Rep. Sam Garrison is no longer hinting that mental and behavioral health will be just a priority during his Speakership — it looks like it could be a ground-up rebuild.
Speaking at the Florida Chamber Leadership Conference on Safety, Health + Sustainability, the Fleming Island Republican repeatedly connected shortcomings in the behavioral health system as more than a healthcare issue, but as a public safety, workforce and infrastructure problem.
“We don’t have enough providers, we don’t have enough beds, we don’t have a system,” he said. “Our system was created 50 years ago. … It was designed for a world that no longer exists.”
Garrison, who will become Speaker after the November elections, added that Florida’s current system is being held together with “duct tape and chicken wire.”
Drawing on his decade as a prosecutor, Garrison described behavioral health and substance abuse as underlying factors in a majority of violent criminal cases that came across his desk. Co-panelist Andy Keller, the CEO of the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute, hit another criminal justice beat — the drain of “toxic exposure” on law enforcement when they are treated as frontline behavioral health care providers.
“If it’s gotten to a point where someone has been badly hurt, injured, victimized, or even killed as a result of a breakdown in the system, shame on us,” he said.
Garrison’s interest in the policy area isn’t new, but his language is becoming far more concrete as his term approaches. In 2023, shortly after becoming Chair of the House Health Care Appropriations Subcommittee, he described mental health as his top takeaway from overseeing the state’s massive health care budget silo.
“Mental health, mental health, mental health,” he told Florida Politics at the time. Back then, Garrison emphasized the need for a “comprehensive approach” and a statewide “plan of attack” spanning everything from acute hospitalization to preventative care. Earlier this year at the Chamber’s Legislative Fly-In, Garrison described behavioral health as a “first-tier” issue.
Now Garrison is telling business leaders “the house is on fire.”
“We’ve got to put out the fire, and then we’ve got to figure out how to build a better fire department,” he said. “If the Florida business community doesn’t buy into what we’re talking about, it will fail. Period.”
And, of course, the issue dominating discussions on water quality, economic development, campaign messaging and seemingly everything else, too, had a cameo.
“Six years ago, if I’d run for office, I would not have identified that as a top-tier issue we were going to be dealing with,” he said of artificial intelligence and technology. “Now I can tell you it’s No. 1.”