Legislature Needs To Know Who's Its Boss

Florida has outgrown the concept of the casual lawmaker. If the job is to be done right, that is, as righteously as humanly practical, serving in the Legislature should be a full-time job with one boss: the public.

It's not just that the state is too big and its issues too complex to solved by amateurs working a few months a year. A bigger problem is that the main loyalty of many lawmakers appears to be to some other employer.

Even as the Legislature convenes in special session Monday to realign spending with falling revenues, the spotlight has been on the controversy over House Speaker Ray Sansom, who is a good example of what's going wrong. Sansom secured millions of extra dollars for Northwest Florida State College, then took an unadvertised job at the same college that pays him $110,000 a year. Now he's using his influence in Tallahassee to try to get millions more for the school.

Under state law, the situation could be just fine. Only if he had a clear understanding that the job was a direct payoff for certain votes in the Legislature would he be in ethical hot water.

In Florida, being employed by someone whose business or agency is affected by laws you might pass is not prohibited. It's not even considered an official conflict of interest. The low pay actually encourages outside employment.

Simply following a law that weakens the definition of "conflict" fixes nothing. It paints over the corrosive effect of electing lobbyists to run the state.

There are advantages to electing lawmakers with business sense and legal skills. We have great respect for many of them who make personal sacrifices to serve. Many from Tampa have served part-time with honor and distinction, including Louis de la Parte, Terrell Sessums and Sam Gibbons.

A few, including successful lawyers and retirees with financial independence, are willing to work for the job's low pay, and they are to be commended. But too many candidates these days are either unqualified cranks or well-schooled champions of some industry or special interest. The employers willing to give a worker time to campaign and serve tend to be the ones who see a big benefit in having an advocate in the House or Senate.

Compare the loose standards of the Legislature to the tight ones applied to the employees of local government. Any worker in City Hall or County Center who creates an appearance of a conflict risks getting fired.

The code of ethics of the Hillsborough City-County Planning Commission forbids even its volunteer board from allowing personal or business relationships to affect their decisions. Board members must not "lend their influence towards the advancement of personal interests or towards the advancement of the interests of friends or business associates."

Copies or strict ethical rules are available from just about any municipality or well-run agency. Newspapers also have them too, and they work.

Apply such ethical standards in Tallahassee and half the members would probably quit. But under the present system, it's disheartening to picture the group of candidates who would try to replace them.

That's why enforcing high ethical standards must coincide with an upgrade in legislative pay. The present salary of $31,932 needs to be substantially increased.

Even if it were $100,000, which we think is more than necessary, the raise would bump the costs of base pay from about $5.1 million to $16 million a year for the 160 lawmakers. Considering how many millions are directed to questionable projects and special interests, even generous pay would be a good public investment if it reduced ill-advised spending.

In return, the session could be a month longer, or two sessions could be scheduled, giving legislators time to actually read the bills they're voting on. Outside jobs would not be prohibited, so lawyers, doctors, Realtors and professors who find the time could still serve. But they couldn't vote or lobby for causes that would appear to benefit anyone else giving them paychecks, bonuses or favors.

Improvements would be immediate and noticeable, but we have no illusions that these reforms would give Florida a model government.

In California, the Merced Sun-Star newspaper complains that the state's full-time legislature is a "miserable failure," because members "spend their time on bills such as banning dogs from sitting in drivers' laps, but ignore difficult problems... Let's start by limiting the time legislators can do mischief ..."

In Pennsylvania, advocates of change held a "Miss Legislative Reform" beauty pageant to publicize the need for term limits, better public access to meetings, and stricter campaign-finance reforms. One government critic entered his pig.

Here in Florida, we've heard arguments that redistricting will improve the Legislature. Or that the job should be nonpartisan. Or that the lawmakers should operate more in the sunshine without backroom deals. Or that voters should just throw all the incumbents out.

The best way to get better challengers for incumbents is to pay what the job is worth, then make sure it's clear for whom each legislator is working: the taxpayers.