Congressman David Rivera created a web of campaign finance abuses so tangled that the Florida Dept. of Law Enforcement (apparently) could not pin him down before the 2 year statute of limitations ran out.
Assuming that FDLE and the Miami-Dade State Attorney did not drag their heels on the Rivera investigation (that may be too big an assumption since Rivera was a powerful GOP leader and roommate of Marco Rubio, now US Senator and short-listed for the GOP VP slot), the question taxpayers and voters should ask is whether the GOP jihad to "shrink government to the size it can fit in a bathtub" is designed precisely to allow the worst-of-the-worst like Rivera, to play out the clock and to create an unlovable majority of the corrupt.
The Miami Herald apparently takes the Rivera violations -- unprosecuted -- as a serious matter. Whoo-whoo. If the Herald has the institutional willingness to carry its indignation further, a good place to start would be to investigate the human resource capacity within the FDLE and state attorney's office to match investigation and prosecutorial capacity to need. Not just in Miami-Dade but throughout the state.
My guess is that there is plenty of reason to suspect that budget cuts are preventing law enforcement from dealing with the overflow of political sewerage. (I also recall the shenanigans in the Miami-Dade ethics office, under Robert Myers-- an initiative as thoroughly gelded as castrati in the imperial court of Peking.)
Rivera is not alone in believing he could get away with accounting tricks and obfuscation. Knowledgeable insiders -- and there are many among legislators and lobbyists -- can do the math in their heads: there are just so many law enforcement officers and attorneys to chase down violations of already weakened campaign finance laws, just so much political pressure to put on high elected officials to bend away from scrutiny of their finances, the barrier to successful prosecutions has been raised just so far, to provide room for elected officials to slip through gaping holes in the net meant to separate government from crooks.
If the purpose of our mangled campaign finance system is to discourage honesty and good candidates from running for office, then it has succeeded brilliantly. Congressman David Rivera is the example.
Assuming that FDLE and the Miami-Dade State Attorney did not drag their heels on the Rivera investigation (that may be too big an assumption since Rivera was a powerful GOP leader and roommate of Marco Rubio, now US Senator and short-listed for the GOP VP slot), the question taxpayers and voters should ask is whether the GOP jihad to "shrink government to the size it can fit in a bathtub" is designed precisely to allow the worst-of-the-worst like Rivera, to play out the clock and to create an unlovable majority of the corrupt.
The Miami Herald apparently takes the Rivera violations -- unprosecuted -- as a serious matter. Whoo-whoo. If the Herald has the institutional willingness to carry its indignation further, a good place to start would be to investigate the human resource capacity within the FDLE and state attorney's office to match investigation and prosecutorial capacity to need. Not just in Miami-Dade but throughout the state.
My guess is that there is plenty of reason to suspect that budget cuts are preventing law enforcement from dealing with the overflow of political sewerage. (I also recall the shenanigans in the Miami-Dade ethics office, under Robert Myers-- an initiative as thoroughly gelded as castrati in the imperial court of Peking.)
Rivera is not alone in believing he could get away with accounting tricks and obfuscation. Knowledgeable insiders -- and there are many among legislators and lobbyists -- can do the math in their heads: there are just so many law enforcement officers and attorneys to chase down violations of already weakened campaign finance laws, just so much political pressure to put on high elected officials to bend away from scrutiny of their finances, the barrier to successful prosecutions has been raised just so far, to provide room for elected officials to slip through gaping holes in the net meant to separate government from crooks.
If the purpose of our mangled campaign finance system is to discourage honesty and good candidates from running for office, then it has succeeded brilliantly. Congressman David Rivera is the example.
4 comments:
Of course the State Attorney dragged her feet. She's more of a crook than the blatant ones.
Many agree.
I always said that this investigation would drag on past the statute of limitations because if David Rivera goes down, the ripples will implicate Marco Rubio in other shenanigans that Rubio's hatchet man did at Rubio's behest.
The process is simple Do not re-elect Rundle or Rivera. We need new faces in both of these positions.
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