Ethics in politics: Some things don’t seem to change

THE ISSUE: Lawmakers again chafe over proposed political rules.
OUR OPINION: Continue to advocate for stronger ethical standards.

About a year ago, we wrote about Florida’s Nineteenth Statewide Grand Jury, whose landmark report said public corruption “continues to be an issue of great importance in all aspects of government, politics, and business throughout the State” and is “pervasive at all levels of government.”

Last year, then-state Republican Party leader Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, said the Senate would “take a hard look” at the report. Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t, but last year’s crop of new laws did not feature ethics reform.

This year an ethics bill had some high-powered support, but still failed in committee. To Thrasher’s credit, as Senate Rules Committee chairman, he co-sponsored a bill restricting employment of legislators with state universities and colleges. The bill’s co-sponsor was Senate President-designate Don Gaetz, R-Niceville.

The bill was intended, among other things, to avoid future instances of legislators who vote on schools’ appropriations from reaping personal benefit through employment with those schools. Remember former House Speaker Ray Sansom from Destin, who took a lucrative job with a college to which he had just steered millions of dollars? Or Sen. Evelyn Lynn, R-Ormond Beach, who pushed through millions to establish a university literacy center, then was hired to a high-paying job there? Don’t forget current Senate President Mike Haridopolous, R-Melbourne, who was paid as faculty by his local community college, for several years, to write a slim book that initially appeared as only a single-reference copy.

The bill’s sponsors seem to understand the public perception of legislators feathering their own nests. Thrasher said he wanted to show taxpayers that “the Legislature will clean up its act.” And Gaetz has said that the “problem is legislators who suddenly find themselves able to be employed by colleges or universities … who maybe aren’t qualified to walk into the classroom.”

What is ethical behavior? Aside from the Code of Ethics that every elected state official is responsible to uphold, a grand jury wrote that ethics “is action you can defend publicly and comfortably.” However, the “burden of ethics is that there is no checklist or computer program that can teach you every ethical decision; personal judgment and responsibility are necessary.”

Clearly, people determined to take advantage will find ways. But still, it’s disheartening to know that more than a year after a severe, public spanking by the statewide grand jury, legislators seem no closer to ensuring that public interest, not private, is the No. 1 priority.