Dan Gelber - Op-Ed: Tampa Tribune
Florida needs a freestanding strike force dedicated to attacking public corruption in state government. There has been an utter lack of scrutiny in large part because limited resources are dedicated to oversight of the excesses of state officials.
This must change if Floridians are to regain faith in their government. According to the FBI, Florida leads the nation in public corruption. Yet few investigative and prosecutorial resources are directed at overseeing Florida's biggest unit of government - state government. That is because the Capitol is located in Tallahassee, which has a small state and federal prosecutor presence.
Unlike the U.S. Attorney's Office in South Florida (which has over 220 prosecutors), the North Florida office has only 30 full-time assistant U.S. attorneys. And it is unfair and unwise to expect the Leon County prosecutor to oversee all of state government and still address its primary mission of protecting Leon County residents.
While the state attorney general is located in Tallahassee, he has limited jurisdiction beyond violations of Florida Sunshine and public record laws. That is why I have recommended assembling a Public Corruption Strike Force in Tallahassee to scrutinize state government operations. The notion would be to put together prosecutors and investigators from the state and federal government to attack public corruption full time - each handling matters related to their areas of statutory jurisdiction.
My hope would be that the U.S. Attorney's Office would designate prosecutors to the mission as the federal government has the best statutes, discovery rules and resources. As Florida attorney general, I would designate some of my own lawyers to work cooperatively.
Although the Attorney General's Office has had a traditionally limited mission in public corruption prosecutions, it does have jurisdiction over violations of our Sunshine Laws and public record statutes. Vigorous enforcement of these laws will not only enhance transparency, but also integrity in government. Sunshine can be a powerful antiseptic.
Strike forces are not uncommon in the prosecution world. They have been created for organized crime, drugs prosecutions and health care fraud. In fact, presently the state Attorney General's Office works cooperatively on health care fraud prosecutions with their federal counterparts. But it is vital that the largest unit of government in Florida have adequate scrutiny, and that scrutiny must be in Tallahassee.
In Washington, the Justice Department has a Public Integrity Section looking over Congress and the executive branch. We should have a similar unit looking over the shoulder of state officials in Tallahassee, and the $64 billion budget that too often is not sufficiently scrutinized. I also believe it important that the unit be staffed with career prosecutors and not political appointees.
Decisions about prosecutions should never be made with a view toward party membership - but because corruption investigations often involve political figures it is even more important to guarantee they maintain not even a hint of partisanship.
Floridians have lost a good measure of faith in their state government. And it is understandable, with indictments coming out of Tallahassee and a general belief that special-interest money has overwhelmed the core mission of state government. I don't believe a corruption strike force will solve all these problems - in fact, too much of what is sleazy about state government is not even illegal. However, I do believe a dedicated force of prosecutors and investigators can do a lot to change the culture of corruption that seems to define state government.
September 10, 2010
Dan Gelber - Op-Ed: Tampa Tribune
