Florida’s landmark “sunshine” laws once made the state a national model for openness in government.
In 1967, the Legislature made Florida the first state with an open meeting law. With limited exceptions, meetings of government bodies had to be held in public. A generation later, in 1992, voters amended the Constitution to strengthen the public records law and to make it harder for future Legislatures to create more public records exemptions.
Through the years, the Legislature has steadily chipped away at the sunshine law, with more than 1,000 exemptions, even though the Constitution now requires a two-thirds super-majority to enact new exemptions.
Sunshine is the most effective antidote to secrecy, self-dealing, corruption and waste. But the Legislature, at the request of Gov. Ron DeSantis, is poised to make state government more secret than ever.
The state Senate on Wednesday is scheduled to debate a bill (SB 1616) that would keep secret all travel by the governor — even his official state travel at taxpayer expense.
This blanket public records exemption would also apply to the lieutenant governor, Cabinet members, the Legislature’s presiding officers and the chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court. The exemption would apply retroactively, making past travel secret.
‘Air DeSantis’
This push for secrecy over all movements by the governor of the nation’s third-largest state comes as DeSantis has dramatically increased his out-of-state travel in anticipation of a presidential campaign. In the past few weeks alone, DeSantis promoted his new book or made speeches in Iowa, Ohio, Michigan and Virginia. “Air DeSantis” is constantly on the move, and his travel will intensify dramatically if, as expected, he runs for president.
In Manchester, N.H., last Friday, he spoke to an enthusiastic crowd of 550 people at a state Republican Party fundraising dinner. At that event, like all the others, DeSantis was accompanied by a team of agents from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) who were there at taxpayer expense. The law requires FDLE to provide security and ground transportation for the governor everywhere, at all times.
A public office is a public trust. That’s not our opinion; it’s in the Florida Constitution, approved by the voters. The public has a right to know where their governor is going, and where he’s been. But even his past travel would become secret under this unjustified and unprecedented act.
Republican Sen. Jonathan Martin of Fort Myers offered a pathetically nebulous rationalization for this bill: “My understanding is there has been an increase in public records requests regarding our governor and his travel simply because of the notoriety of his position in the past few years.”
Only in Tallahassee are requests for public records considered a problem. Only in Tallahassee is the solution greater secrecy.
The House version of the bill (HB 1495), like the Senate’s, would also shield from public disclosure the names of guests at the governor’s mansion. The people of Florida have a right to know who has access to the state’s chief executive.
These bills make a mockery of Florida’s long-standing support for open government.
To make matters even worse, three Democrats voted for this blanket secrecy in a March 22 Senate committee vote, records show: Sens. Tracie Davis of Jacksonville, Tina Polsky of Boca Raton and Darryl Rouson of St. Petersburg. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
State-sponsored secrecy
We call on them to reconsider their support for this bill; not just Democrats, but all public servants should oppose this unconscionable expansion of state-sponsored secrecy.
Authoritarianism abhors transparency. As governor, DeSantis has consistently demonstrated contempt for his constituents — and for open government. He transmits his official daily schedule long after most events are over. His office and the state agencies under his control slow-walk routine requests for public records.
He has made a claim of “executive privilege” to keep information secret, even though no such privilege exists in state law. His underlings have used private email accounts to transact official business.
Now the Legislature is pushing a bill to make our weak campaign finance laws even weaker by allowing political committees, the biggest of which by far DeSantis controls, to file their reports less frequently — depriving the public of essential information about the influence of special interests.
Florida legislators keep finding new ways to undermine the public’s faith in government. On the opening day of the session on March 7, DeSantis said: “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
At this rate, we’ll never be able see anything — because it will all be secret.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at .
