The House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct wrapped up its business this morning in the wake of former House Speaker Ray Sansom’s resignation last night.

Committee Chairman Bill Galvano:

“As a result of Speaker Sansom’s resignation as a member of the Florida House, further action by this committee is rendered moot. We’re without authority to fulfill the charge of this select committee,” Galvano, R-Bradenton, said.

Attorney General Bill McCollum continues to defer to GOP party leaders instead of ordering an investigation into possible criminal conduct regarding credit card abuses at the Republican Party of Florida.

McCollum today said he may ask the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to look into the matter but that he would wait until the new chairman of the RPOF – expected to be Sen. John Thrasher – is elected this weekend.

Also today, Florida Democrats shut down McCollum’s anti-corruption hotline, filling up the 800 number’s voice mail in an effort to draw attention to McCollum’s refusal to investigate the credit card charges even after other top Republicans want the books opened.

McCollum said he won’t ask for inquiry until an audit of the RPOF is complete and he gets direction from the new party chairman to move although Gov. Charlie Crist last week said that party officials should open the books now.

“I’m waiting about what the new chairman might discover. I don’t see any evidence at this point of criminal behavior,” McCollum said today after a speech to the National Federation of Independent Business.

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Gov. Charlie Crist had few words to say about a new perjury charge against disgraced former House Speaker Ray Sansom handed down by a grand jury today. The grand jury indicted the Destin Republican for misuse of office last month.

“Obviously we have a criminal justice system that’s working its way through the grand jury. I have enormous respect for their work,” Crist said this afternoon.

The governor sidestepped questions about whether Sansom should resign.

“I think that’s a decision for a different day,” he said.

Budget negotiations should be more open, Senate President Jeff Atwater said this morning.

Atwater said that the Senate rules governing which talks should be public and when that should happen might need to be changed to at least give the appearance of openness.

“It’s necessary,” the North Palm Beach Republican told reporters after a briefing with the Senate Democratic caucus. “It’s important for us to be as open as we can in this process.”

Atwater held a meeting with Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander, Sen. Mike Haridopolos and Senate Democratic Leader Al Lawson this weekend inside the Capitol.

Meetings between three or more senators are required to be noticed and open to the public. The Capitol was locked over the weekend.

Atwater said the meeting was unplanned and the group happened to be in the Capitol at the same time and that he ran into Lawson after the Democrat grabbed some ice cream in the Senate member lounge.

Budget leaders have yet to order a public conference committee to begin hashing out their differences.

But throughout the week, House and Senate leaders have traded written budget offers dealing with “allocations,” or how much revenue they will have to spend. The back-and-forth proposals have included high-level proposals in which the House agreed to a cigarette tax, a measure which was never heard in committee.

The longer the behind-closed-doors negotiations drag on, the more questions are being raised about the lack of transparency in crafting the state’s $65 billion budget.

A grand jury last week condemned the budgetary process, saying it was not open enough and gave powerful lawmakers the ability to sneak items into the budget with little or no oversight. That grand jury indicted former House Speaker Ray Sansom for putting money for an airport hangar into the budget during a private meeting with his Senate counterpart when he was the House budget chairman.

“Part of the concerns that have been raised is that people think we’re running a parallel side-by-side track, that I might just be having conversations on allocations when someone else is actually getting into specific line items and trading bills.
That’s not going on. The longer that thins has gone on the greater that perception may be created that people think that’s actually taking place and it’s not,” Atwater said.

“If it would be helpful that the allocation process could be more open I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” he said.

He said that his conversations with House Speaker Larry Cretul about the cigarette tax were not “in any way some kind of mysterious kind of conversation.”

“I think everyone in Florida knows we’ve been discussing the tobacco surcharge,” Atwater said.

Folks who use mirrors to look up women’s dresses or down their shirts better beware.

A Senate panel approved a measure that would broaden the video voyeurism laws to make the practice illegal. Current law prohibits peeping Toms from using electronic devices, like video cameras, to peer at others’ privates but does nothing to bar them from doing the same with a mirror.

Sen. Dave Aronberg filed the measure in response to a Panhandle case in which a man used a mirror to peer up a woman’s skirt at a bookstore.

The judge in that case noted that “there is is no clear prohibition of this reprehensible conduct anywhere in the state of Florida.”

Aronberg, D-Greenacres, provided a simple explanation of the bill (SB 1064) during a rushed Senate Judiciary Committee meeting this morning: “Means you can’t look up women’s skirts using a mirror.”

