Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ed Hooper said last month he’ll leave the Senate in November, two years before his term would end.
Hooper, 78, said he wanted to spend more of his retirement years with his wife, Lee, and his family. The news came as he was in the middle of tense negotiations with the House over the budget. It was the second year in a row the chambers needed overtime to deal with an impasse over the state spending plan.
The Clearwater Republican served in the House from 2006 to 2014 before moving to the Senate in 2018. When he first came into the House, the state was reeling from a series of major hurricanes in 2004 and 2005, with a beleaguered insurance market.
Before his legislative service he was a Clearwater firefighter for 24 years and then was elected to the Clearwater City Commission in 1996.
He spoke with the News Service of Florida about his time in office and what he’s doing next (vacation).
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Why did you decide to leave office early?
I’m almost to my 79th birthday. Some stay longer than that, obviously, there’s some there now.
But … it’s like how many quality years do you have in life?
I’m tired of cancelling doctor’s appointments, dentist appointments - everything that you’ve got scheduled you have to cancel or reschedule, and obviously this last two years has been an exercise that I don’t think anybody’s had that experience before.
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I want to spend the rest of my life with Lee and do the things we want to do. We have lots of travel planned and a couple of cruises. We love where we live and we miss a lot of stuff in our community. And so that’s the biggest reason.
What’s the piece of legislation or legislative action you’re most proud of during your time in office?
A lot of people have said that I was sort of the first responder legislator, and I’m okay with that, that’s my world, that’s where I came from.
It’s been good for me over those 16 sessions to maybe take care of the people who take care of us every day. I’ll be fine resting on that laurel.
How has the job of legislator changed since you first took office?
It’s kind of come almost full circle. When I got elected in 2006, heading into 2007, Charlie Crist just got elected as governor and we had an insurance crisis.
And I think we had four special sessions before the regular session started, because Citizens (Property Insurance) had to charge more than anybody, there was nothing available except surplus lines.
So we were trying to solve that crisis and as we come to the end of my time, property insurance is still a pretty big item.
I think the biggest swing during my time was during the COVID years, just the dollars that we got from the feds. Those two presiding officers were able to spend mightily, and coming back to reality in my two years has not been a lot of fun! But it’s been necessary and that trend seems to be continuing, and we’re going to have to be mindful of the dollars we spend based on the revenue.
Obviously it changes wildly every two years with presiding officers. That’ll always be the way. Sometimes it’ll be a time when the two of them get along well and things will be good.
What were the reasons for the delays in the budget the last two years?
The Speaker’s interest in the first year of his speakership. I think Speaker (Daniel) Perez wanted to be known as the most conservative Speaker in modern times. A worth endeavor, but painful.
And in that process he and the governor got sideways, and he and the Senate got sideways, and I think that carried over into this session some.
I believe the House anticipates the governor is going to wield the veto pen heavily. Let’s help the Senate suffer too, let’s don’t make it easy for them.
I might be totally wrong but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Your planned cruise last year was famously delayed several times amid the budget delays. Now that you’re leaving office and the legislative duties are nearly over, is there a vacation or trip you’re looking forward to taking soon?
I was panicking a little bit because we have cruise scheduled for June 20. I kept thinking the governor is going to wait until late June to call us back for property tax. So at least he called us early. So we have that planned.
We have a couple of trips planned this summer. I have a great-grandson who was born in October I haven’t got to ever meet in North Carolina, so we’ll be travelling to North Carolina. Sometime this summer, early fall, we want to go to Mackinac Island, Michigan. Never been there, heard good stuff about it, we’re going to check it out.
