April: It's about to start recording. Okay. Well, good morning, Dick. It is a pleasure to have you today on Fluent in Floridian.

Dick Batchelor: Thank you for the invitation. I appreciate the courtesy.

April: We are very delighted today to welcome Dick Batchelor. Dick is a longtime leader in the State of Florida. He has been both a Florida legislator, a strong advocate, business leader, and just involved in many, many issues that concern Florida for the past 30, 40 years now. Dick is known as the go-to guy when there are issues related to child advocacy, hunger, healthcare, you name it. Dick is involved in many solutions to very complicated problems. So Dick, it is just a pleasure to have you here today, and great to talk to you from Orlando.

Dick Batchelor: Again, thank you very much, I appreciate it. Staying involved is very important. My wife says, "Aren't you going to retire?" But she said I can retire if I leave the house at nine, but I can't come back until five, so stay involved. Just stay involved.

April: That's right. It's good to keep an office, isn't it?

Dick Batchelor: Right.

April: Well, Dick, I know that you are a native Floridian. You're one of the few people who can say that. Talk to us a little bit about your background, what it was like growing up in Orlando back in the day?

Dick Batchelor: Well, actually not a native, but I'm almost. I moved here when I was 10 years old. My parents were tobacco farmers in North Carolina, sharecroppers.

April: That's right.

Dick Batchelor: People know what that means. Moved to Orlando when I was 10, moved into government housing. Then I used to tease when I was being on the campaign trail and giving my background I said, "I lived in public housing until my father got rich and we moved to Orlo Vista and bought a house for $8,000." Anyways, I grew up in school here and all the way from elementary to junior high school into high school. Then when I was in high school in 1966, I show you that I'm not that intelligent, I volunteered for the Marine Corps during the peak of the Vietnam War. I served a tour of duty in Vietnam, came back and actually dipping my toes in politics by getting involved in campus politics. Young Democrats, I remember 19-

April: This is at UCF, right?

Dick Batchelor: Actually, I started at Valencia Community College, Valencia College now. But actually, the first introduction to politics was that actually the late Bill Gunter was a state senator, a young state senator, and I met him. I had never met a politician, had no thought about getting involved in politics, did not understand politics. But then I can remember when I was head of the young Democrats when Chiles Walkin' Lawton walked from Century to Key West. I was in Orlando and actually walked with Chiles and supported him and his primary for the U.S. Senate and then Reubin Askew, for he's primary running for governor. So, that was my first introduction into politics.

April: And Dick, obviously when you were a teenager growing up in Orlando, it was quite a different place. What kinds of things do you remember about being a teenager growing up in Florida then?

Dick Batchelor: Well, I used to tell people before, Disney in 1972, Orlando was like a postage stamp, a very small, relatively quiet town. We had Mark Marietta, but that was about it, pre-Disney. What I remember about it though growing up and even in high school, citrus was a big, big element. Farming with citrus was very, very big in Central Florida, Orange County, [inaudible 00:03:50] Orange County, and then all the way up to Claremont. There was nothing but orange groves, which was good news, bad news. It was good that we had on industry, it was good that it was citrus. But during the freezing season, which was the harvesting season, they used to hire people like myself, high school students to go out and fire smudge pots. If you don't know what that is, basically it's a pot that has fuel in it, and you go down the road and you light it with the torch and that heat keeps the citrus from freezing.

And if we went out there we got coffee and donuts and we've got $10 a night. Or if we didn't have to fire the smudge pots, if the temperature did not reach freezing, we didn't have to fire the smudge pots. But if you actually fire the smudge pots, you got off from school the next day. In fact, it took you that long to clean up if you've been firing smudge pots all night. But we got-

April: That's what I was thinking.

Dick Batchelor: ... $10 coffee, donuts, and a day off from school. That was part of my growing up in the citrus part of Orange County.

April: Well, that taught you a little bit about entrepreneurship, I'm sure, of what it really takes to run a business.

Dick Batchelor: Absolutely, it did. It did. It did that. And then when I was in community college, also took a job as a steel erector, which means I didn't go any higher than two floors tightening bolts on a steel erection system. Then I actually took a job at, people, they called it landscaping, but I was a lawn mower, that was all I was. There was no landscaping associated with that. I was mowing somebody's lawn and sweeping it all. We didn't have blowers back then, they weren't that noisy. But anyway, so I did that. Whatever it took, and I sold shoes, I worked in a clothing store, whatever it take.

