Farkas buries gambling company junket in bluster
By HOWARD TROXLER
Published December 6, 2005
In my fantasy, here is how it plays out.
The state Senate demands that our very own state Rep. Frank Farkas, R-St. Petersburg, comes forward to cooperate in an investigation.
The Senate sends a delegation across the lobby of the fourth floor of the Capitol to seize him. With a somber flourish, the senators bang on the House door and cry out:
Produce the Farkas!
The House refuses. The Senate forces the House door and finds the members massed in their chamber. The senators demand to know: Where is he?
Straight out of the the movie Spartacus, a defiant House member who is obviously not the right man stands up and cries out: "I am Farkas!" Then another, and another, and soon the House chamber is filled with members shouting it.
I am Farkas!
Farkas, hidden safely in their midst, cries a tear of gratitude.
* * *
Okay, so it's not exactly going like that. What is happening is that the Senate is merely asking our man Farkas over in the House whether he will talk. After some initial confusion, Farkas now insists he is eager to be, you know, frank.
The subject of the inquiry is a junket to Toronto - sorry, I mean a fact-finding trip - that Farkas and three state senators, including our own Sen. Dennis Jones, R-Treasure Island, accepted from a gambling company that seeks to expand in Florida.
Our four wayfaring legislators couldn't accept the $48,000 trip as a gift. So the whole affair was listed as a "contribution" to the Florida Republican Party. In other circles this would be money-laundering. Heck, in this circle it's money-laundering.
Once this arrangement came to light, the party paid for the trip, and Senate President Tom Lee ordered an inquiry. The three senators cooperated. The Senate also asked to interview Farkas.
What followed has been a sort of Keystone Kops routine. The Senate's lawyer asked the House's lawyers if Farkas would talk. The House folks didn't think that was a good idea. They told the Senate they had checked with Farkas and he would decline.
This refusal became public, and Farkas looked bad. He got himself into high dudgeon, or at least, as much dudgeon as a man can attain despite having been caught taking a $48,000 trip.
The Senate never asked me directly whether I would talk, Farkas complained. He tried to turn the tables and demanded to know how the thing had become public.
Sweet juicy peaches! (That is something I say at times to avoid swearing.) The gentleman is not embarrassed at scooting around on private jets paid for by gambling companies who want his favor. What bothers him is that he thinks the Senate made him look bad.
The Senate's lawyer, Steve Kahn, is a veteran who did the right thing by approaching the House's lawyers, instead of accosting a House member individually.
* * *
The funny thing here is that the House was justified as well in its initial instinct not to have Farkas talk to the Senate. Constitutionally speaking, it is none of the Senate's business what a House member does.
The Senate and House are equals; neither chamber has any power over the other's members. Imagine the alternative, in which each chamber had the power to reach into the other's affairs, threatening investigations and embarrassment to gain leverage. Bad idea.
In this case, the Senate's request was innocent enough. Farkas was not a target of Senate action. There is precedent - the Senate has interviewed cooperative House members in past cases.
Still, the House was well within its rights to decline. The real story here is that Farkas, who is running for the Senate this year, didn't like the heat once it happened.
No, wait. The real story here is still that four members of the Florida Legislature took a $48,000 trip from a gambling company, and don't see anything wrong with it. At least somebody else thinks it is worth looking into.