Memo to Gene Valentino

Memo to Gene Valentino: When a grand jury indicts you, it's not called "character assassination." It's called an indictment.

Sansom Out As "Speaker in Limbo"

The other day we suggested someone in Tallahassee needed to consult a dictionary to see the effect of state representative Ray Sansom's "temporary recusal" as Speaker. Looks like someone did. The Orlando Sentinel is reporting --

Florida House Speaker Ray Sansom’s unprecedented and “temporary” handover of power couldn’t survive the weekend.

House Republicans plan to caucus Monday evening in Tallahassee to name a new GOP leader under party rules – the first move in an effort to permanently sever Sansom’s grip on the speakership, according to numerous GOP legislators involved in the negotiations.

The Republicans came to their senses after Bill Gavano, the House Rules committee chairman, ruled that "to 'avoid any further ambiguity that the House should elect a new speaker and not allow Ray Sansom to remain as speaker-in-limbo.'" Republicans caucus today to elect a new Speaker.

Speakerless Florida House

Ray Sansom's clumsy attempt to slip into the shadows even as he tries to hold onto the reigns of power as Speaker of the House in Tallahassee has everyone confused. He didn't 'resign,' claims Sansom -- he 'recused' himself in writing:

I have decided to recuse myself from the exercise of my duties as speaker of the House of Representative,” Sansom wrote.

Recusal, we understand. It's done occasionally on a case-by-case basis in specific circumstances where a judge or other public official charged with decision-making authority is faced with real or apparent conflict of interest and therefore should avoid taking part.

It's not a vacation from the job altogether. It's not 'sick leave' or 'legal leave' or even 'grand jury subpoena leave.'

Someone in the Florida legislature ought to consult an English dictionary.

Merriam-Webster:

Recuse: Pronunciation: re·cuse. Function: transitive verb. Etymology: Middle English, to refuse, reject, from Anglo-French recuser, from Latin recusare

Definition: To disqualify (oneself) as judge in a particular case ; broadly: to remove (oneself) from participation to avoid a conflict of interest.

edited 2-2 am

Niceville Senator Disses College President

Earlier today we lamented that no one was demanding the resignation of Okaloosa County's "state college" president Bob Richburg. After all, he's surely as central to the grand jury probe of criminal wrong-doing as (former) Speaker of the House Ray Sansom.

Turns out, there is at least one person who is now suggesting that very thing: self-described Sansom "friend" Don Gaetz, a Republican state senator from Niceville.

The weekly Santa Rosa Press-Gazette in Milton reported today that Gaetz has issued a written statement more or less saying that Sansom had no choice except to step down as Speaker of the House while the grand jury investigates him. And, Gaetz added, Northwest Florida State College President Bob Richburg also "should 'face consequences' for his role in the botched hiring."

Not only did Gaetz diss Richburg, his remarks in a subsequent interview sound very much as if he might be trying to shift the blame to Richburg for the whole thing:

"I did not know that Ray was going to go to work for Bob Richburg or that it was going to be handled the way it was. Had I known it and had I been asked for advice from my good friend Ray, I would have warned him off."

"Warned him off?" Put aside the fact that Sansom really wasn't going to work for "Bob Richburg;" he was finagling a job from Richburg to work for the public. But is there a whiff of coolness -- maybe even disapproval -- in senator Gaetz' remarks about "Bob Richburg"?

It certainly sounds like that to us. Just as cool, in fact, as senator Gaetz' remarks last month to the Northwest Florida Daily News when he said -- rather crossly we thought -- that Richburg had never invited him "to a meeting of the Northwest Florida State College board of directors in my life."

Gaetz was, of course, referring to the college trustees "public" meeting arranged to take place in Tallahassee, as Richburg wrote in an email from Ft. Walton, because it was "the only way we can do it in privacy but with a public notice here."

Could the state senator be sending a signal to his "friend" Sansom? If he is, might that signal be, 'Better that you become witness for the prosecution than the other guy?'

