Florida House Speaker Ray Sansom is resisting calls for his resignation, just like Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. The Miami Herald teams up with the St. Pete Times this morning, on an excruciating report of Sansom's scoring both a hefty faculty position and $35 million for his neighborhood college: "E-mails show House Speaker Ray Sansom worked closely behind the scenes with the man who would later become his boss to create a new, exclusive tier of local colleges."
Sansom's offense does not rise to the criminality of trying to "sell" a US Senate appointment; but what the two share is a sense of entitlement that goes with political power: we do bad things because we can. We do bad things because those who went before us, also did bad things, skirting the line of ethics and the law. And we do bad things, politically, especially in Florida that ranks number 1 in the nation for federal prosecutions for public corruption. (NY Times, Dec 14 2008: "In a Department of Justice tally covering the last decade, Florida wins by its sheer number of guilty. The report, released last week, itemizes convictions in federal public corruption cases at local, state and federal levels in the 50 states, the District of Columbia and three United States territories.")
The Herald/Times report discloses one of the most common violations of the public trust: the manipulation of hearings required by law to be open to the public. Just like Miami-Dade County, where important hearing dates are changed at the will of elected officials to keep citizens off-guard and at bay (cf. County Commissioner Joe Martinez and scheduling hearings on applications to move the Urban Development Boundary), House Speaker Sansom literally expressed the glee of over-lords when he and his friends tried an end-run around the public:
"The meeting with trustees was scheduled for March 24, the day after Easter. As a public school, a meeting of the trustees must be open to the public, which requires advertising the time and place so people can attend. The college did provide public notice, with an ad that was published one week before the meeting, in a newspaper in Okaloosa County, 150 miles from where the meeting would take place.
That was Richburg's idea: ''It's probably the only way we can do it in privacy but with a public notice here,'' he wrote in his e-mail to Sansom.
Sansom's rapid response: ``That would be great!! We can get a private room on the 6th floor at FSU.''
At this point, both Sansom and Blagojevich must resign. There will be hell to pay for both Republican and Democratic leaders who defend either. Speaking of which, where does former Governor Jeb Bush stand on the Sansom scandal?
4 comments:
Alrighty then, Sansom is not only a poster child for our local crud (did he learn that from our Mario?); he is stupid.
The fact that this state tops the US in public corruption is understated.
If we could catch all the unsunshined meetings and back room deals accomplished from the lowest community council level, to the municipal level, to the commission, to the county executive suite all the way north to Tallahassee politics, the numbers would be staggering.
"Document the atrocities" as atrios says, and thanks for doing your part to shine light on this slimy cabal.
It starts grinding a person down, all these sell-outs with their own cozy agenda. Reading your posts helps inspire me to do more to help expose them, too.
www.SackSansom.com
Frankly, I thought Illinois topped the list for corruption.
3 of our past 8 governors have gone to jail-not including Blago.
There are many shoes left to drop in this. Daley and our aldercreatures are curiously silent, and I feel sure they aren't sleeping very well.
Daley next.
Then some of our aldermen. Chicago aldercreatures get indicted a lot.
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