Special investigator D. Stephen Kahn released his investigation of former House Speaker Ray Sansom today, deciding that the Destin Republican’s budget dealings and his relationship with Northwest Florida State College left probable cause for the public to “lose faith” in the integrity of the Florida House.

The report means a special committee of House lawmakers will convene to review the findings and decide on a punishment.

House Speaker Larry Cretul, R-Ocala, announced that panel will include Rules Chairman Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton; Faye Culp, R-Tampa; Rich Glorioso, R-Plant City; Joe Gibbons, D-Hallandale Beach, and Ari Porth, D-Coral Springs.

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Investigators have seized former House Speaker Ray Sansom’s legislative computer in their attempt to prove that the Destin Republican illegally hid money in the state budget to build a benefactor an airplane hangar, Leon County State Attorney Willie Meggs said Tuesday.

Meggs shrugged when asked when the Florida Department of Law Enforcement would finish a forensic exam.

“Since the legislature is building airport hangars instead of funding FDLE, they’re a little behind,” Meggs said.

Sansom was indicted in April after a grand jury agreed that he had disguised a hangar as a $6 million college building in the budget. That item also led to indictments of former Northwest Florida State College President Bob Richburg and Destin Jet owner Jay Odom, who has given millions to Sansom and the state GOP.

Sansom has maintained his innocence. He resigned as speaker but remains a powerful member of the House leadership.

Meggs seized the computer in search of documents not already revealed by public records requests. State legislators are not bound by the same strict “sunshine” laws they impose on other officials. For example, House members don’t have to hand over emails older than 30 days.

But even that time frame does not guarantee records. The Palm Beach Post requested all of Sansom’s e-mails within one 30-day period, but the records showed an 11-day gap for which no e-mails were provided.

Public records and access has remained an ongoing issue in Sansom’s indictment. Some of the grand jury’s most penetrating remarks were saved for the state budget process. Jurors criticized the legislature for allowing the state’s operating document to be crafted by as few as two legislators behind closed doors.

Despite that criticism, Republican leaders in the House and Senate spent 10 days behind closed doors this spring hashing out details of the state’s $66.5 billion budget.

Attorneys for both Senate President Jeff Atwater and House Speaker Larry Cretul have determined that documents created in those legislative meetings are not public record, spokeswomen for the two Republicans have told the Post.

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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.

Click here for the indictment

(AP) — Former House Speaker Ray Sansom is facing a new charge of perjury.

State Attorney Willie Meggs says Sansom lied to a grand jury when he testified that a proposed Northwest Florida State College airport hangar wouldn’t be used for by any private entity.

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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.

It’s worth noting that a few of the state’s major papers did not put news of former Speaker Ray Sansom’s indictment on the front page. Instead, papers like the Florida Times-Union and Orlando Sentinel fronted an analysis of Gov. Charlie Crist’s schedule, including this headline from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, asking HOW MUCH DOES HE WORK?.

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UPDATE: Read the story published Saturday on page 1A.

Read the indictment here.

Former House Speaker Ray Sansom, R-Destin, is facing a maximum five-year prison sentence after a grand jury indictment this morning on a felony charge of official misconduct.

Northwest Florida State College President Bob Richburg was also indicted for perjury.

The charges mostly surround Sansom’s work to tuck $6 million into the state budget for an emergency operations training center at the Destin airport. But a grand jury believed the project was instead for a hangar for developer and Destin Jet owner Jay Odom, one of Sansom’s top political benefactors. Odom had tried and failed to get the city of Destin and Okaloosa County interested in the project.

From the grand jury report:

The building essentially has the same design as Destin Jet’s 2004 design and is still an aircraft hangar.

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No member of the legislature saw this appropriation until it was inserted into the appropriation bill during conference with [Sansoms'] Senate counterpart, Senator Lisa Carlton. The hangar project for a community college was the sole work of Ray Sansom, Jay Odom and Bob Richburg.

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While direct evidence was not developed that Jay Odom would acquire an aircraft hangar in exchange for his generous campaign contributions there is strong inference of impropriety.

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Your Grand Jurors find that the spirit of the Sunshine Law was clearly violated by both President Richburg and Representative Sansom.