Witness for the Prosecution

Ray Samson has said in a written statement that his "ongoing legal proceedings have temporarily created an inability for me to carry out my responsibilities as Speaker." What, then, are we to conclude about Bob Richburg, president of the Okaloosa-Walton Community College ... Oh, so sorry; we mean... Northwest Florida State College?

As Scott Maxwell of the Orlando Sentinel observes, the known -- indeed, the undisputed facts -- are that Sansom--

1) helped funnel millions of dollars to a small college; and
2) The college then offered him a $110,000-a-year paycheck.

And that doesn't even allude to the mysterious $6 million college airplane hangar and the top-secret "legislative briefing" that wasn't. Nevertheless, Maxwell says, "That's why he had to give up his speakership -- and why he needs to give up any delusions of returning to the post."

Richburg is a state employee, too. While an academic may not be as politically powerful as a Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, a state-paid college president is in charge of molding a lot of young minds and educating them to become better informed citizens of Florida.

No one else is asking, so we will: How easily can Richburg faithfully discharge his public duties when, as it appears, he was so deeply enmeshed on the other side of the same questionable transactions that have driven Sansom from the Speaker's chair?

If, as we know, a grand jury is investigating Sansom, isn't it inescapable that Richburg also must be facing possible criminal indictment? After all, it takes two to dance the bribery tango.

Richburg has a dilemma nearly identical to Sansom's. Both men are in charge of guiding important state institutions through parlous economic times. Both hold public positions that impose a high duty of loyalty to the public good.

The only difference is one of scale. Sansom as Speaker was expected to provide ethical and policy guidance to 119 other state representatives. Richburg to thousands of the next generation of Florida citizenry.

If Sansom can be compelledto give up the Speaker's job, shouldn't Richburg? Unless, of course, he's hoping for some sort of deal to save his own skin. For example, by becoming a witness for the prosecution.

Sansom Quits as House Speaker

Facing a grand jury investigation and a state ethics probe, embattled Speaker of the Florida House Ray Sansom (R-Destin) has stepped down, the Miami Herald is reporting.

Time will tell how much of this is owing to pressure from fellow House members and how much is because Sansom has word of worse news to come.

Spacy Florida

A couple of days ago, Orlando Sentinel reporters Aaron Deslatte and Robert Block broke the news that Florida governor Charlie Crist is ordering a state ethics investigation into one of his own former staff employees.

The newspaper is claiming that Brice Harris used his position in the governor's Office of Tourism, Trade and Economic Development to arrange a half million dollar contract for the Andrews Institute of Gulf Breeze. Then, he "resigned his $70,000-a-year state job -- to take a job overseeing the project for the company he had helped get it."

Crist was more or less forced to run for the political cover of a typically toothless ethics investigation after the newspaper obtained "e-mails and other documents" showing that Harris engineered the grant to the Andrews Institute. Then he got waist-deep in the details of running the place by negotiating "minutae down to the design of the logos and shoulder patches the would-be space tourists would wear." And only then did he resign to take the "private sector" position of running the program himself.

That the hog trough is open for all public employees in Florida to self-deal with taxpayer money should not be surprising. After all, former governor Jeb Bush set the tone when he shagged the people of Florida by giving away millions of state money to Lehman Brothers (R.I.P.) and was rewarded soon after leaving office with a cushy consultant contract.

The majority leader of the statehouse, Ray Sansom (R-Destin), also knows a good scam when he sees it. He shoveled tens of millions of taxpayer funds at the once-obscure Okaloosa-Walton County Community College (now, with its ill-gotten wealth, re-christened "Northwest Florida State College"). For his troubles? He was given a $110,000 a year job for which he didn't even have the required advanced degree.

Never mind the absurdity of spending half a million dollars in Florida "tourism and development" money on "space tourism." Space tourism! Here along the Gulf Coast we can't even say that without giggling.

What really gets us is that the news media persist in referring to these all-too-common bag jobs as "potential ethics violations." They are to ethics what bank robbery is to a late payment to your credit card company.

