Will Weatherford Speaker of the House

The Florida Chamber of Commerce announced House Speaker Will Weatherford as its 2014 Most Valuable Legislator. The announcement and presentation of the MVL was made during the Florida Chamber’s Board of Directors meeting in Miami.

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However, it was Weatherford —not Scott, not anyone else in the Capitol rotunda —who most forcefully used his office to pressure the leaders of the Florida Senate to clear up a procedural impediment that stalled the legislation.

Weatherford employed the bluntest of political tools: a veiled threat to hold hostage the state’s $77.1 billion budget until the Senate un-stuck the bill.

“I will not have a budget on the desk,” Weatherford said in a phone call he placed Monday to the office of Senate President Don Gaetz, an opponent of the legislation…