Amid scandal after scandal, Florida Legislature considers ethics reform

[seafan]

Ya THINK??

The Florida Republican Legislature to "consider", maybe, but it ain't in their DNA.




Amid scandal after scandal, Florida Legislature considers ethics reform

BY JOHN FRANK
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau


February 28, 2010

For the first time since the blistering indictment of former House Speaker Ray Sansom and the legislative process as a whole, the buzzword in this town is ``transparency.''
The timing is not coincidental, given it's an election year when voter confidence and trust in politicians is reaching dismal depths.

And it reflects a broader problem: Sansom is no longer the only poster child.

Consider this string of recent corruption scandals: a guilty plea from Scott Rothstein, a South Florida Ponzi schemer and major political donor; the federal indictment of Alan Mendelsohn, a Capitol power player; an investigation of Harry Sergeant, a Republican money man with ties to Gov. Charlie Crist; and the accusations of misused funds at the state Republican Party.

.....

This attitude is reflected in the 2009 grand jury indictment of Sansom, a Panhandle Republican accused of using his power to funnel millions to a college where he later took a $110,000 part-time job.
``The present system has the potential to breed corruption and create an unfair advantage for those who have money to leverage influence on the Legislature,'' the indictment said.

Questions surrounding Sansom before last year's indictment led to a number of immediate -- albeit largely procedural -- changes to promote openness, such as a public airing of special budget language. And earlier this year, Senate leaders unveiled a transparencyflorida.gov, to provide ``the means for 19 million Floridians to become 19 million auditors.''

Such efforts, though important, are considered window-dressing compared to proposed changes to ethics laws. The question is whether the players who perpetuate the current system - lawmakers, lobbyists and an apathetic public - will change the game.

.....

A major issue not mentioned in this article is that in addition to disgraced Ray Sansom, who "funneled millions to a college where he later took a $110,000 part-time job", there is another high-ranking former Florida Republican legislator who used his position to steer millions to a local university in his home town, and was then offered and accepted a $69,000 part-time job at the university upon exiting the Legislature.

This particular ex-legislator just had his university contract renewed for a second year.

It is former House Speaker Marco Rubio.



Here is the story reported earlier and oddly, it faded from the radar:


Marco Rubio downplays relationship with FIU

BY ALEX LEARY AND BETH REINHARD
Herald/Times Staff Writers

December 14, 2009


Former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio landed a job at Florida International University after leaving the Legislature but says he didn't play favorites with the school.

Florida International University leaders were eager for one of their hometown legislators to become speaker of the House, and Marco Rubio delivered.
``We had a great year,'' FIU's lobbyist Steve Sauls said of millions in new funding in 2007, crediting Rubio and the Miami-Dade delegation.

The following year, as term limits forced Rubio to exit the Legislature and contemplate his next political move, FIU offered him a $69,000, part-time job that was not publicly advertised.
Critics questioned Rubio's soft landing as FIU trustees grappled with a $32 million budget shortfall that led to tuition hikes and the loss of 23 degree programs and 200 jobs.

Then came uncomfortable comparisons to another Republican House speaker -- Ray Sansom -- who steered $35 million to a Panhandle college then took a job there.

.....

It illuminates the sway a handful of top elected officials have over taxpayer money and reflects a state college and university system that has become a friendly employment service for lawmakers who once oversaw their budgets.

.....

In the years prior to becoming speaker, Rubio did not champion funding for FIU. But when he took the House reins, the university had a new ally.

In 2007, the university was awarded a $15 million hurricane center that was one of a handful of projects legislators plucked from a list for immediate funding. Rubio pushed for inclusion of the FIU project, which was originally to have received funding over three years starting in 2009.
And thanks in part to Rubio, FIU got another early start in 2008 -- $2.5 million for a student academic support center -- ....

That same year, there were 52 projects on a list for potential matching grant awards, but only nine were funded. Of those, five were from FIU, for a total of $1.3 million, including its Frost Art Museum and graduate school of business. ..... When it came to enhancing FIU's prestige, no project compared to a new medical school. For years the school struggled to get approval, facing criticism that it was too costly and the wrong approach to a doctor shortage.
But in early 2006, officials signed off on new medical schools for FIU and the University of Central Florida. In 2007, FIU got more than $5 million in recurring funding, followed by $6 million in 2008.

.....

``I had reservations about his hiring then, and I stand by what I said,'' said Bruce Hauptli, an FIU philosophy professor who served as faculty senate president in 2008. ``It doesn't make sense in a budget crisis.''

.....

Maybe Rubio's highly uncomfortable proximity and similarities with Ray Sansom's criminal case were the reasons that Florida's Republican-dominated House Select Committee on Standards of Official Conduct took just three and a half minutes last Monday to drop the ethics investigation on Ray Sansom, who served as Rubio's former hand-picked budget chief.

Rubio, was on the hot seat to testify in Sansom's ethics hearings to be held by this Committee, but miraculously for Rubio, Sansom resigned from the Florida House this past Sunday, and the very next day, this Committee abruptly ended the entire House investigation on Sansom.




But don't worry.


The Republican-driven Florida Legislature is going to consider ethics reform.



(bold type added)

[Cetacea]

1. That is almost funny.

We'll see how successful that is.