A nonprofit watchdog organization Monday called for Florida to broaden its financial disclosure requirements for public officials, saying current law provides for loopholes that invite corruption.

Integrity Florida said state lawmakers and the Florida Commission on Ethics should model changes on the state of Louisiana, which drew a top ranking from the Center for Public Integrity in 2009 for disclosure standards enacted under Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal. Florida ranked 26th in the same report.

For starters, Integrity Florida executive director Dan Krassner said state ethics officials should post disclosure forms filed by public officials annually on the internet, so citizens can easily find them.

“If something’s not online, it essentially does not exist,” Krassner said.

Integrity Florida’s push comes on the heels of the ethics commission last week acknowledging that it is still awaiting disclosure forms from more than 4,000 public officials who failed to file by the July 1 deadline.

The commission also is digging in and refusing to dismiss as uncollectible $87,000 in fines that goes back more than four years and is considered beyond the panel’s authority to pursue.

Commissioners said they are hoping the Legislature will approve a measure next spring that extends the commission’s power. Florida’s disclosure laws were approved with a 1976 constitutional amendment. But the reporting requirements for public officials have not changed dramatically over the years even as the potential methods for gaining favors or hiding corrupt gains have become more sophisticated.

Integrity Florida, however, also is recommending that the Legislature enhance disclosure requirements to include more detail on public officials’ outside employment, nonprofit board membership, more information on a spouse’s net worth and more details about clients for those officials exmployed by professional or consulting groups.

“We still need more disclosure to know,” Krassner said. “Otherwise, Florida has increased its corruption risk.”

Krassner said more detailed information also should be demanded of legislators who work for lobbying firms. Integrity Florida found 11 lawmakers employed by organizations that lobby the Legislature, including Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, a lawyer with Gunster Yoakley & Stewart, and Rep. Joe Abruzzo, D-Wellington, employed by Weiss, Handler, Angelos & Cornwell.

Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, also lists Weiss, Handler as a secondary source of income on the disclosure form she filed earlier this month, although both she and Abruzzo also disclosed clients of the firm that have business before the Legislature.

Integrity Florida also said that lawmakers should tighten the standard for lawmakers required to disclose a possible conflict-of-interest when casting a vote. Legislators have as much as 15 days after each vote to file such disclosures with House or Senate officials. Such disclosures should be made before a vote, Integrity Florida said.

Only a dozen lawmakers disclosed 33 possible voting conflicts during the 2012 session, the organization found.

With the Florida Supreme Court set to hear arguments this month on the Legislature’s second attempt at redrawing Senate boundaries, the state Democratic Party weighed in Tuesday with a proposal of its own.

Democrats are offering justices an alternative after concluding that what the Legislature has drawn “reveals an intent to favor incumbents and contains multiple districts that plainly and directly violate constitutional standards.”

Effectively, the Legislature’s round two includes many of the same flaws that led justices to reject its first attempt in a 5-2 decision last month, Democrats maintain. And while justices sent the rejected plan back to lawmakers to revise in a special session, a second turn-down will result in a court-drawn plan.

Democrats clearly are banking on justices seeking guidance with their map-making by reviewing alternative plans that have been put before them. 

The Democratic Party plan evenly divides the 40-member Senate along partisan lines — with a proposed 20 seats having a voting history that favors Democrats, and 20 Republican-leaning. The Legislature’s plan before justices includes a 23-17 GOP edge in voting performance, analysis shows.

While the latest legislative plan before justices also only puts two current incumbents in the same district — Senate Majority Leader Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, and Sen. David Simmons, R-Maitland — the Democratic plan makes three likely matchups, including Gardiner against neighboring Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando.

In South Florida, Sens. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, and Eleanor Sobel, D-Hollywood, would be paired. So, too, would be Sens. Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach, and Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Margate.

In Palm Beach County, the Democratic proposal also would add a little more political uncertainty.

The Legislature’s proposed central county seat, with a majority black-Hispanic voting population, would be changed to span the upper half of Palm Beach County, from the coastline to the Glades. Reps. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, Mack Bernard, D-West Palm Beach, and former Rep.  Kevin Rader, a Delray Beach Democrat, have all been eyeing that seat.

A south county Senate district, already targeted by Rep. Joe Abruzzo, D-Wellington, looks like it stays largely intact, in the Senate plan.

Florida Democratic Party Chairman Rod Smith disputed Tuesday the claim by Senate Republican leaders that the plan for redrawing the chamber’s 40 districts was mostly approved by the state Supreme Court.

The court last week ruled eight of the districts were invalid, including two seats spanning Broward and Palm Beach counties. Justices also had “concerns” with another two districts which divide the city of Lakeland.

Echoing an earlier comment from Senate Reapportionment Committee Chairman Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, said Monday that means, “three-fourths of the current plan has been deemed valid.”

Not so fast, Smith said.

“An entire redrawing of a Senate map is required,” Smith said, calling last week’s ruling by justices an “historic rejection” of the Legislature’s Senate plan.

Because the boundaries cited by the court are contiguous to other districts, it’s impossible to just make a few fixes, as Smith said Republicans are trying to cast the approach to a special session which begins Wednesday.

