time. Watergate was raging on the national scene and Florida had its own spate of scandals, which ended with the lieutenant governor barely surviving impeachment and losing his next election, plus a couple of Cabinet officers going to jail.

Legislators had just increased their own salaries from $1,200 to $12,000 a year (no, that’s not a typo). Kirk vetoed the raise, so they overrode him, and he made a show of sitting next to a Christmas tree with a music box tinkling carols as he personally signed legislative paychecks. The voters weren’t happy with Kirk either (he lost in 1970), but the “1,000% pay raise” made it a bad time for political potentates to be building princely and ponderous palaces.

The state has always been security-conscious, despite Florida’s lax gun laws. After Sept. 11, 2001, a grim gray phalanx of barrel-like concrete posts has stood in front of the Old Capitol, lest terrorists ram a truck bomb into the complex. To that, you’d have to race uphill on Apalachee Parkway, smash through the historic Capitol, cross a broad courtyard, and finally hit the big building.

That’s not possible. But we’ve got the big ugly cement stumps standing silent sentinel in case anybody’s crazy enough to try.

It’s incredibly unlikely that a shooter taking potshots at the big Capitol might hit someone standing near a window on, say, the ninth or 16th floor. But that could also happen in any of a dozen office buildings and commercial structures, including some state offices, in downtown Tallahassee.

Just because it’s never happened, and is unlikely to succeed, doesn’t mean it won’t ever happen – especially in this era of mass shootings and terrorism abroad. So the state is spending $61 million to be on the safe side of bulletproof glass.

Bill Cotterell is a retired Capitol reporter for United Press International and the Tallahassee Democrat. He writes a weekly column for The News Service of Florida and City & State Florida. He can be reached at bcotterell@cityandstatefl.com.

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Bill Cotterell: Bullet-proofing Florida's Capitol Complex