The facts as reported spell out potential crimes. Rod Blagojevich-type crimes. Anyone -- including an elected official or someone who works for one -- who abuses his public position and deploys taxpayer money to secure a cushy job for himself should be indicted. Just as surely as Blagojevich will be.

Sansom's Hiding Place

Florida newspapers from Miami to Tallahassee are ganging up on state representative Ray Samson (R-Destin) for his painfully obvious pay-for-play politics.

The way it worked was simple: Bob Richburg, the president of Okaloosa County Junior College... sorry, now it's Northwest Florida State College, thanks also to pay-for-play hanky-panky .... handed Samson a $122 million wish list and Sansom got a cushy $110 thousand job in return for funding most of it.

Worse, some of those funds supposedly earmarked for "education" turn out to have been designated to build a customized airport hanger suspiciously identical to one wanted for personal use by a Sansom campaign finance contributor. Wink-wink. Your scarce taxpayer dollars at work.

Here's more, from the News Herald:

Since 2006, when he became House budget chairman, Sansom helped the college get $35 million above what the Department of Education recommended. This year, while the Legislature was attempting to close a $6 billion shortfall, he secured $25.5 million for the school, which was $24.5 million above what had been initially budgeted. That was the single-largest public education capital outlay for community college projects this year.

Today's PNJ joins in with an editorial summarizing how Sansom is now avoiding all questions about the recent revelations. It's titled "Sansom Has No Place to Hide."

The thing is, he does have a hidey-hole. It's in the U.S. Attorney's office for the Northern District of Florida. We're still living in the Bush era, after all.

Northern Illinois U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald may see pay-for-play politics as an indictable offense -- it's called bribery and extortion in his book. Apparently, however, North Florida's acting U.S. Attorney, Thomas Kirwin, doesn't have a book.

Quite a few Florida newspapers, pols, and good-government types are demanding that Sansom resign as speaker of the state house of representatives. There's even a web site called SackSansom.com.

What? And leave him sitting there, a free man, in the Florida House of Representatives? We don't get that. If a publicly-paid politician in Illinois, or just about anywhere else, abuses his position to feather his own nest, we'd expect him to be indicted. If a publicly-paid politician does it in Florida, he should get a mere job demotion?

And what about Sansom's publicly-paid academic accomplice? He should testifying in front of a grand jury right now.

Difference Without a Distinction

What's the difference between the "pay to play" schemes of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who tried to trade on his public office to enrich himself with a new job, and Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives Ray Sansom (R-Destin), who actually succeeded in doing that?

Seriously. Is there any real difference? Other than the fact, of course, that Sansom doesn't live within the jurisdiction of a tough U.S Attorney and presumably hasn't had his phones tapped; at least, not until some time after January 20, 2009, when president-elect Obama gets to replace all of them.

Well, yes, there is a difference. Sansom got himself the job he wanted -- a part time $110,000 a year taxpayer-paid unadvertised job for which he wasn't even qualified. Blagojevich hasn't managed that, yet.

The Sansom Mistake

Speaking of amoral crooks, as we just were, it seems to us the question is not whether state representative Ray Sansom (R- Destin) should be removed as State House majority leader, as the Pensacola Newsletter editorializes today. Nor is it whether he should resign his leadership position as some Democrats are saying.

The better question is whether Ray Sansom should be removed from office altogether for abusing the public trust for his own private gain.

We recall that a couple of Pensacola Beach resident association leaders got to know Mr. Sansom back in the late '90s and early 2000's when he was first running for office. He assured them that if he won he would sponsor a bill to allow a referendum on whether Pensacola Beach would be allowed to incorporate as a self-governing municipality.

Sansom won. No bill was ever introduced. In retrospect, the mistake beach residents made was that they didn't offer him some cushy, high paying job on the side. Turns out, that's the traditional quid pro quo you're supposed to give Northwest Florida legislators.