I did have the GI bill, which of course paid for my college education, which was a big incentive for a lot of us who came back from Vietnam to go to school, because it was at no cost to us. I did have that supplemental income, though I did every kind of thing, from erecting steel to selling clothes, selling shoes, whatever it takes. I learned to be a salesperson, and maybe that was part of my political career early on. If I can sell shoes, I can sell ideas, right?

April: There you go. There you go. What do you think sparked your interest in policy issues or political issues?

Dick Batchelor: Well, when I got back from Vietnam, as I mentioned, I got involved in campus politics like young Democrats, student government. Of course, a lot of us were, it's a tradition in Florida back in I would say '60, '70s and the early '80s was, you had to go to University of Florida and being the Blue Key Society to be a candidate for anything statewide, because there was so influential, but got involved at the college level. And then one of the first things I did, I actually borrowed a car, I didn't have a car. I borrowed a car, drove to Tallahassee and lobbied for the 18-year-old vote. Remember, we needed 34 state ratification for the Constitution amendment on the 18-year-old vote. And my premise was effective. Because I said, "Look, if I'm 18 and I can volunteer for Vietnam, but I'm not old enough to vote, that makes no sense at all." That was my message. I worked on the 18-year-old vote, which is the primary issue.

I worked a lot of race issues. We had a Congress of Racially Quality chapter on campus. I worked with them a lot of race issues, because there were a number of race issues, particularly in '67, '68. Particularly after the assassination of Martin Luther King and [inaudible 00:07:27] Robert Kennedy. And so there were a lot of race related issues on campus and so I was able to be involved in those issues early on. And really to that point, one of the points that I want to make is that when I grew up as a sharecropper son, the only blacks we were exposed to were other field hands, right? I was not exposed to a Black friend until I joined the Marine Corps, James Johnson, the Lake James Johnson became my very best friend in the Marine Corps. Communicated with him, and it really opened my eyes to a lot of issues.

A lot of things that went on from there to be able to spend time with Julian Bond, I went on to spend time with Reverend Jesse Jackson. But really learning the whole civil rights, equal rights platforms. I was able and fortunate to be involved in those issues very early on.

April: And so, Dick, you then went on to become a state legislator serving in the House of Representatives, representing a part of the Orlando area. What was the legislature like back when you served?

Dick Batchelor: Very interesting. I was 26 when I was elected, one of the youngest, but I think I was beat out by John Lewis out of Jacksonville. But I had experience in politics having been involved in the young Democrats and the countywide. I worked my first campaign, presidential campaign right out of college. I worked for Hubert Humphrey, but I had to fly down to the Fountain Blue Hotel in Miami and personally meet with ... Excuse me, personally meet with Hubert Humphrey and his wife Muriel to be approved to be the assistant campaign director for the State of Florida. And I was 22 years old at the time, 23 years old at the time, so I got involved in politics early. And then Tallahassee was, while it was admittedly, Democrats were in charge when I was in the legislature, I was able to share a number of committees and all. But it was not toxic like it is now.

To that extent, we would reach across the aisle on issues. There were some issues you could not agree on, let's say the choice issue, the abortion issue. But you could set that aside and we would even go to Republicans when we were in the supermajority in the House and the Senate and the Cabinet and basically say, "Are there some piece of legislation that you would like to pass before you go home?" Going home build, we used to call them. And we would put them on the agenda and try to pass the legislation that the Republicans wanted, and of course, you had to work across the aisle on the budget, that was the primary. The only thing you'd have to pass in the session is the budget, but we reached across the aisle, but it wasn't, I make sure we had debates and fairly vitriolic debates, but not the mean-spirited toxicity that you see now in Tallahassee and Washington.

April: Yeah. You served, did you serve when Pete Dunbar was in the minority?

Dick Batchelor: Yes. Yes. A very good minority leader, as Ron Richmond was, Kurt Kauser was. We had some very good minority leaders with which we worked. At the time we had very good speakers who were ... Or Hyatt Brown or Lee Moffitt or Ralph Haben, Don Tucker twice, of course, he was speaker twice. But they were again, reach across the aisle. Again, I'm not being naive. People had their own lanes they were in back then, but you could reach across the aisle on some issues.

April: Dick, your experience certainly has prepared you for the book that you recently wrote. It's Building Bridges in Toxic Political Times: A Road Map for Community Leaders. It seems like there could not be a more appropriate time for such a book, and I'm sure that your experiences have really informed that. What do you think the big takeaway from your book is?

