Florida Legislature Drops the Ethics Ball

At the very end of last year, a grand jury filed a report that found a great deal of corruption in Florida's state and local governments, and made numerous recommendations for ethics reform (see my blog post on the report). This provided the perfect opportunity for improving ethics programs across the state.

Some counties, notably Broward and Palm Beach, responded with ethics reform. And bills did appear in the state legislature. But according to a long Sunday report by Zac Anderson of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, the state legislature did nothing to implement any of the grand jury's recommendations.

Senator Paula Dockery, the sponsor of one ethics reform bill, said that some legislators were aggressively "adversarial" to her ethics bill, which would have required withdrawal from matters where legislators had a conflict. "It's almost taboo for a member of the Legislature to broach a subject like this."

The Senate President let the two major bills die in committee. Not coincidentally, he had been formally reprimanded by the Senate at the beginning of the most recent legislative session "for failing to include an investment home and consulting income on his financial disclosure forms. And critics questioned the academic value of a book Brevard Community College paid Haridopolos $152,000 to write."

But when asked why ethics reform didn't pass, he disingenuously said, "I think it should have."

The other major ethics bill would have given the state ethics commission the power to initiate investigations and it would have required withdrawal from matters involving a legislator's business associates. These are not radical changes; they are common rules.

Nothing was done to make the state ethics commission, which has jurisdiction over local government ethics, stronger or better funded, nor was any bill raised that would make improvements to local government ethics.

The article quotes a long-time watchdog, Ben Wilcox, as saying, "It will be difficult to recapture the momentum we had this year for ethics reform." And the state legislature also provided negative leadership for ethics reform at the local level.

More than 800 public officials were convicted in Florida between 1997 and 2007, according to the grand jury. Inaction such as this makes it clear to the public that the state legislature is not to be trusted.

The only positive thing that can be said is that, with the recession so bad in Florida, there are far fewer property developments to make money from. But there are still lots of contracts and other ways for officials to help themselves and their friends, and continue to undermine the public trust.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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