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(T)he appropriation process that gives unbridled discretion to the President of the Senate, Speaker of the House of Representatives and Appropriation Chairman needs to be changed… The procedure currently in place requires that our elected legisaltors vote on a final budget that they have no knowledge about because it is finalized in a meeting between only two legisaltors.

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Hot off the November elections, then-Speaker Ray Sansom, R-Destin, brought his GOP caucus to WaterColor Inn & Resort in Santa Rosa Beach for a pre-session retreat.

According campaign finance reports published Friday, the Republican Party of Florida paid $47,895 to treat 74 of the 76 House Republicans and their families.

It was at the posh resort that Sansom delivered a message about the state’s dismal financial situation and announced there would be no money for local projects. It was also at the resort that news broke about Sansom’s new job with Northwest Florida State College, setting off an avalanche of stories about whether he received the job in return for tucking money for the school into a shrinking budget.

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Ray Sansom, seated in the back of the House chamber, and his fellow House Republicans voted at 9:17 p.m. tonight to elect Ocala real estate broker Larry Cretul as the leader of their caucus. The move effectively removes Sansom from power and designates Cretul as House speaker for the next two years.
“I think it’s probably fair to say that all of us would probably rather be somewhere else tonight,” Cretul, above, said after the vote. “But the circumstances require us to come together. … Thank you for your support.”
The 16-minute emergency meeting — proof House leaders can keep a meeting short and to the point when they want — was just the latest chapter in a tumultuous two months for Sansom, who, as recently as Friday, had hoped to only briefly step aside while he faces a grand jury inquiry.
“You’re being asked to make a choice between confusion, disorder and uncertainty or clarity, order and stability,” Majority Leader Adam Hasner of Boca Raton said to open the meeting. “Let’s move forward.”

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Speaker Pro-Tempore Larry Cretul, R-Ocala, named a new chief of staff this afternoon, but he’s not ready to dispatch the old one.
Mike Hansen, who followed former Speaker Ray Sansom from the budget committee, has moved into another office on the speaker’s fourth-floor suite. For now, he’ll keep his $144,000 salary while serving as a budget advisor to Cretul and new chief of staff, former Rep. Dudley Goodlette, R-Naples.
Goodlette, meanwhile, is in line to earn $150,000 for his new job.

House Speaker Pro-Tempore Larry Cretul, R-Ocala, above left, is expected to be voted in as Republican leader of the Florida House tonight, a position that will effectively make him the next speaker, replacing Ray Sansom, who stepped aside Friday in the face of a grand jury inquiry and an ethics complaint.
In his first press conference, Cretul stumbled a few times while trying to figure out when to use possessive or plural pronouns, handed a some questions off to House Majority Leader Adam Hasner, R-Boca Raton, above right, and relied on some self-deprecating humor to get him through his 24-minute press confercence.
Cretul named a new chief of staff – former Rep. Dudley Goodlette of Naples who will earn $150,000 for the job – but generally said he isn’t planning making to many changes – not surprising since Cretul, along with Hasner, were two lawmakers in Sansom’s inner circle at the Capitol.
“I did not campaign for this position. I have no promises to fulfill,” Cretul said. “I have no ambition other than spending time with my grandsons. And they are the only ones I hope to impress.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Carl Domino, R-Jupiter, said this afternoon is isn’t abandoning his attempt to become speaker but acknowledged that it would almost take another meltdown in the chamber over the next few hours for him to be successful.
“If I were a betting man, I’d say Larry Cretul will be speaker by the end of the evening. Maybe even with a unanimous vote,” Domino said.

House Rules Chairman Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, issued his opinion this afternoon on whether Speaker Ray Sansom can temporarily step down from his position.
Bottom line is that Galvano wants another election held as soon as possible. He also writes that he will refused to be nominated, clearing a path for Speaker Pro-Tempore Larry Cretul to be installed as “Republican leader.” Rep. Carl Domino, R-Jupiter, is also interested in the top spot.
Technically, the House cannot elect a new speaker until they formally meet in session. The annual spring session is scheduled to start March 3.
Read Galvano’s letter here.
Meanwhile, Cretul is expected to name former state Rep. Dudley Goodlette as his chief of staff, replacing Mike Hansen, a state budget expert who served in the position for Sansom.

