What an effective president does

You have to give Florida Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, credit. When her colleagues tapped her three years ago to become Senate president during the 2023 and 2024 legislative sessions, clearly, she decided to go big, to be bold.

Rather than become a warrior in Ron DeSantis’ angry culture wars, Passidomo instead decided to take on two of Florida’s most nagging, difficult and important issues — the shortage of affordable workforce housing last year; and an increasing shortage of health care practitioners (doctors, nurses, dentists, mental health specialists, etc.) in the current session.

The legislation she has shepherded and persuaded both houses to adopt — the Live Local Act in 2023 and this year’s Live Healthy Act, Senate Bill 7016 — at least on paper and in theory, has the ingredients to boost supply and allay the shortages.