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Lifeguard of state's ethical swamp

By STEVE BOUSQUET, Tallahassee Bureau Chief
Published December 15, 2007

Mark Herron never planned to be the guy standing on shore with a rope, trying to rescue another public official from the ethical swamp.

It just happened. For two decades, Herron has nurtured a busy law practice handling such cases, becoming an authority on what's ethical and what isn't in government. He handles election law cases, too, but his bread-and-butter work is before the Commission on Ethics.

"I know a little bit about ethics law, and I try to provide the best defense I can," the 57-year-old Tallahassee lawyer said.

Name a prominent official or an obscure one, for that matter who has faced accusations of unethical conduct, and chances are that Herron was involved.

He has represented governors, legislators, lobbyists, sheriffs, Public Service Commission members and a slew of local officials.

No one is more familiar with the dark underbelly of Florida politics. His cases have involved lobbyist-paid junkets, free meals, side deals with a brother-in-law's company and all kinds of conflicts, like the one two weeks ago involving a county commissioner who voted on matters benefiting her husband's company and said she didn't realize he got bonuses as a result.

Herron was a legislative staffer when his big break came in the early 1980s. Rep. Lee Moffitt, a Tampa Democrat, asked him to be chief of staff or "executive director," as it was then called. He had to handle a messy ethics case involving Rep. Gene Flinn of Miami - and a career was born.

Moffitt later asked Herron to be his appointee to the ethics commission, a nine-member panel that recommends punishments for official transgressions.

"He asked a whole bunch of his Democratic friends if they would do it. They all said no," he recalled.

A few years later, a scandal engulfed the Legislature over lawmakers' unreported trips to hunting preserves in Georgia and jaunts to Mexico and Europe.

For a lawyer steeped in ethics law, the capital was suddenly a rich environment.

His job often focuses on that part of the law that ensnares many officials: whether they took official actions that personally benefited them or a relative, business associate or employer - the "special private gain" violation.

The amount of sleaze in Florida politics is shocking, and Herron would be the first to agree. But it also troubles him that people use ethics complaints to harass their political enemies.

One of Herron's recent cases involved Michael Yakes, the longtime mayor of Gulfport who voted to give city business to a private firm on whose board he serves.

But like many ethics cases, there were shades of gray: The company is a nonprofit that finds jobs for disadvantaged teenagers, and Yakes serves on its board as a volunteer.

He stood to receive no personal gain, but the law's the law. The ethics commission staff found probable cause that Yakes broke the law but recommended that no public purpose would be served by pursuing the case

"He was recommended to me," Yakes said of his decision to hire Herron. "This was a new experience for me. I've never had my character questioned, ever."

It was Herron who gave what he calls the "Andy of Mayberry defense" in a case in which a Panhandle sheriff allowed his employees to have their personal cars repaired by the county.

That defense: "They just do things differently in rural counties."

He lost. But the next time a Panhandle politician is hit with an ethics complaint, who's he gonna call?

Steve Bousquet can be reached at bousquet@sptimes.com.

[Last modified December 15, 2007, 01:19:47]