It didn't get a lot of ink last Friday.
But along with a school voucher bill and a school prayer bill Gov. Rick Scott also signed into law a piece of legislation that will likely become a small part of his legacy as governor.
Scott quietly signed HB 1305, the bill that arose out of last summer's disclosure that Scott's transition team had somehow lost emails that covered the period between Scott's election and the time he was sworn into office.
The bill now mandates that that the governor - as well as the three Cabinet members - must preserve and make public any documents or emails they create or send after Election Day but before they are sworn into office. Scott was a strong supporter of the legislation.
Scott's own transition period back in late 2010 was a time of tremendous activity because the governor's top advisers started their recruitment of top agency positions and began assembling the initial parts of the governor's agenda.
The emails and documents that have been been made available show everything from the fact that themes in the governor's inaugural speech was poll-tested to the fact that some people sought out by the Scott administration turned down job offers. Those same documents show that inklings of ideas never enacted - including a proposal to put together a website that would list how business friendly some local communities were.
But last August it was first reported by The St. Petersburg Times that some emails were apparently missing. Scott's transition team members had tried to find the emails in the wake of public records requests, but they were unable to guarantee that all of them were available.
The Associated Press reported that one batch of emails that did surface late last summer showed that "former Gov. Jeb Bush offered that state's incoming governor a long list of "lessons learned through trial and error" that touched on everything from how to deal with those guarding his safety to telling him it was OK to veto stupid bills." Bush had also urged Scott to push for universal private school vouchers, to eliminate state money for some university programs and save money by releasing elderly prisoners.
Another set of Bush emails that was discovered months after the transition revealed that the former governor disagreed with a decision by the incoming Scott administration to fire the mother of an Army soldier who had just been killed in Afghanistan as well as others who worked in the governor’s office.
Amid the flap over the lost emails, Scott ordered an investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement into why the emails were lost and whether any were retrievable. Nearly eight months later that investigation has still not been wrapped up.
While the investigation has not been concluded, some information about what happened has emerged, including that emails from both an iPad and smartphone used by the governor were lost.
Transition records are generally understood to be public records, but a review of transition records by The Associated Press "showed a wide disparity in how the records – including emails – by both the governor’s office and the offices of top Cabinet officials are collected and stored. Some records are turned over to state archives, but others for example, have wound up in the basement of Capitol offices."
That review also showed that while the Scott transition team used a private company to handle its email former Gov. Charlie Crist’s transition team used state computers to handle its email accounts. But it also appeared some members of the Crist team were never asked to turn over any emails from their personal email accounts.
The new measure that Scott signed into law states that in the future statewide elected officials must keep their emails - and turn them over when they are sworn into office.
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