Dick Batchelor: I think the big takeaway is, first of all, there's some issues that you will not agree on. You need to recognize that now, but can you reach across the aisle? In all candor, I have worked on many campaigns. When I say campaigns, community campaigns, dealing with opioid overdoses, domestic violence, child abuse, human trafficking. Because those are not partisan issues. The victims of all of those are very bipartisan or multi-partisan, if you want to use that term. You can reach across the aisle. Now, I'm not naive. Again, I'm a traditional liberal Democrat. I know that that's the lane I'm in. But as an example, when we needed, in 2002 the school board came to me and said, "Look, we have 138 schools in some state of disrepair. Some of them are literally falling down. We have no money at all. We have tried to pass a half a penny of sales tax six times in 20 years, it's failed every time. Would you lead the campaign to pass a half a penny of sales tax?" Said, "Well, that's great that you're putting me out front on something that's failed six times."

April: That's failed six times.

Dick Batchelor: "But sure, sure." Long story short though, the first thing I did as a Democrat, I reached out and asked the retired former Congressman Louis Frey, the late Louis Frey Republican to be the co-chair of the campaign to make it bipartisan. Well, we hired pollsters because we're going to release the poll results that were going to be positive. I hired a Democrat and a Republican pollster, so we could not be accused of being partisan either way. It came together. We raised about a half a million dollars. We convened around the faith community, African-American leaders, Hispanic leaders across the board, PTA and et cetera, and we passed that tax. I mean, it was a tax, a half a penny of sales tax.

In 2002 they came back, excuse me, 2013 they came back and said, "Well, we're out of money and the tax is expiring. Let's do it again." Long story short, we brought the community together, which is the operative term, bringing people together. Now, are there some people that you don't invite to the meeting? Yes. If they're intimately toxic and they're negative and they don't want to do anything positive, then you don't invite them to the meeting. You can't get everybody to meet. For instance, I've got a lot of friends who are Republican. I got a lot of friends who are economic conservatives, even social conservatives, MAGA supporters probably. But you could still reach across the isle.

Let me use one example, Project Opioid, I co-chair Project Opioid. We had so many fentanyl deaths, overdoses and deaths, et cetera, Florida, as we do out throughout the nation. But that issue, fentanyl does not discriminate. Fentanyl is 50 times more of a powerful than heroin. It does not discriminate. It would kill Republicans, Democrats, the NPA, it doesn't really matter. Why make it a partisan issue? My thesis of the book is, set aside things you cannot agree on, but convene around things you can't agree on. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, it really doesn't matter. Get to the table. "Can you come up with a plan that can reduce the fentanyl overdoses and deaths?" "Yes." "Can you come up with a plan on human trafficking, domestic violence, child abuse, whatever the issue might be?" The answer is yes, if you set aside the toxicity of it and don't invite anybody to the table who's innately toxic.

April: And so let's just, since we do get many NGO leaders, many community leaders who are listeners to this podcast, and it's certainly difficult in these times to try to find that common ground. So, give some advice to them as they are thinking about an issue, understanding that there will be people, they need to bring people together and there will be things they don't agree on. Help us think through how do you address that issue right upfront, do you think and say, "These are things we don't agree on."

Dick Batchelor: Yes, and I think the key, if I was going to give just a one sentence, I would say, don't allow your public policy issue to be politicized. Don't allow your public policy issues on what you're dealing be politicized. So, try to keep it in the community arena and not necessarily in the political arena. That way going in, if it's politicized going in, somebody to the left to the right might be in opposition. But if you focus it on as I did, whether it's building schools for children or human trafficking and all, those are public policy issues, they're not partisan by nature. They're actually bipartisan by nature as far as convening people around it. So, don't get hijacked, don't let a political arena hijack what is a community issue.

April: It seems like the issues themselves are not political, as you say, fentanyl, healthcare, et cetera. Those are not political, but the solutions often are, or that's where you get the politicization of it?

Dick Batchelor: Right.

April: How do you avoid that? Because the solution may be, "We need more funding." And there will be some who say, "Under no conditions are we going to ... Te goal is to starve government." How do you get past that?

Dick Batchelor: Well, I'm going to use the example of Florida Children's first, a statewide organization with which you're familiar, and they advocate on behalf of foster children, and it used to be an aging out of 18. You're in foster care, after 18 years old your state stoppings went away. And they convened, so it was a public policy issue. Should these young people be able to stay in foster care and get their stoppings until they're age 21, excuse me, 22. So the answer was yes.