Who’s in charge? The seven Republicans trying to iron out the unprecedented political chaos in the chamber need to find a way to heed Dan Webster’s seemingly simple advice: “The solution is finding a leader, empowering that leader and getting behind them.”

Is Sansom even allowed to temporarily recuse himself from the speaker’s office? That decision may come down to a judgment from House Rules Committee Chairman Bill Galvano, a Bradenton Republican who, by several accounts, would like to permanently replace Sansom with himself. In the meantime, a House attorney hired by Sansom opined in this memo that the temporary hand-off of power is legit.

What’s the agenda? Even with Ray Sansom in power, there were few clues as to what policies the House leadership would make a priority this year. The only real priority for Sansom, who was consumed by the budget when he wasn’t overwhelmed by his controversy with the college, seemed to be streamlining state permitting processes.

What to do with Sansom? Right now he has no committee assignments and no bills. The last time a House lawmaker with no leadership position also had no committee assignments was Bob Allen, who offered sex to an undercover male officer and eventually left the legislature altogether.

What happens to the ethics complaint against Sansom? Galvano was supposed to consider it, but instead asked Speaker Pro-Tempore Larry Cretul to hand it over to an independent investigator. So if Cretul is acting speaker now, who is handling the duties of the speaker pro-tempore?

Will the House Select Committee on Seminole Indian Compact Review continue? This is the panel that is supposed to recommend whether lawmakers should approve Gov. Charlie Crist’s push to expand gambling at Seminole casinos. The chairman of that group is Cretul (who also has spots on the Finance & Tax and Rules councils). The vice chairman? Bill Galvano.

How will the chaos reflect on Dean Cannon? The Orlando Republican is supposed to be speaker for the 2011 session. Had he been officially given the “speaker designate” title by his caucus, he’d be the acting speaker now, not Cretul. He might be relieved not to be thrust into the role under current political and economic conditions, but without the designation in his back pocket, he’ll want a smooth transition now to ensure his own transition later.

Read our account of the day here.
And continue reading below to see more front pages from around the state.

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Florida House Speaker Ray Sansom of Destin, right, resigned temporarily recused his position today — perhaps the first time a scandal has forced a House speaker to step down — handing power to fellow Republican Rep. Larry Cretul of Ocala and raising questions about the chamber’s legislative agenda.
“Effective immediately, I have decided to recuse myself from the exercise of my duties as Speaker of the House of Representatives,” Sansom said in a statement. “Ongoing legal proceedings have temporarily created an inability for me to carry out my responsibilities as speaker.”
While some Republican leaders say the move is temporary, pending the outcome of a grand jury inquiry and several ethics complaints focused on Sansom, other members have expressed hope that the chamber will only be subjected to one transition of power.
“These allegations have been difficult,” said state Rep. William Snyder, R-Stuart. “The speaker’s eye has to be on the ball and right now the ball is the economy and the budget.”

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Florida House Speaker Ray Sansom said he will address the annual pre-session legislative seminar hosted [in Tallahassee] by the Associated Press and attended by reporters and editors from across the state.
“Thursday? Yep. I’ll be there,” Sansom said in an interview this afternoon with The Palm Beach Post.
Sansom, R-Destin, has been making the rounds this week with the state capital press corps after declining most interview requests for the past two months. (Sansom had this letter to the editor published Friday.)
In our interview, Sansom said he never considered giving up his elected office instead of stepping down from a controversial $110,000-per-year job with Northwest Florida State College.

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Speaker Ray Sansom of Destin has not held a press conference during the 10-day special sesison on budget cuts or at any other time since he ushered in the 13th consecutive year of Republican rule in the Florida House on Nov. 11.
Apparently, the 10 Connects Tampa television crew had enough and tried to get Sansom coming into the Capitol this week. Reporter Mike Deeson says Sansom is “taking secret elevators and avoiding his parking space.”
Deeson says that Sansom avoided his truck when he found a TV crew was waiting for him in the parking garage and instead sent security.