Funny How Things Happen in the Florida Legislature
Posted by gilt on March 16, 2007
It was instructive hanging with FPA and FSNE lobbyist Curt Kiser this week. I learned about serendipity in the legislative process.
Sen. Victor Crist (R-Tampa) is the lead Senate sponsor of a bill that would prohibit disclosure of all personal information in public records, such as name, address, phone number, etc. When Curt and I visited Crist, he was surprised to learn how far reaching the exemption would be. In effect, it would eviscerate the Sunshine requirements for maintenance and inspection of public records.
Crist explained that he introduced his bill as a companion to HB1213 as a favor to House Speaker Rubio. Crist understood it to be related to the privacy concerns of an animal shelter in St. Augustine. The shelter, it seems, received a complaint from a local resident who had acquired an animal at the shelter. The former owner of the animal had used the shelter’s public records to contact the new owner and demand return of the animal. The new owner was understandably upset and took it out on the public record requirement.
Curt dug into a second privacy concern, this time in South Florida, that was also tied to the introduction of the two bills. Curt learned that the Broward Symphony was worried it might have to make its donor list available because it had received a state grant. Curt questions whether the grant makes the orchestra subject to Sunshine disclosures in the first place.
The bills amount to a cannon employed to shoot a gnat. If exemption is justified in either case, a dubious proposition at best, the language should be as narrowly drawn as possible.
Sen. Crist, after hearing our concerns, reiterated his support for the Sunshine Laws and promised to look closely and critically at the bill he had introduced as a favor to a powerful political ally.
The privacy concerns at work here are wonderfully and fully explored in an invaluable history of Florida’s Sunshine laws. The writer is Pete Weitzel, retired Miami Herald managing editor and the moving force behind The First Amendment Foundation. It’s called “The White Paper,” A Narrative History of Open Government in Florida. It’s available from the First Amendment Foundation. More information can be found on the FAF web site.