Well, what the public policy question is this, if you get automatically or do you get the stopping beyond the age of 18 of the 22 if you have a job, or if you are in college of some sort? It could be a technical college or it could be a state university system. That was the public policy question. Obviously, now politically, it requires the legislature to pass a law reflecting that. It goes into the political arena, but it goes into the political arena not as a political issue, but as a public policy issue. Now, maybe there's a thin line there, but if you need the political process to work in your favor on a public policy issue, you can go back to something, this big candidate is important as who's your bill sponsor? In this legislature you've got a super majority Republican and House and the Senate, and of course the cabinet.

April: So you better have a powerful Republican?

Dick Batchelor: You better have a powerful Republican sponsoring your bill. Can you have a Democrat as a co-sponsor? Yes. But as far as who's going to move that piece of legislation, yes. So, it is a public policy issue, requires the attention of a legislative body to enact the statute, but you can still keep it somewhat isolated as a public policy. And it's not political, because now this is not a foster care funding for children who are aged out as not a Democrat or Republican issue. There's a fine line sometimes. But you've got to be very careful not to let somebody hijack your issue and politicize it, because then there is a little bit of toxicity involved. You have to be careful.

April: And so, a lot of times, I think people are discouraged from entering the public policy and the political arena by the divisiveness that seems to be increasing over the past few years. And that leads to name-calling, it leads to people getting threatened, all kinds of things. How do you move past that?

Dick Batchelor: Well, two or three things. One of, first of all, I tell people, if you're going to run for office and if you get elected, you've got to make a lot of choices. But the first thing, you have to recognize that your political currency is very hard to earn and is extremely easy to lose on one vote. Secondly, you got to decide if you want to be known for getting things done, or do you want to be well known for being well known? Too many people run, nowadays, so they want to be well known for being well known. There are two factors I think that really exacerbate that. One is the Citizens United case, which is one of the worst decision by the Supreme Court, which basically said, "Notwithstanding Thomas Jefferson's thesis on persona victim versus a natural person, the courts ruled that individuals, excuse me, corporations have the same rights of individuals on free speech, ergo campaign controversy. So now corporations can give unlimited amounts of money, and there's a very simple formula, the exponential increase in corporate financing of campaigns. There's an equal diminution of the influence individual voter has and thinks they have.

They get out of the process, how can I compete with unlimited campaign [inaudible 00:20:55]? That's one factor that has contributed to it really. They say campaign contributions or money is the mother's milk of politics, right? But it's sour, in this case, I think it's sour. Number two factors, social media. Social media has an accord and credible ability to communicate, but also equally ability to be very toxic. Let me go back to the politician who decide they want to be well-known for being well-known. You got your Facebook, you've got your Twitter X account, you've got your following. They might be satisfied to develop a following of individuals who, no matter how insane your policies might appear to some people, but you had that following, and that's all you need. So, you don't have to go outside of that. You don't have to appeal to the masses, for lack of a better expression. You only need to appeal to your followers, and that becomes inherently toxic, in my opinion.

April: Yeah. Where do you see the state and the state going in terms of political divisiveness? How do we unify? As a state, how do we bring people together? Because what I see is that over the past few years people are moving into groups where they're only talking to people like them. They're hesitant to even talk about politics or policy issues in public forums like Facebook, etc. because of the attacks and also from alienating other people. You wind up with people talking to people who agree with each other, rather than having a full-fledged debate. How do we get back to a little bit more of a unified conversation?

Dick Batchelor: Well, in all candor and show you that I'm not that naive. It's very, very, very difficult, obviously. Again, I know what lane I'm in. I'm a liberal Democrat. This administration has done a lot of things that I've been able to write, Collins in the Tampa Bay Times, really killing a lot of the, well, don't say gay. You can't teach African-American studies at AP level. You can't have anybody from uncomfortable history about, as it might be reported to you. That whole area. I don't see the Democrats. I think the Democrats frankly, not only not benefit by the conversation, but I think they've allowed some people on the extreme right to define who they are and those kinds of things.

So, I think the Democrats need four things in this state as far as the Democratic Party's confirmed. Number one, they need money. Number two, they need money. Number three, they need really voter registration. And number four, get out to vote. Why do I say that? Because in the state of Florida right now there are 800,000 more registered Republicans or Democrats. That is a big, big, big margin. And can Biden be in play as an example in the state as one of the candidates? Not unless the polls are really closed. The Democratic Party, the Democratic National Committee, the Biden campaign is not going to spend money in Florida.

