The Fine Print

Who didn't raise money during the session?

This past week Roll Call did a story about the Republican Party of Florida and Gov. Rick Scott.

Down in the story was the following information: Scott did not raise money for the party during the 60-day legislative session as a "matter of policy."

When asked about it this week, top aides to Scott acknowledged that the information was accurate and that Scott did in fact refrain from raising money while lawmakers were in session and crafting new laws and policies for the state.

(There's no legal obligation for Scott to refrain from raising money. It is worth noting that Scott, however, still attended Lincoln Day dinners held by county GOP executive committees around the state. These events usually serve as fundraisers for local organizations.)

Scott's decision regarding fundraising is a contrast from other elected officials.

State legislators seeking federal office - and this includes both Democrats and Republicans during the last decade - have raised money for their campaigns during session.

This year that list included Senate President Mike Haridopolos, who is seeking to knock off incumbent U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson.

Haridopolos raised $2.6 million during the first three months of the year and an analysis done by the St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee bureau concluded that Haridopolos "received his biggest chunks of money from the special interests who wanted something out of the 60-day legislative session."

Haridopolos, it should be noted, said that he did not hold fundraisers once lawmakers began their session in early March. He also has continually noted that Nelson continues to raise money while Congress in session.

When asked about Scott's decision, a spokesman for the governor was quick to say that Scott's decision is not a "judgement" on anyone else.

"While the governor thinks it was appropriate for him he makes no judgement on the strategic circumstances other elected officials face,'' said Brian Hughes.

 

 

 

 

Rick Scott vs. the Tea Party?

Last fall a group of conservative activists including some Tea Party leaders who backed Rick Scott for governor went into court to get a federal judge to strike down some of the state's campaign finance laws.

Flash forward several months and it turns out that backing Scott doesn't guarantee a free pass with his administration.

The state of Florida -- led by the top elections official appointed by Scott - is actually mounting a vigorous legal defense.

If the lawsuit is successful, groups could raise money to challenge constitutional amendments without having to disclose their donors or include disclaimers on any ads that they run. There are already seven amendments on the 2012 ballot.

This week both sides laid out their legal arguments that will be used to decide whether the state’s campaign finance laws are constitutional. The case is scheduled to go to trial in September but a ruling is expected without having to hold a trial.

Most of the arguments center on recent federal campaign finance rulings - including last year’s contentious Citizens United case that struck down restrictions on independent  “electioneering communications.’’

But lawyers for Secretary of State Kurt Browning -- who is now the main defendant in the lawsuit -- argued in their filings that “invalidating Florida’s challenged political committee laws will destroy the well recognized informational interest of the public to know who is speaking to them about campaign issues.”

You can read more about it here at the Florida Tribune.

Putting a muzzle on the watchdogs at the Capitol?

Florida's Republican-led Legislature has greatly curtailed the independence of one of the watchdogs meant to keep tabs on taxpayer money and whether government programs work.

Gov. Rick Scott on Thursday signed into law a measure that would make it easier for legislative leaders to hire and fire the person who leads an office of state government auditors and analysts.

And the nearly $70 billion budget that legislators will approve on Friday wipes out all dedicated funding for this office, instead folding all spending into an account controlled by leading lawmakers.

The move comes a year after legislators slashed funding for the office by one-third.

House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, this week did not explain why lawmakers are changing the office with the lengthy name: the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability, commonly called Oppaga.

But Sen. J.D. Alexander defended the move, saying that the office, if anything, hasn't been critical enough of state programs and state spending.

"I am not a terribly big fan of the research coming out," Alexander said. "To me it's sort of milquetoast. They don't take firm positions, they take safe positions."

But others say that taxpayers should have someone independent who is keeping an eye on how taxpayer money is spent.

Read more here.

Backsliding after the Sansom scandal?

One of the things that did change in the wake of the arrest of former House Speaker Ray Sansom is that lawmakers changed the way they handled the state budget.

Sansom was charged with using his power as budget chairman to slip in $6 million for a project being sought by a developer and donor.

The charges against the Destin Republican were dropped mid-trial after State Attorney Willie Meggs said he could not proceed due to a bench ruling limiting testimony from a key witness. But that happened after top Republicans changed many ways they finalized the annual state budget.

Chief among some of these changes is that there had to be a public hearing on funding for construction projects if the projects had not been recommended by the boards that oversee public schools and the state university system.

But other substantive changes also included forcing the release of all budget proviso language and all conforming bill language before it shows up in the budget. The idea was to create more transparency.

Then Senate President Jeff Atwater at the time conceded the grand jury indictment of Sansom prompted lawmakers to change how they were doing things.

"I think their feedback was valuable to us to say, 'This is the people's budget, why shouldn't we go an extra mile to make sure they see it,'' Atwater said in January 2010.

Well, it's a year later and some of the changes in place last year have already begun to fade away.

Lawmakers did hold a so-called "PECO parade" - which is where officials were asked to explain funding requests for construction projects funded as part of the "public education capital outlay" list.

But there has been a lot less information when it comes to conforming bills and even proviso language that winds up in the final budget. Why is this important? Because the conforming bills and the budget itself can only be voted up or down and they cannot be amended.

Case in point: While budget negotiators mentioned briefly $400,000 for a study of the state court system earlier this week, they did not reveal the actual substance of the study until Tuesday night when the final budget was released.

There it was revealed that the state courts study would look at consider the civil and criminal justice workload of the state Supreme Court - as well as the threshold used for merit retention vote of judges. These were concepts that were discarded in the final court reform bill, but it seems by doing a study that the issue could be revived next year depending on what the study comes up with.

But beyond that there has been scant information about the dozens of conforming bills that accompany the budget. There is a meeting scheduled on Thursday at 11:30 a.m. to discuss them, but it's unclear just what will be discussed and how much information will be revealed.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: During that meeting, House and Senate budget chiefs exchanged offers regarding several conforming bills that accompany the budget. And while nearly all the bills were in fact presented - there are two key bills where the concepts but not the actual language has not been reviewed in public. That's the final pension bill and the bill that creates a new economic development agency.