Legislation that would make it easier for foster kids to get access to their records passed unanimously out of a Senate committee today.

The bill (SB 126) lays out a process for current and foster kids to follow when denied access to their records.

The bill, approved unanimously by the Senate Children, Families and Elder Affairs Committee, also would give potential foster and adoptive parents more access to records about children they are considering taking into their care.

Foster kids who have aged out of the system have run into trouble getting a range of public records, including photographs of their biological parents and even addresses of where they have lived.

Read more about the problems here.

[caption id="attachment_4574" align="alignright" width="75" caption="Haridopolos"][/caption]A Democratic-backed bill to end a real estate tax loophole, which has been costing the state as much as $200 million a year, got the support of one of the Senate’s most tax-hating Republicans this morning.

The loophole allows sellers to avoid paying a state tax — the documentary stamp fee collected on real estate deals — by arranging transactions so they aren’t classified as sales of real property.

In a Palm Beach County deal three years ago, three properties sold collectively for $600 million but reaped only $2.10 in doc stamps.

Because of the loophole, the state lost $4.2 million, something Florida can ill afford to continue given its current economic anemia, argued Senate Democratic Leader Al Lawson, the bill (SB 2430) sponsor.

“If we had sold 1,500 homes priced at $400,000, it would have generated the amount of money generated on that one sale of $600 million,” Lawson, D-Tallahassee, said at a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting this morning.
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Senate Democratic Leader Al Lawson pushed Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander to expedite the release of Florida’s share of the federal economic stimulus package to get the state’s jobless back to work.

Alexander agreed that lawmakers need to move quickly to get the money already available for road and water projects that could create jobs the fastest.

He said he’d like to get the budget committees working on passing bills as early as tomorrow to appropriate the federal funds for the construction projects and for Medicaid spending. Depending on the House’s position, the legislature could pass the budget amendments as early as next week, he said.

Gov. Charlie Crist appointed Don Winstead to act as the state’s “recovery czar” last week.

But despite the necessary legislative approval for the spending to begin, Winstead has yet to meet with Alexander.

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Stephan Kahn, the former Senate attorney, was hired today to investigate an ethics complaint against Speaker Ray Sansom, R-Destin, according to announcement from House Speaker Pro Tempore Larry Cretul.
Kahn, who left the Senate in 2007, will earn $300 per hour.

House Speaker Pro Tem Larry Cretul made some leadership changes this morning as he transitions into replacing Ray Sansom.
Cretul, R-Ocala, named Rep. Dean Cannon, the Orlando Republican slated to take over as House leader in 2010, as head of the Select Policy Council on Strategic and Economic Planning.
Other changes:
Rep. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, will take over for Cretul as chairman of the Select Committee on Seminole Indian Compact Review. Galvano, was vice-chairman of the committee, keeps his Rules committee chairmanship as well. Rep. Sandy Adams, R-Oviedo, is now vice chairwoman of the gaming committee.
Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, will take over as head of the Finance and Tax Council, replacing Cannon.
Rep. Ray Sansom, the Destin Republican who stepped down as speaker last week, will chair the Policy Council and also will serve on the Finance and Tax and Rules councils.
Cretul said wants Rep. Ron Reagan, R-Sarasota, to replace him as Speaker Pro Tem after Cretul is elected as Speaker when the House convenes in March.

From Attorney General Bill McCollum’s letter this morning to the Northwest Florida State College board of trustees:

..it appears upon review, based on reported information, that the manner in which the college noticed and held a meeting of trustees in Tallahassee is very questionable and could easily be interpreted to contravene Chapter 286 of the Florida Statutes.

McCollum’s office is looking at a meeting, first reported by the St. Petersburg Times, that college President Bob Richburg and House Speaker Ray Sansom set up to potentially skirt state open meeting laws.
A grand jury, meanwhile, decided yesterday to investigate Sansom’s relationship with the college.

Senate President Jeff Atwater and House Speaker Ray Sansom today granted Gov. Charlie Crist’s request to postpone submitting his budget to them until Feb. 20.
State law requires that the governor give lawmakers his budget recommendations at least 30 days before the beginning of the legislative session, or Feb. 1 this year, unless they grant an extension.
“This delay is justified due to the recently concluded special session and uncertainties regarding the receipt of any federal stimulus funds,” Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, and Sansom, R-Destin, wrote to Crist in a joint letter.

