Gov. Rick Scott signed campaign finance and ethics reform bills into law. (Photo courtesy of Rick Scott.)
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Center for Investigative Reporting
Gov. Rick Scott signed bills into law that will reform some of the state’s campaign finance laws and enact new ethics rules for public officials in the state.
Leaders in the Florida House and Senate had touted that this year would be the one in which proposed reforms finally become law. In fact, Florida Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, promised before the session started that such legislation would be a priority for him.
There had been other attempts to pass some new ethics laws in Florida. Lawmakers once tried to reform ethics laws by making it harder for legislators to write laws that would benefit them personally.
Last year’s efforts to change ethics laws were shot down when it became clear that state lawmakers — who decide how much money universities receive from the state — could not hold a job or a contract with a university in the state at the same time, if the ethics bill passed.
However, this year, stricter rules about voting conflicts have become law.
Here is a list of the reforms in the ethics bill, courtesy of Integrity Florida:
- The public would have four new ways to start ethics complaints through U.S. Attorneys, State Attorneys, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) and the Governor’s Office. Those four entities could refer credible complaints to the Florida Commission on Ethics. While not the full self-initiation of investigations that the ethics commission should have, this process is a good step to fight corruption and reduce frivolous complaints since these agencies would provide an additional vetting process for higher quality complaints to reach the ethics commission. Integrity Florida encourages U.S. Attorneys, State Attorneys, FDLE and the Governor to create “report corruption hotlines” via phone, web and email to collect anonymous tips from the public to address public corruption.
- Financial disclosure forms will be posted online in a searchable database for the public to access.
- The Florida Commission on Ethics will begin moving towards an electronic filing system for financial disclosure to make the process smoother for filers and to provide better quality information for the public to access in an easier to read format.
- More ethics training for public officials will be required.
- Fine enforcement will be enhanced by allowing the ethics commission to garnish wages of officials owing fines to the commission and it extends the collection period from four to twenty years.
- Voting conflict standards and disclosures have been strengthened.
- Expands ethics code restrictions on gifts from vendors to state officials.
- Strengthens revolving door rules to limit legislators from lobbying for two years after they leave office.
- Creates new restrictions to prohibit officials from obtaining crony jobs based on their public office.
Integrity Florida’s director, Dan Krassner, had been calling for such reforms well before the beginning of the legislative session and worked with lawmakers to put these new laws and rules in place.
Until now, Florida has had no safeguards in place to prevent a state legislator from writing legislation that could benefit them personally. There had also been no rules about legislators lobbying state agencies immediately after leaving public office.
The Associated Press reports that the new ethics rules also “give the Florida Commission on Ethics more power to collect fines from officials. The commission will be able to garnish wages and the legislation will extend from four years to 20 years the amount of time for the commission to collect fines following an offense”:
The commission currently has little power to collect fines against elected officials. It has written off $1 million in fines over the past decade, calling them essentially uncollectable.
The commission will also be able to take complaints from the governor, Florida Department of Law Enforcement and state and U.S. attorneys. The commission would also post officials’ financial disclosure forms online.
While both bills were championed by groups like Integrity Florida, some advocacy groups took issue with one of the provisions in the campaign finance bill Scott signed this week. Their main concern was a provision that raised the contribution limit to candidates. In fact, even Gov. Scott expressed concern with this part of the bill.
According to the Associated Press:
Earlier in the day, Scott said he was still reviewing the bills. He previously questioned why campaign contribution limits needed to be raised. The ethics bill (SB 2) was a priority of Sen. President Don Gaetz and the campaign finance bill (HB 569) was important to House Speaker Will Weatherford. The House and Senate sent him the bills knowing they would have to be signed by or vetoed before midnight Wednesday, two days before the legislative session ends.
Campaign contribution limits, now at $500 per contributor per election for all offices, will be raised to $1,000 for legislative and local races and $3,000 for statewide races.
According to Integrity Florida, the other provisions of the bill requires “24-hour disclosure of contributions and expenditures in the final days of state-level campaigns and a more rapid filing schedule for campaign reports year-round for candidates and committees” and directs a state agency to create a statewide campaign finance database. Currently, the state’s database is very cumbersome to use and makes it difficult to track money raised and spent by candidates.
Lastly, the bill eliminates a type of political action committee that Integrity Florida had been warning about.
In a report outlining problems with campaign finance in Florida, Integrity Florida took particular issue with Committees of Continuous Existence, or CCEs, which collect campaign money while being uninhibited by contribution limits.
Because there had been a tight limit until now on how much businesses or political groups may give to state lawmakers, a lot of political money has been funneled through these CCEs. There was also only a very grainy picture of where this money was coming from and where it was going.
The campaign finance bill, however, does not put stricter regulations on the two dominant political parties. Under Florida law, both the Florida Democratic Party and Florida Republican Party can accept unlimited sums from large donors and corporations, but the parties don’t necessarily have to set aside that money for either the House or Senate.