Tallahassee is hard to reach. That doesn't mean legislators can hop a state plane whenever they like.
Published November 28, 2003
For all its charms, Florida's capital city is inconveniently situated for most of the state's people and suffers chronically poor commercial airline service. But every member of the Legislature knew that before volunteering for a job that requires frequent commuting to Tallahassee, so there's no excuse for any of them to be using the state aircraft pool as private taxis.
As our colleague Alisa Ulferts reported the other day, Senate President Jim King has called upon the state planes this year for dozens of trips between Tallahassee and the airport nearest his weekend fishing retreat, which isn't even in his district. Less often, House Speaker Johnnie Byrd has used state planes to commute between Plant City and the capital. Even rank-and-file senators have availed themselves of this luxury perquisite, as did Toni Jennings and John McKay, the Senate presidents before King. Their defense: Everybody does it, everybody always has done it, and the law is ambiguous.
But not everybody does do it, and even fewer should. Moreover, there is nothing ambiguous about the light in which every hard-working taxpayer will see it.
When former state Sen. - now Attorney General - Charlie Crist blew the whistle on political trips by Gov. Lawton Chiles, Attorney General Bob Butterworth said the law "excludes the use of state vehicles or aircraft for personal business or commuting purposes." The auditor general agreed. Auditors subsequently calculated that Chiles owed $1,145 for personal trips and Lt. Gov. Buddy MacKay owed $664.88. Both promptly paid. However, the rate at which they paid - and for which the Legislature is billed for trips by King and others - is far less than the public would pay for comparable charter flights.
There is a legitimate need for state airplanes to ferry state officials, in rank-ordered priority, to conduct public business in the many parts of Florida where commercial service to and from Tallahassee is inefficient or simply doesn't exist. Security concerns also warrant the governor's use even where commercial schedules would be otherwise adequate. Beyond that, legislators no matter what rank should refrain from calling on the pool for anything but an unforeseeable exigency. Weekly commuting (no matter what else the Legislature's staff counsel want to call it) is nothing of that sort. For that, it is reasonable to expect them to make do with the automobile mileage or commercial aircraft fare to which they are entitled.
There's a larger underlying issue. Who audits the Legislature? Nobody, at least not in the sense that the Legislature's auditors police the executive branch to see that the taxpayers' money is not only properly accounted for, but properly spent. The Legislature ought not to audit itself, of course. Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher could do it, but he regards his responsibility as limited to fraudulent claims and is content to let the House and Senate presiding officers decide what their travel policies ought to be. That would seem to leave nobody to answer the challenge King posed when he said, "If you can prove to me that I broke the law then I will change my operation."
But not necessarily. King and Byrd could - and in our view, should - ask the Ethics Commission for a formal opinion on the propriety of their travel policies.
Meanwhile, the Legislature could be giving more thought to promoting better commercial airline service for all Floridians with business at their capital. Subsidizing that would certainly be a better investment than underwriting private air taxis for a handful of legislators.
