Gov. Ron DeSantis quietly approved new restrictions on how oversight boards can investigate alleged corruption and ethics violations among state and local officials on Friday evening, but local officials say the measures are likely to weaken government oversight of elected officials.
Under the new law, state and local ethics commissions will be permitted to investigate complaints against public officials only if people with personal, non-hearsay knowledge are willing to come forward by name and file a complaint under oath about the alleged misconduct.
The bill also strips local ethics commissions of their power to launch their own investigations into ethics violations, a powerful tool that has led to the indictment of influential elected officials, including former Miami City Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla.
Florida law has allowed local governments to adopt their own ethics enforcement procedures for decades, but the new law that took effect Friday creates a uniform standard of ethics rules across the state, meaning local ethics boards cannot set rules that are stricter than those set forth by the Florida Ethics Commission.
Supporters of the bill say its purpose is to prevent “politically motivated” or “frivolous” complaints. But in Miami-Dade County, where ethics officers currently investigate government scandals, officials say the change will undermine their ability to investigate the most egregious cases of ethics violations, sometimes even criminal violations.
Jose Arrojo, executive director of the Miami-Dade County Ethics and Public Trust Commission, said in April that it was unclear what would happen with the ongoing litigation.
“I don’t know what impact it will have on our complaints about the pipeline,” said Arrojo, who said at the time he had contacted the governor and his staff to try to urge him to veto the bill.
Governor DeSantis has not explained why he approved the change, but Politico Florida reported that the governor’s top counsel expressed an interest in changing how ethics investigations are handled in Florida after two of DeSantis’ top advisers were investigated for ethics violations and were ultimately exonerated.
What changes under the new law?
Starting Oct. 1, all ethics complaints will have to meet a higher standard before they can be investigated. One change is that complaints submitted anonymously or based on hearsay will not be investigated.
In other words, unless there is a sworn declaration of personal knowledge of wrongdoing accompanying the allegations, state law bars investigations by state and local ethics commissions.
The move to weaken Florida’s ethics law comes after the Florida Republican Party said the changes were needed to prevent ethics complaints from being “weaponized” for political gain, without citing specific examples.
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“Given the level of weaponization of the partisan movement to use this, I think a higher standard is justified,” House Speaker Paul Renner, a Republican from Palm Coast, told reporters in March.
Senate President Kathleen Passidomo said she was concerned that in some jurisdictions “the power to act autonomously is being, or could be, politicized and weaponized.”
“The current process is too often weaponized by bad actors,” Passidomo said in March.
The new law also sets strict deadlines for how long an ethics investigation can take.
For example, the Florida Ethics Commission must complete a preliminary investigation no later than one year after the initiation of the preliminary investigation to determine whether probable cause exists, and the commission must begin a preliminary investigation within 30 days of receiving a legally sufficient referral or complaint.
