Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander has his hands full.

He’s doing the work of three men on the other side of the Capitol: House budget co-chiefs David Rivera and Marcelo Llorento and Bill Galvano, the House’s chief gambling negotiator.

That’s not counting the other GOP leaders who are participating in the spending chats out of public sight.

A weary-looking Alexander wound up 12 hours of public budget discussions yesterday to start in all over again at 8:30 this morning.

Tomorrow he’ll start in on gambling talks with Galvano.

How’s he holding up after weeks of 18-hour days of budget crunching?

“I’m a farmer. I get up early and work late,” Alexander shrugged.

Alexander has persisted in trying to fund Florida Forever but has met with resistance from the House.

When Gov. Charlie Crist dropped in on the budget conference this morning, money for the land-buying program that’s one of Crist’s priorities appeared likely.

“It’s all to this man’s great credit. Florida Forever will be Sen. Alexander’s great accomplishment. It’s great. Just great work,” Crist said, patting the Lake Wales Republican on the back.

“Just one cog in the wheel,” Alexander said.
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“Well, you’re a big cog, my friend. A very big cog,” Crist replied.

“Well I’m getting bigger every day if I don’t get out of here,” Alexander quipped, patting his stomach.

Tags: state budget

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 3rd, 2009 at 5:15 pm and is filed under Charlie Crist, legislature, state budget, State House, State Senate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.