In his Feb. 10 guest column, Jacksonville City Councilman Matt Carlucci rightly castigates the Florida Senate after it deliberately abandoned the usual committee and citizen input processes to advance legislation significantly weakening state and local ethics commissions. For example, imagine a food inspector prohibited from citing a failing restaurant unless he got sick eating there.
This measure would lead to a dangerous diminishment of accountability and transparency. It clearly provides “get out of ‘ethics’ jail free” cards for ethically challenged legislators.
Carlucci claims the measure insults the intelligence of Florida’s citizens, but that’s debatable. Floridians continually re-elect legislators who repeatedly advance measures contrary to the wishes of voters. They then expend considerable effort and expense to amend the state constitution to pursue the goals and policies they expect of their legislators, only to have those same legislators oppose them.
It’s said that insanity is defined as repeating the same failed process and expecting a different outcome.