Steve MacNamara, who served as the ex-House speaker's chief of staff, has a new job at the university - at more than double the salary.
By STEVE BOUSQUET
Published August 19, 2003
TALLAHASSEE - Steve MacNamara, who found power and notoriety as a top aide to former House Speaker John Thrasher, has a new job at Florida State University, thanks partly to Thrasher, chairman of the FSU board of trustees.
MacNamara started work two weeks ago as one of four associate vice presidents for academic affairs, earning $140,000 a year in the administration of FSU president T.K. Wetherell. That's more than twice as much as MacNamara made as a tenured FSU communications professor.
MacNamara will continue to teach and advise students and keep his tenure, but he must sever all ties with outside lobbying clients.
"It was my idea," Wetherell said of MacNamara's hiring. Asked whether Thrasher used any influence, Wetherell grinned and said: "That's my story, and I'm sticking to it."
Thrasher, a prominent Tallahassee lobbyist, said he promoted MacNamara for the job, but added that his former chief of staff was highly qualified through ability and experience.
"I'm a big fan of Steve's, and I think he'll do a good job," Thrasher said. "He's certainly got the qualifications. What's wrong with that?"
In his new position, MacNamara will oversee contracts between FSU and state government, including the departments of Health, Children and Families, Environmental Protection, and Corrections. He reports to FSU provost Larry Abele.
Wetherell, also a former House speaker, wants to expand FSU's work with state government. He cited the FSU medical school's interest in the privatization of health care in the prison system. Wetherell said that venture is worth up to $350-million.
Corrections Secretary James Crosby said further privatization of prison health care is a priority, and that he would consider FSU's proposals.
"It is on the radar screen, but I don't have a timetable," Crosby said.
MacNamara, 50, is a 1982 graduate of the FSU law school. He has a background in policy, law, lobbying and politics, and political connections from his projects through the years.
He has served as associate dean of FSU's College of Law, secretary of the Department of Business Regulation under Gov. Bob Martinez and director of the Collins Center for Public Policy at FSU. He was the lawyer and media consultant for the successful 1994 campaign to block casino gambling in Florida.
"I have given up my private practice and everything else," MacNamara said Monday. "I would prefer to be full-time at the university and concentrate on what I enjoy the most. I'm not bragging, but I think I have a significant and solid background."
While on unpaid leave from FSU, MacNamara was Thrasher's chief of staff in 1999 and 2000, a job that led to his greatest controversy.
In June, the Commission on Ethics closed a two-year investigation by dismissing a charge that MacNamara abused his public position by lobbying for a private client, Suwannee American Cement Co., while working in the speaker's office. A permit for the plant, initially denied, was approved a year after MacNamara met with key officials.
MacNamara said he was technically not an employee of the speaker's office at the time he represented the company. Two key witnesses offered new information, supporting MacNamara's version of events. MacNamara on Monday called the investigation "a witch hunt" that cost him $100,000.
MacNamara was registered to lobby for three clients in the Legislature this year.
He was president of the Florida Association of Health Plans, a statewide group representing 19 HMOs with 3-million subscribers. He also represented J.P. Morgan Securities and Kidsnet, an Internet software company.
In his letter of employment at FSU, MacNamara agreed to "cease any and all consulting and lobbying work and any other business activities effective Sept. 1, 2003."
- Times staff writer Lucy Morgan contributed to this report.
