More on Florida's Ethics Reform Bills

In a blog post ten days ago, I predicted that Florida state senator Joe Abruzzo, the sponsor of SB 1474, would realize that the newly amended bill would not do what he really wanted and make the appropriate changes, so that the amended SB 1474 would be consistent with HB 1315.

And so he did. He has drafted an amendment to the amended bill that makes it somewhat consistent with HB 1315 (the new amendment is attached; see below). The amendment is supposed to be taken up by the senate Community Affairs Committee on Tuesday, April 1.

The goal of this amendment is to allow respondents in local ethics proceedings to have the complaint against them heard by a hearing officer (HB 1315 calls for an administrative law judge), to provide local ethics respondents with due process after a finding of probable cause. There is nothing in the amendment about who would select the hearing officer, or what credentials such a hearing officer would have to have. What is likely is that someone who knows little or nothing about government ethics will be interpreting local ethics codes. That sounds like a recipe for disaster. For more about the problems with this policy, and the misunderstandings that underlie it, see my recent blog post.

What makes this whole process such a combination of repulsive and unprofessional is that it appears to be part of Sen. Abruzzo's attempt to punish the Palm Beach County Ethics Commission, at the expense of other local ethics programs in the state, and that neither Sen. Abruzzo nor his colleagues appear to (1) understand what a finding of probable cause is, (2) have considered what sort of due process is owing to ethics respondents who, unlike criminal defendants being tried by the government, are government officials, with fiduciary duties, being tried by citizens; or (3) have considered alternative ways of providing a separation of roles (the stated goal of the bill; see my recent blog post for a discussion of alternatives).

It appears that the amended SB 1474 would remain, although it's not totally clear. What this would do is apply the state ethics enforcement process to all local ethics programs by making §112.324 of the state ethics code applicable to them, as well. No matter what the size of the municipal government, the bill would require that its ethics program act as if it had the resources of the state program. For one thing, this means that investigations would be done by the ethics commission, not by an outside investigatory body or individual.

Much of §112.324 was only intended to apply to state officials and the state EC. Either it is irrelevant or worse. An example of "worse" is that the state House of Representatives has to investigate and decide on any "impeachable officer," which would now include most local elected officials. What a mess that would be.

Just as problematic would be this section's override of local ethics programs' authority to self-initiate proceedings. There is a big struggle now to allow the state EC to self-initiate proceedings. It would be a tragedy to instead extend the state limitation to local ethics programs.

Considering the speed and apparent thoughtlessness with which SB 1474 is proceeding, its passage would make the state legislature look vengeful, incompetent and, for no good reason, willing to undermine an important state asset:  its local government ethics program experimentation, which is unmatched by any state other than California.

There is another ethics reform bill which does deserve to be taken seriously, SB 846 (attached; see below). It's too extensive to consider here, and much of it applies to the state EC (which has jurisdiction over local officials). But it is the only Florida ethics reform bill I know of that would actually improve things at the state and local levels. It was passed by the state senate this week.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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