Mark Lane: DeSantis signs law limiting ethics complaints

A bill gutting ethics enforcement in Florida was signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. Florida’s elected officials can now rest easier.

The signing was done after hours on a Friday. None of the usual bill-signing event theatrics. No line of smiling officials behind the governor applauding the bill. Nothing to see here. Everyone move along.

The bill promises to choke off complaints of official misconduct to the Florida Commission on Ethics. A person filing an ethics complaint now must have “personal knowledge or information other than hearsay” about the alleged ethics violation. No acting on information uncovered by the press. Did you see something funny in an internal audit? Too bad.

A complainant would almost need to be present when the grocery bag full of cash gets passed in the parking lot. No hearing about it later.

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This tough standard now applies also to local ethics commissions, like those in Jacksonville and Miami.

A toothless commission?

Proponents say this change ∸ the result of a surprise amendment passed in the last days of the session ∸ merely creates a reasonable unified state standard for judging ethics complaints. That this was a sensible reform and not intended as a signal for the rascals to start running amok. All this criticism is just the media and usual good-government types being shrill, bothersome and self-serving.

But my, what a unified state standard this is. From here on out, it seems that the Ethics Commission will exist mainly to collect and file financial disclosure forms.

That’s not to say that a perfectly functioning system has been destroyed. We are entering election season, a time when it’s traditional for partisans and gadflies to file ethics complaints against candidates based on little more than internet speculation and neighborhood rumors. The idea is that an ethics complaint filing can give legitimacy to ordinary campaign attacks even when the Ethics Commission routinely bats them down.

Flawed, but in some cases, effective

Recent years, however, have also seen the Ethics Commission receive substantive complaints about local officials: former St. Johns River Water Management District chairman John Miklos, former Palm Coast Mayor Milissa Holland, Former Flagler County elections supervisor Kimberle Weeks, and former Flagler County Sheriff Jim Manfre. All involved issues that merited public airing. And note the modifier “former” in these titles.

The Florida Ethics Commission is subject to all kinds of political pressures, has been far too hesitant to react to wrongdoing by public officials, has limited enforcement power, cannot initiate investigations on its own, and can sometimes be used by political operatives to gin up flimsy campaign attacks. This is a flawed setup, but it is one that has, on occasion, done its job. Something that is now far less likely to happen.

Florida voters put the commission into the state Constitution in 1976 as part of the Sunshine Amendment reforms backed by then-Gov. Reubin Askew. Passing with almost 80% of the vote, it was the state’s first successful constitutional initiative. It’s not like the Legislature would have voted to create an ethics commission on its own. I’m kind of surprised it took legislators this long to neuter it.

The Ethics Commission was ripe for some thoughtful reform. Instead, it got mugged at the end of the session and the governor signed on.

Mark Lane is a News-Journal columnist. His email is mlanewrites@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Mark Lane: Governor signs law limiting ethics complaints