Legislature rolls out a new cycle of secrecy

MORGAN

© St. Petersburg Times
published February 9, 2002

The last time legislators decided to pass a new tax on Floridians they made a deal in secret at midnight at a townhouse owned by sugar lobbyists. They outlined it on the top of a pizza box.

A day later the legislators, the governor's staff and everyone else who participated could not remember where they met and disagreed over the details of the plan because the pizza box got thrown away.

It would have been a comedy if the results weren't so tragic.

Senate President John Vogt, House Speaker Jon Mills and Lt. Gov. Bobby Brantley could remember only the pizza and beer they shared on that night in 1987.

"It was at a townhouse," Brantley responded. "The owner wasn't there; they said we were just supposed to lock the door when we left.

"I don't know whose townhouse it was," said Mills. "But we had pepperoni and extra cheese on the pizza."

"Somebody gave me directions," said House Majority Leader Ron Silver, D-North Miami Beach.

"I don't know whose townhouse it was," Vogt insisted. "I won't tell you where it was. We might want to meet there again."

They did remember winding up the night at a local watering hole and feeling a whole lot better afterward.

The way they passed the tax as much as the tax itself derailed it within months.

These men were some of the best and brightest we had around at the time, but they didn't want Floridians to know about a deal made in a townhouse furnished by lobbyists.

We found out the hard way, tracking down the directions a few were willing to share and going to Tallahassee City Hall. The townhouse was owned by U.S. Sugar Corp. of Clewiston and occupied by lobbyist Robert E. Coker, according to the utility accounts at City Hall.

You might wonder why I'm telling you this old story.

You need look no further than the bills passing through the House and Senate today.

They would seal off access to public utility records that are currently available under Florida law. Our public records law is being turned into Swiss cheese by lawmakers who don't like it when we can find out the gory details behind the scenes.

They do it this year in the name of citizens who were supposedly embarrassed by the publication of how much water was used in a time of crisis. We don't want to embarrass anyone who might be overusing such a fragile resource, they reason.

But it is not only the errant water user who will be protected.

A potential home buyer who wants to find out how much utilities cost at their new house won't be able to go to City Hall and look at the bills.

Credit companies won't be able to determine if you pay your bills on time.

Every year legislators chip away at a public records and open meetings law that has made Florida officials more accountable to the people who elect them.

Some lawmakers seem ignorant of the role voters have played in making public records public and opening the door to government meetings.

We've put these ideals into the Constitution several times. Even in adopting a privacy amendment, voters approved the right to be free from government intrusion into their private lives but made it clear that privacy rights should not be construed "to limit the public's right of access to public records and meetings."

Voters returned to the polls in 1990 and overwhelmingly supported an extension of the open meetings and public records law to legislators after they exempted themselves from the law.

Many of the secrecy proposals are coming from new legislators, those elected since term limits kicked out the old gang. If this is what we get from term limits, we might want to rethink the whole thing.

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