Legislature in Florida seems to be devoted to eviscerating ethics laws
Editorial by Lonnie Groot – March 4, 2024
Sunday’s News Journal published renowned columnist Bill Cotterell’s explanation about how the Florida Legislature seems to be devoted to eviscerating Florida’s once revered ethics laws for which I am grateful. In essence, he warned the citizens of Florida of the old bromide that “those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.”
There once was a golden age in Florida government. It should not be forgotten. During the 1970s, under the leadership of Governor Reubin Askew, Florida shed the era of Florida’s Pork Chop Gang or “good ole boy” system which controlled the Florida Legislature from post-Civil War time through the 1960s.
Askew was elected to serve as Governor in 1970 as part of a remarkable wave of progressive politics and a desire for legislative reform. Askew led a bipartisan group of politicians who pursued and achieved government reform. That reform included the enactment of judicial reform, legislative redistricting addressing constitutional requirements (at the time 1/3 of the State lying north of about Gainesville elected about 2/3 of the State’s legislators), race relations, and approval of the Sunshine Amendment by Florida voters mandating ethical standards in government while declaring that “public office is a public trust”.
In the 1970s, Florida Supreme Court justices were popularly elected. But a number of scandals threatened to topple the Court until public outrage led to profound reforms and fundamental changes in the way supreme justices were seated. Those scandals led to the resignations of two Supreme Court Justices and to the constitutional amendment providing for merit selection and retention of Florida appellate judges. One Justice abruptly retired after being filmed on an expensive junket to Las Vegas, it was disclosed that two other Justices tried to fix cases in lower courts on behalf of campaign supporters and a fourth justice destroyed illegal evidence by shredding his copy of a document and flushing it down a toilet in his Supreme Court chambers.
Outside of the judicial branch, cabinet officials were indicted and embroiled in ethical issues and State legislative and local officials operated in the dark with their finances and activities hidden from the public.
Lessons from the past may not always ward off doom, but they can provide insights into the present and even into the future. A clarion call has been sounded to all Floridians to demand ethical government and strong ethics laws.
Do we want government in the sunshine or will be accept darkness in the halls of government with ethics merely being a thing to be scoffed at by those in power?
Lonnie Groot is a Daytona Beach Shores attorney who has represented municipal governments throughout Central Florida. He suggests that interested citizens read Martin Dyckman’s books Reuben O’D. Askew – The Golden Age Of Florida Politics and A Most Dishonorable Court. Dyckman covered local, state and national government and politics and wrote editorials during an almost half-century career with the former St. Petersburg Times and for about a decade he was chief of the newspaper’s Tallahassee bureau.