Welcome to

When lawmakers start their annual session a week from Tuesday, they’ll be meeting under the watchful eye of a St. Petersburg man who for the last 12 years has been taking civics seriously.

The longtime capitol regular often makes waves holding lawmakers feet to the fire.

Brain Pitts has been called a gadfly.

It fits.

He’s one who upsets the status quo by posing upsetting or novel questions.

He’s often a thorn in lawmakers side.

“If nobody else does’t know what you’re doing, I do, and here it is,” said Pitts. “So if the public didn’t know, now you do know.”

Pitts took most of last session off, disgusted by sexual scandals, but this year he’s back.
“It was riff-raff,” said Pitts.

The Senate President says Pitts can bring value, then he parroted one of Pitts’ statements.

“And I do adhere by the rule that if the bill is long you know something’s wrong,” said Galvano.

“The best way to hide something is to put it in a long bill because most of the time they don’t read it,” said Pitts.

Lobbyists have tried to buy Pitts off either to speak for or against some bills, his answer: always no.

“You talk about ethics and morals sometimes, they actually want you to cross that line. So I says no,” said Pitts.

His efforts appear to be paying off.

“You’d be surprised how many bills are not agenda-ed because they know something is wrong with the bill,” said Pitts.

Pitts says he operates solely on donations to a 501(c)(3) named Justice-2-Jesus.

One man, taking civic involvement to a higher level.