Goodlette serves as policy chair for the Florida House of Representatives and, since his election in 1998, and has earned a reputation as the person who can take on the tough tasks and carry them through to fruition.As one of the meeting attendees told his colleagues, “If you want to avoid traffic and get through Naples, you take Goodlette Road. It’s the same way with the Legislature.”The conversation with Goodlette was wide-ranging, putting on display the representative’s depth knowledge and his ability to apply calm reason to thorny questions. Goodlette fielded questions on property and casualty insurance, water supply and consumption, transportation infrastructure, meeting the state’s energy needs, and state budgeting pressures. The topic of greatest concern to the business people gathered around the table, however, was constitutional amendments, specifically those that appear on the ballot through petition drives.“There are 52 ballot initiatives registered with the secretary of state,” noted Jon L. Shebel, AIF’s president and CEO. “And virtually every industry in the state of Florida faces extermination by at least one of them.”While most of these initiatives will not make it onto the ballot, some will, and the consequences - intended and otherwise - that they would wreak if adopted will reverberate throughout the economy and into the workplace of every business person.

Goodlette considers reform of the citizen initiative process a critical matter for Florida. He revealed that House Speaker Johnnie Byrd (R-Plant City) shared his concern and was planning to assign review of the matter to Goodlette’s policy committee.