We talked about everything from the controversial education bill to the tweet the speaker sent out with his arm around Mr. 305.
When the state paid Pitbull a million bucks for this tourism video, House Speaker Richard Corcoran sued to make the contract public. Then just last week a tweet from the speaker read: "Hanging with my good friend @Pitbull in 305!"
Hanging with my good friend @pitbull in 305! pic.twitter.com/A60ibqlJOx
— Richard Corcoran (@richardcorcoran) May 16, 2017
QUESTION: If ever there was a snap shot of the notion that sometimes politics can make strange bedfellows..perhaps that's a perfect portrait?
SPEAKER RICHARD CORCORAN: "I think you can be friends with people and still have opposite viewpoints. What we got together about was transforming kids' lives in inner cities who are title one students and making them have that opportunity and that future that they deserve."
Speaker Corcoran, fresh off his first legislative session as speaker made his own video, touting what he calls a transformative change in how business is done in Tallahassee.
QUESTION: What did you accomplish?
SPEAKER CORCORAN: "What we did really was fight against the status quo, fight against all those people who follow the money and just want the money and want to keep it and when you go crashing against those people it's very very difficult."
QUESTION: Since this session wrapped up, your critics have said the way this session ended was business as usual...backdoor deals and last minute bills. Your response?
SPEAKER CORCORAN: "It was the most open transparent and accountable budget process we've ever had. Nothing can get put in to the budget late in conference at all, zero, for the first time ever and you have to give an explanation for what these projects do, these are things that have never existed in the history of our state. Now they try to throw stuff up against the wall ans say it was done in secret, none of that is true. What is true is that we passed a transformative pro-parent pro-teacher pro-student bill that the status quo doesn't like."
Fighting the status quo and taking heat for it. His loudest critics say the speaker is auditioning for the governor's office.
We asked him today if he plans to run. He says he will think about it next year.
