Ex-lawmakers find way to stay close to power

By LUCY MORGAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 24, 2001

We are sliding into a morass. Call it the Former Legislators Coming Back Too Soon Swamp.

In 1976, then-Gov. Reubin Askew saw this problem coming and pushed through a constitutional amendment that was designed to stop legislators from leaving office and coming right back in the door to lobby the guys they were working with moments before they left.

The amendment, approved by voters with Askew's support, requires lawmakers to wait two years after they leave office.

Mostly, it has worked. Legislators leave office, go away for two years and then some come back to the Capitol and become lobbyists. Some of them are better than others and make buckets of money.

In the last few years it seems that some legislators don't go away at all. They just go to work for a Tallahassee law firm or lobbying group and act as "consultants" for two years.

Most of them don't walk in the Capitol and go to committee meetings, but they send a surrogate to the Capitol and go to all the parties and hang out in the watering holes where legislators go when the day is done.

And when two years are up, they go back into the Capitol during daylight hours without missing a beat.

Some of them sign up as "executive branch lobbyists" and say they are merely lobbying the governor and Cabinet or other state agencies.

But after hours, they too are busy rubbing elbows with the legislators they used to work beside.

Askew did not intend for this to happen. He wanted to stop legislators who were often signing up to work for big-moneyed clients before they left office.

Back then, a House speaker could walk out one door and come right back in as a big-time lobbyist. Several did.

The latest example of this is former House Speaker John Thrasher, who has signed up to lobby the executive branch for a growing list of clients.

He's gone to work as chief executive officer of Southern Strategy Group, a little lobbying outfit that includes Paul Bradshaw and David Rancourt, two lobbyists with very close ties to the Jeb Bush administration.

Last week, Thrasher got caught sending a letter to invite some legislators to lunch with University of Miami President Tad Foote. He told the legislators he wanted them to meet with the president and Barry Horenbein, legislative lobbyist for the university.

Thrasher said he'll be joining Horenbein in representing the university "on matters pending in Tallahassee."

It was a mistake, Thrasher conceded this week.

When he arranged lunch for Foote and a few senators, he never intended to advocate the interests of the university to the legislators, Thrasher said.

"I now realize I was wrong," Thrasher said. "I apologize and I am deeply sorry for any problems I may have caused."

Thrasher says he's learned his lesson and will be a good boy in the future. You might say he's found out what a slippery slope he's on.

If he were the only legislator slipping back into the Capitol a bit too soon, it wouldn't be so troublesome. But as term limits have begun to claim their jobs, more and more of them appear to be slipping back into the Capitol.

The trouble with this is that the line between executive and legislative is sometimes difficult to locate. And is a former legislator actually lobbying when he spends his days visiting the governor and his nights supping with his old friends in the Legislature?

It's hard to tell.

Unfortunately, some of those who have made a quick return to the Capitol are good guys who did a good job for their constituents.

And like Thrasher, some of them will get in a spot of trouble. Oh joy, more fun for us!

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