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Miami Herald
Legislative Agenda: Protect Sunshine laws
Our Opinion: Ban Slush Funds; Keep Access To Public Information.
The Florida Legislature has been in session for less than a month, but attacks on open government are well under way. One measure would impose a $5 million fine on police agencies that keep lists of pawn- shop gun sales used to track criminal suspects. Another would exempt a new state- funded Alzheimer's institute from disclosure laws.
Public oversight
Meanwhile, lawmakers collect unlimited amounts of money from special-interest groups in thinly disguised slush funds. Florida's ''Sunshine laws'' are designed to protect against such practices. They guard against incompetence, cronyism and corruption. They are invaluable tools of public oversight and must be preserved. That's why The Herald today joins in the third annual "Sunshine Sunday'' organized by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors to promote open government.
Law-enforcement agencies clearly should be able to keep gun-sales lists. Taxpayers should have access to records about a tax-funded research center's operations. And voters should know who makes financial contributions to legislators.
But such information isn't always available. Slush funds can masquerade as ''committees of continuing existence." These CCEs exist under a 30-year-old law intended to allow trade associations to collect money from members for political campaigns without having to list every donor. Today, however, CCEs are created by lawmakers who deny being influenced by big donations from companies and groups with a stake in legislation. While donors legally may contribute $500 to a political campaign in Florida, there's no limit for CCE contributions.
For example, state Rep. Allen Bense, R-Panama City, has raised nearly $500,000 for his CCE, The Florida Committee For Conservative Leadership, since 2000. Included was $75,000 from AT&T, BellSouth, Sprint and Verizon -- the telecom companies that won a controversial residential phone-rate hike last year.
Bense and other lawmakers say they aren't influenced by CCE money. But that begs other questions: Why raise funds in CCEs at all? Why are CCE funds funneled into campaign contributions? And why keep secret the identities of some donors?
Outlaw slush funds
Gov. Jeb Bush and some lawmakers rightly believe that reforms are necessary. The state Senate already has barred its members from raising funds for CCEs while they are in session. Other reforms would require disclosure of CCE contributions. But Sen. Alex Villalobos, R-Miami, who has his own CCE, has a better idea: "These things should be outlawed. Period."
If lobbyists want to contribute to political campaigns, let them do so directly under the current rules that require disclosure -- not through a slush fund that hides donors and provides cover for legislators who ask them for money.
Joe Oglesby
Editor of Editorial Page
The Miami Herald
1 Herald Plaza
Miami, FL 33132
305-376-3511
joglesby@herald.com