The court’s 233-page ruling provides, “enough instruction by the court for the Legislature to draw a map that will pass muster,” Smith said. “But there is no such thing as…(just) tweak the map.”

Smith also said he was pleased with the Supreme Court’s adherence to standards for compact districts and not drawing lines that favor a party or incumbents. These new provisions were included in the state constitution by voters in 2010, who approved Amendments 5 and 6.

While Amendment 5, which controlled legislative redistricting, was applied by justices, Smith said he is optimistic a Leon County Circuit Court will follow the same standard in reviewing the Legislature’s plan for redrawing congressional districts. Florida Democrats and allied organizations have sued to overturn that plan, based on the demands of Amendment 6, which covered congressional redistricting.

Smith also said that party leaders are still considering further action against the House redistricting plan, which was upheld by the Supreme Court. Smith said it’s possible legal challenges to a select number of districts would be filed in lower courts by Democrats.

Smith, meanwhile, acknowledged that he’s been fielding phone calls from Senate Democrats whose districts also could be dramatically redrawn in coming days.

Sen. Chris Smith, D-Fort Lauderdale, currently serves a heavily minority district that snakes from Broward County through Palm Beach County, mostly clinging to the Interstate-95 corridor. Smith’s district, and that of a parallel coastal district held by Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, were declared invalid by the court.

Under redrawn maps, it’s possible that Smith’s district change to become primarily rooted in far western Palm Beach County, while reaching in to include mostly black voters in Mangonia Park, Riviera Beach, and parts of  West Palm Beach. Bogdanoff’s district, meanwhile, looks potentially destined to be confined to Broward County — and turn Democratic-leaning.

“I think you’re going to see a very different Senate makeup when Palm Beach and Broward districts are redrawn,” Smith said. 

A push to ban texting-while-driving cleared a Senate budget panel Thursday, but it’s looking likely headed toward a dead end in the Florida House.

The measure (CS/SB 416) would make texting a secondary offense, allowing law enforcement to issue citations only if drivers were pulled over for another offense.

“I’m certainly not on infringing on anyone’s personal freedom, as long as it’s not affecting the person next to you,” said Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice, who is sponsoring the legislation. “I’d like to get this done before there’s a tragedy where someone takes out all the kids at a bus stop and then the public is screaming, ‘Why didn’t you do something about it.’

“This is the opportunity to do something about it,” she said.

The proposal would impose a $30 fine for a first violation. A second offense within five years would force a $60 fine and 3 points added to a motorist’s license. Six points would be tacked on if using the device contributed to a crash.

Detert’s bill was approved 14-1 by the Senate’s budget subcommittee on transportation, tourism and economic development. The lone opponent was Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, whose district includes part of Palm Beach County, who killed a similar texting proposal two years ago, while a House committee chair.

The House this year again looks poised to end talk of text bans. House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, told the Post last month that he was wary of adding “one more layer of prohibitive behavior,” in Florida.

At the time, Cannon said, “I’ve heard evidence that eating fast food, or men fixing their ties, or women fixing their makeup, or talking to screaming kids in the back of the van — as I’ve done from time to time — is just as distracting, perhaps more so, than sending someone a text message.”

The National Transportation Safety Board last month called for states to enact a ban on non-emergency phone calls and texting by all drivers.  About 35 states ban text messaging while driving, 30 states ban cell-phone use by novice drivers, and 10 ban all use of hand-held phones, according to the NTSB.

But Cannon said he and many in Florida’s conservative, Republican-dominated Legislature are wary of steps aimed at “government-regulating private behavior.”

Some kind of ban on hand-held devices behind the wheel — usually aimed at minors — has been proposed in every regular session of the Florida Legislature since 2002. The bills have been filed by both Democrats and Republicans.

Last session, more than a dozen such bills were filed in Tallahassee — but none cleared the Legislature.

Detert said there are plenty of alternatives to texting behind the wheel. She uses a voice-to-text system for sending messages when driving. And her bill does nothing to restrict cell phone use, she added.

“I’ve tried to draw this bill as narrowly as we possibly can,” Detert said.

From the ‘who knew?’ category.

Bike riders would be free to ride without their hands on the handlebars under legislation that sailed 6-0 through the Senate Transportation Committee on Tuesday.

 Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, a Fort Lauderdale Republican whose district includes a big chunk of Palm Beach County, is sponsoring the legislation (SB 1788)  which cleared its first of three Senate committee stops.

Bogdanoff didn’t attend Tuesday’s hearing. But through an aide, the lawmaker said the bill was designed to erase unnecessary state regulation.

Florida law currently includes at least 20 paragraphs and 1,405 words regulating bicycle-riding and safety. Among the provisions is chapter 316.2065 (7) which requires that, “any person operating a bicycle shall keep at least one hand upon the handlebars.”

Scofflaw riders now can face $15 fines, plus additional court costs that could run the price of the violation to as much as $82.50, Senate analysts said. Bogdanoff, though, left alone other standards covering helmets, rules of the road, and even one that requires bikes to have a seat.

“We never know what personal injury attorneys are going to do,” said Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Valrico.