House Speaker Ray Sansom, R-Destin, met with reporters and editors in Tallahassee this morning and faced questions about the job about the two ethics complaints and inquiries from the grand jury investigation and Attorney General’s office.
Here are the related questions during his press conference:

Here’s the gaggle that followed:

For more front pages today, continue reading.

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House Speaker Ray Sansom opened the special session this morning by announcing he would resign from a six-figure job he received from Northwest Florida State College.
“Unfortunately, some have disagreed with my decision to work at the college,” said Sansom, R-Destin. “While I do not question their motives, I strongly object to their conclusions. In all my years in public service, I have sought to act in a manner worthy of the trust that the people have placed in me.”
Sansom has come under fire since accepting a job from the college on Nov. 18, the same day he was sworn in as speaker last month. The job raised questions about Sansom’s relationship with the college, which he helped secure millions for in the state budget despite a historic round of budget cuts.
Questions were also raised about whether some of the school’s budget money was used to build an airport hangar for one of Sansom’s political backers and whether the speaker used his public office to secure the job.
After Sansom’s statement, the 120-member House chamber gave him a short standing ovation.
Listen to Sansom’s remarks here:

Florida House Speaker Ray Sansom, R-Destin, this afternoon released his tentative schedule for his chamber for the 12-day special session that is scheduled to start on Monday.
Sansom, in a note to lawmakers, says he has asked for the House appropriations staff for recommendations to close the $2.3 billion budget gap, but doesn’t say when those documents will be available for the public to review.
The schedule from Sansom comes a day after House Democratic Leader Franklin Sands issued this statement calling for a “frank conversation involving all budget options.”
See Sansom’s statement here and continue reading for the full schedule.

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Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Karen Thurman appealed to acting U.S. Attorney Thomas Kirwan to investigate Republican state House Speaker Ray Sansom for public corruption.
Citing the work of the St. Pete Times and the Palm Beach Post, Thurman said there were too many questions around Sansom and a job he received with Northwest Florida State College last month.
From Thurman’s letter:

I called on Governor Charlie Crist to “immediately order the appropriate law enforcement agencies to investigate this matter to clear the ethics cloud around Sansom caused by the appearance of quid-pro-quo corruption.” Rather than ordering an investigation, Crist simply said, “Next question,” while continuing to defend Ray Sansom. Therefore, I take the extraordinary step today of requesting an investigation of this matter by federal law enforcement authorities.

This morning from the Sun-Sentinel:

At a time when a crippling economy demands better stewardship of dwindling tax revenue from their elected officials, Floridians are stuck with a speaker who has shown where his interests lie — with himself.

There’s no way Floridians can trust a speaker who’s shown such poor judgment. His immediate resignation as speaker is necessary to restore trust and confidence in the office.

BOTTOM LINE: Sansom should step down from the speakership.

Also today, Joe Scarborough writes in the Pensacola News Journal that his “old friend lacks the judgment and character to lead Florida Republicans into the future.”

Republicans deserve better.

So does our state.

Lawmakers will meet in a special session Jan. 5 through Jan. 16 to plug a $2.1 billion hole in this year’s budget.
Senate President Jeff Atwater and House Speaker Ray Sansom announced the special session late this afternoon.
Sansom, R-Destin, had held out for months despite pressure from Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink and the Senate, including Atwater, to address the budget deficit sooner rather than later because to hold the session earlier rather because state agencies will have already spent half of their annual budget for the fiscal year that ends July 1 by January.
“Members, based on a careful review of the status of the 2008-09 state budget, and after consultation with Governor Crist’s office, we have concluded that it is in the best financial interests of the state that we convene in a special session from January 5 through January 16. The purpose of the special session will be to address the estimated $2 billion-plus shortfall in the current fiscal year’s budget through a combination of spending reductions and trust fund transfers. Our joint proclamation officially convening and specifying the agenda for the special session will be released prior to January 5,” Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, and Sansom said in a joint press release.
“The House and Senate budget committee meetings this week will provide you an opportunity to begin to prepare for the special session. The budget challenges before us are serious; we are prepared to meet those challenges. We intend to provide essential services to the citizens in a fiscally prudent way,” the release concludes.

From House Democratic Leader Franklin Sands:

We do not aim to embarrass a colleague. … With much respect for his service and his office, we encourage Speaker Sansom to respond to media inquiries about state spending. We urge him to be forthright about his involvement with Northwest Florida State College, and to answer reporters’ questions about how he has handled the appropriations process.

Read the entire statement here.