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Florida House Speaker Dean Cannon is one of the three most powerful people in state government, so when he announced a plan in March to split Florida’s Supreme Court, people took notice. Cannon has been upset with the court since it removed three legislative amendments from last years ballot. Now, as Mike Vasilinda tells us, the court battle has resulted in some real political hardball being played at the Capitol.

Death penalty delays and the foreclosure crisis were sited as reasons to add judges to the Supreme Court, but as former Justice Raul Cantero, a Jeb Bush appointee, told Senators as he walked the Capitol, neither problems are the courts fault.

“What it needs are more trial judges to handle the foreclosure cases,” Cantero said.

Cantero’s push back is paying off. When the time came for the State Senate to take up the court bill…It was skipped.

Moderate Republicans not happy with the court-packing plan were summoned to meeting rooms in the back of the Senate.

“They were trying to see if we couldn’t enhance some of our projects, but our projects are doing as well as we could expect in a budget like this,” Sen. Dennis Jones (R-Seminole) said. “It would be nice to have a little more money but not at that expense.”

Senator Ellyn Bogdanoff has been pushing the court plan for the House Speaker. Without 24 votes in the Senate, supporters are scrambling.

“It changes on a daily basis,” Bogdanoff said.

But the legislation is the top priority of the powerful House Speaker. He could bring the legislative process to a screeching halt over the court changes if he wants. That threat isn’t sitting well with opponents,

“The one thing that should never have happened was to take something that the Speaker is pushing as far as a policy issue, and play that against the entire budget. That’s wrong,” Sen. Mike Fasano (R-New Port Richey) said.

With the Senate unwilling to split the court, the question now is what will the Speaker insist on. That means we won’t know what the court will look like until lawmakers have gone home.

Part of the court-packing plan would allow Governor Rick Scott to appoint three new justices. It would also give lawmakers a say in the confirmation.