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McCarty missteps

By A TIMES EDITORIAL
Published April 21, 2007

Florida stopped electing the state insurance commissioner in order to separate the regulator from the industry's campaign money. Now appointed commissioner Kevin McCarty has crossed the line anyway.

His participation in fundraising for a Tallahassee judicial candidate has so damaged his reputation and his office's credibility that the only remedy may be his departure.

Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, one of McCarty's four bosses on the governor's Cabinet, gets credit for exposing this unseemly politicking. After hearing that "Commissioner" McCarty was named on invitations as the sponsor of a campaign reception, she confronted him. "I shared with him my concerns that his involvement was unsuitable," Sink said, "and could cast Florida's regulatory system in an unfavorable light."

McCarty ended up skipping Wednesday's fundraiser, but that is not the end of the story. His department spokesman, who is the husband of the judicial candidate, created the invitation on a state computer and has resigned as a result. McCarty himself has explained his own role in a manner reminiscent of U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

On Thursday, McCarty wouldn't talk directly to the media. He acknowledged, through his chief of staff, that he made roughly 25 calls to recruit people, including insurance lobbyists and representatives, to the event. But McCarty said he did not use state telephones and, further, that he had no idea he was named as sponsor of the fundraiser.

What McCarty didn't say was that the phone he used to make the calls belonged to Lisa Miller, a well-connected insurance lobbyist. He also didn't say he attended a fundraiser meeting, which included Miller, three days before the event. Can he really expect his bosses to believe his claim of ignorance?

Since being appointed insurance commissioner in 2003, McCarty also has used those insurance connections to raise money for charity. In 2004, according to Florida Today, he managed to triple contributions to a March of Dimes wine-tasting fundraiser with a sponsor list made up almost entirely of insurance companies he regulated - roughly 100 of them. McCarty still runs the event, and last year raised $500,000 with major contributions from insurance companies.

Sink has asked her inspector general to review the political fundraiser, but McCarty's history of twisting insurance company arms and his less-than-forthright response in this case don't help his cause. The timing, with insurance rates strangling Florida homeowners, serves only to further shake the public's confidence. A commissioner with his hand out to insurance companies can't regulate at arm's length.

[Last modified April 20, 2007, 21:03:05]