So, it's hard to get, because we're so galvanized and left and right, that conversation. I'm not naive. That's why I really think that people, if they can convene around things they agree on at the local level and make them issue dominated rather than politicized, that's how you can get things done. A lot can be done in the local community that will not be done statewide. Again, I am not naïve, Democrats, Republicans are not going to have a kumbaya session or pre-cession meeting and agree on things. They're not, because it's not in their political self-interest to do so.

April: Right. Yeah. And yes.

Dick Batchelor: I wish I had a better report, but in all candor, we both know that's where we are.

April: Well, it just makes me wonder, if those margins were closer, if it was more balanced, would you then have a more vigorous, safe debate where you could really debate those issues if Republicans sometimes voted with Democrats and vice versa, instead of everything being lock step? If those numbers were closer, could we have more unity?

Dick Batchelor: Well, again, if that were to come about, and yeah, it could have, but I just don't see it happening. But really now the politics nationally and then locally has become so toxic. I mean, look at school board. I mean, I talked to our school board every other day-

April: Right, who would ever thought.

Dick Batchelor: And I said, who would have thought it? I mean, that you've got this controversy. Everything is now is driven by the national level. It is extreme, I could say on both sides. You got extreme left and extreme who are trying to drive the agendas. Extreme right is out driving the agenda of the extreme left, so I don't see any time they could come together. What's the arena around which you can convene? You can convene around a local group of bipartisan people who are issue driven on public policy matters, or you can wait for the legislature to address it, again, and we can make it non-political when it comes to some issues with which we're dealing.

But on the major issues, the toxicity is baked in. I mean, our leader, our governor, he is really ... I'm going to say the word toxic, the stuff he propose is so divisive, so very divisive. But he's fond of saying during the campaign, "Florida's where woe comes to die." Well, I would suggest that died in 50 counties, 99 counties in Iowa. He lost every one of those 99 counties, his message didn't resonate outside the State of Florida, but when he comes back to Florida, you think maybe he'll pull back a little bit? He's learned to maybe moderate some of those positions, but nope, not really. And then you've got the governor's race coming up too in a few years, and then so that's going to be another one. I don't see, long story short, it's sad to say, but I don't see, a lack of toxicity in the legislature, I don't see Democrats and Republicans come together. That's why I think it's got to be community-driven conversation in the decisions.

April: Dick, what made you decide to write this book? You clearly have so much experience dealing with lots of different issues, and at this time it seems like a very important read for community leaders. What made you decide to write the book?

Dick Batchelor: Well, as the publisher and I were talking one day and we said, "Look, the timing is awful for this book, but unfortunately the timing is perfect for this way." In other words, the element, the climate that we're in is toxic and inviting it for this topic. The sad news that we have to have this conversation, ongoing conversation. I decided to write it. I started out thinking, "Okay, I'm going to write this book. It'll be more about my life, my experiences and all." But in the end I said, "It has to have a takeaway." That's why we call it the roadmaps. You can read a book and put it down and say, "That was fine to read." But if you read this book and look at it as a roadmap, if you're a community leader or want to be a community leader, it's very non-intimidating. It will give you exact steps you need. 

How to bring people together, who to bring together. How does [inaudible 00:28:50] yourself an issue? Do you do, how kind of research to do. It really is, if you take any issue that the community should get together around, this is a road map. To answer your question briefly, I decided it was time to really make it a roadmap, a how-to book based on anecdotes, based with my experience in the legislature. Then as you know, I was appointed by President Clinton to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, but we negotiated with the countries around the world who were not very friendly about human rights. In fact, I delivered the resolution on the floor, the Human Rights Commission condemning Russia for invading Chechnya and that way harder. Now we're here in Crimea and Ukraine, right?

April: Right.

Dick Batchelor: My being able to meet, be with Nelson Mandela on the night before he was elected in South Africa. I used some of those stories, some of those anecdotes to say that you can convene around these issues. Not to be naive, but there is a way to do it. There is a way to minimize the toxicity, set aside the things you don't agree, but come together, so I thought the timing was good.

April: Good. Well, for those who would like to read more about it and to pick up some of these lessons, the book is, Building Bridges in Toxic Political Times. It's available on Amazon. It's available at bridgebuildingbook.com, which is a great URL, I love that. And really, anywhere that books are sold, this book is available. I encourage people to take a look. And Dick, you're just one of these people who, whatever issues are going on in the State of Florida, you're involved somehow. So, I just want to thank you for-

Dick Batchelor: Thank you.

April: ... all of your community leadership, your statewide leadership on issues that are important to Floridians, and thank you so much for your time today.

Dick Batchelor: And thank you very much, April. Appreciate it.