Millions of tourists visit the Orlando area each year for Walt Disney World, Universal Studios and SeaWorld. But should Central Florida also see a yearly flood of politicians and lobbyists?
State Sen. Kevin Rader wants Florida to look into the idea of moving the state capital from Tallahassee to Orlando, introducing a bill this week that would study the costs and impact of moving the capital 259 miles down the road.
Rader, D-Boca Raton, wants the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability to consider several key factors in its study, including:
• “Ease of travel to the state capital for members of the public.”
• “Total cost of travel to and from the state capital for members of the Legislature during interim committee weeks and legislative session.”
• The cost of relocating not just the State Capitol Building, but the Supreme Court, the offices of governor and lieutenant governor, the Cabinet, and the entire Legislative Branch.
• The economic impact on Tallahassee and Leon County of moving the capital out of town.
If passed, the bill would require the study to be completed by Dec. 15, 2020.
Tallahassee was first named Florida’s capital in 1824, when legislators from the two biggest cities in the territory, Pensacola and St. Augustine, got tired of having to travel to each other’s cities.
So they determined a halfway point at a site of a major Apalachee village that had been burned by Andrew Jackson a few years before, set up a log cabin and called it Tallahassee.
Since then, the population center of Florida has long drifted to the south and to major cities such as Orlando, Tampa and Miami — but Tallahassee remains where legislators travel for session a few months each year.
Not that Central Florida hasn’t tried. A referendum in 1853 failed, and the governor vetoed a plan to move the capital to Gainesville in 1881.
Another referendum in 1900 pared the choices down to Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Ocala, but despite Jacksonville’s best efforts, Tallahassee won again.
Then, in 1918 or 1919, four Orlando men traveled to Tallahassee on business “with no intention of stirring up talk about moving the capital,” according to the book “Orlando: A Century Plus.”
“When asked what they were doing there, one of them, Judge Wilbur Tilden, jokingly said, ‘Why, we all came up here to move the capital to Orlando’,” according to the book.
The offhand remark led to a full-fledged campaign, but plans for a referendum failed in the 1920s and 1930s, despite 35 counties sending delegates to Orlando to back its claim to the capital.
The last gasp was in 1967, when the Orlando City Council, with the backing of Miami state Sen. Lee Weissenborn, passed a resolution urging another referendum — which Tallahassee promptly ignored.
Though, the Tallahassee Democrat reported, it did prompt Leon County to allow “liquor by the drink at hotels and restaurants,” and also led to the building of the new State Capitol Building.
“As a plaque on the first floor of the new Capitol reads,” the Democrat reports: “‘This plaque is dedicated to Senator Lee Weissenborn whose valiant attempt to move the capital to Orlando was the prime motivation for the construction of this building.’”
slemongello@orlandosentinel.com, 407-418-5920, @stevelemongello, facebook/stevelemongello