A Tallahassee Grand Jury "saved its harshest criticism for the Legislature" in the report accompanying the indictment of former Republican House Majority Leader, Ray Sansom. The Herald notes, "The report came out on a day when lawmakers were debating next year's budget and an uproar ensured over a House decision to block public testimony and ram through an 81-page overhaul of Florida's election laws with virtually no debate."
According to Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau chief Steve Bosquet, "The 81-page bill was debated for just six minutes before it passed on a 10-5 party-line vote... no other committee is slated to review the bill."
Make no mistake: this vicious attack on the public was made by Florida Republicans in response to the Obama victory in 2008 in Florida. Republican strategists understand that new voting registrations and demographics are moving, quickly, away from them. They will fight tooth and nail to ensure that their power and prerogatives are protected from the will of the people. I would like to know who, exactly, from Miami-Dade contributed to the 81-page bill because you know, as well as I do, that state senator Alex Diaz de la Portilla did not come up with this, himself.
Demand accountability. Write your newspaper. Contact your elected state legislators. Tell them that you, too, want transparency and that we will not tolerate the secretive reaction of radicals planning to hijack Florida's democracy.
5 comments:
Planning to Hijack? Gim, I think they hijacked us years ago while we slept.
The demise of transparency began the minute it was born in the Sunshine Law. Locally, it died a little more when our county manager Shiver ignored it throughout his entire political career and set the tone for oodles of political leaders to follow.
Let's not even consider the transparency issue in the Stadium Deal.The politicians are so arrogant in that deal, they think the public is both stupid and blind. Trust me, I will be the first to remind the public when election day comes.
Transparency took a turn for the worse during the past election cycle, and without a doubt, there is more business done in the back offices than the public will ever see in the daylight. Back room wheeling-n-dealing from the highest level all the way down to the petition takers and absentee ballot collectors in the Little Havana Senior Centers.
Transparency? There is none. Never has been. The public has been duped. Both here at home in the county, and in Tallahassee. It is the same players in both places. Lobbyists and politicians, both greedy and power driven.
One more place to sound the alarm, is in the arena of public records requests. I know of at least one that has been sitting waiting for an answer from the county Department of Elections since last year. Even after multiple requests, it has been ignored. Transparency? I don't think so.
How do we gain control? I don't know. Like there has to be a Political Will to pass a law or an ordinance, there has to be a Public Will to demand transparency and truth. As long as the voters don't throw the bums out of office, we will continue to to have our rights taken from us. And trust me, soon even the courts will not be able to protect us when we sue to enforce our rights as their powers become more and more diluted.
This is an unwarranted attack on Republicans. We ain't done nothin' rong.
Oh hey, the words "We ain't done nothin' rong." has the makings of a mighty fine county-western song.
Finally someone told it like it is. Hats off to the jury. Now let's see something happen to clean up the legislature!
I'm on my knees and ready to beg Leon County's State Attorney Willie Meggs to move to Miami-Dade. He had former Florida House Speaker Ray Sansom frog marched out of the State Capitol yesterday. What a thrilling mug shot of this gangster in the St. Pete Times!
But Sansom did nothing that former House Speaker Marco Rubio didn't do first and bigger. See Rubio's middle of the night machinations to get his friend the Turnpike gas contract and the fake teaching job he secured for himself at Florida International University.
Bless Mr. Meggs and those common sense filled grand jurors in Tally. (Regular people know crime when they see it.) Bless the St. Pete Times and the Miami Herald for their dogged pursuit of the facts in this case. More evidence of the tragedy that would befall this state if the business model and profit imperative shut down print news.
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