By Thomas R. Collins | Wednesday, April 16, 2008, 05:52 PM
If only those were just hanging chads they were talking about on the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon.
Republican Sen. Carey Baker of Eustis proposed an amendment to a transportation bill that would have cracked down on an increasingly popular accoutrement on trucks: hanging sacks - dubbed “truck nutz” — that very realistically resemble male genitalia.
His proposal is to make it a violation worthy of a $60 non-moving violation to have the testicular feature on your car, which are most commonly found hanging down from the trailer hitches of pickup trucks.
It’s just like the state’s existing regulations against obscenity on bumper stickers, Baker said.
But Sen. Jim King, a Republican from Jacksonville, protested that his district is really into the reproductive-organ display.
“There are some people in my district that would display bull testicles that are brass or whatever,” he said. “It’s an expression of just truckiness.”
“In my part of the country those things are very popular — you find them on pickup trucks and muscle trucks all the time,” he added.
And what about a display of an off-color Calvin and Hobbes cartoon that might feature urination? Sen. Dave Aronberg of Greenacres queried. Would that also have to go? Republican Sen. Evelyn Lynn of Ormond Beach said Baker’s measure was a little much.
“This seems to me to be a morality ticket and that doesn’t seem to me to be germane, does it?” she asked.
Baker retorted: “I guess morality, like prostitution?”
The discussion ended up getting cut short, with the entire bill getting postponed.