If you haven't been following Florida state politics over the past few months, you've missed quite a drama. Republican Ray Sansom has undergone a stunning fall from grace in the past few months. He was installed as the new House Speaker on Nov. 18 and his ethical and legal problems began almost immediately thereafter, resulting in him announcing yesterday that he would temporarily step aside as House Speaker while a grand jury begins its investigation of his probably illegal actions. He's the first Florida House Speaker to ever step aside in state history, and as the St. Petersburg Times reports, Sansom's move has House Speaker Ray Sansom thrown the Florida GOP and the Florida House into a state of "chaos."
Sansom's legal and ethical problems began a few hours after he was sworn in as House Speaker last November, when the board of trustees at Northwest Florida State College agreed to hire him to a part-time administration job that paid $110,000 a year. The position had not been advertised and there were no other applicants for the job. Sansom faxed his application from his office in the state Capitol.
It was stunningly stupid for Sansom to accept the job on the same day he was installed as Speaker, and it raised red flags for many people almost immediately. It didn't take much digging by the St. Petersburg Times and Miami Herald to uncover some troubling connections between Sansom and the college:
Soon after news crept out about the job, details began to emerge about a small college that had done unusually well in the annual budget roulette of Tallahassee. Sansom was the House's top budget writer during those years.
In 2008, Sansom accelerated funding for a student services building, taking what had been a $1 million appropriation and turning it into $25.5 million — the largest single appropriation for any college in the state.
But things began to stink even more as more layers of Sansom's onion got peeled away. Perhaps the most troubling aspect of Sansom's dealings with the college was a $6 million expenditure that Sansom pushed through for the college - an expenditure that was not part of the college's initial request for public education construction outlay (PECO) funds - for a first-responder training center for the school that would double as a staging area for emergency officials during natural disasters.
That project raises the most serious questions because it's so similar to one that had been proposed by a developer and major GOP donor, Jay Odom. A longtime Sansom friend, Odom sought $6 million in state money to build a hurricane-proof hangar that he would use as a maintenance facility for his jet business but then turn it over to emergency officials as a staging area during natural disasters.
Odom didn't get the money, but soon after Sansom secured money for the college to construct a similarly sized building on the same plot of land where Odom had sited his hangar. College documents refer to the building as a "hangar," but college officials insist it's not the same building Odom was trying to build and they were never planning to let him use it.
Translation: Sansom's buddy wanted to build a hangar for his business and get the state to pay the tab, and Sansom appears to have helped him do just that.
Sansom is accused of many other shady dealings too, including a violation of Florida's Sunshine Law for a meeting he and his buddy, Northwest Florida State College president Bob Richburg, arranged with the board of trustees of Northwest Florida, which as a public college must open up its board meetings to the public.
In an e-mail exchange obtained by the Times/Herald through public records, Sansom and Richburg plotted to hold the trustee meeting in Tallahassee while satisfying public notice requirements with publicity in Okaloosa County, 150 miles away. "It's probably the only way we can do it in privacy," Richburg said.
Sansom's decision to temporarily step aside as House Speaker, rather than to fully resign, has Florida Republicans scrambling to figure out what to do. Due to Florida's term limits and the Republicans' longtime stranglehold on state politics, the succession of House Speakers is planned many years in advance. Sansom threw that system into chaos by appointing a little-known legislator, Larry Cretul (who is his condo roommate in Tallahassee), to take his place.
It was not clear Friday how long new Speaker Larry Cretul, 61, is expected to remain in power and some members openly questioned whether Sansom's half-measure departure, designed to allow for his return, was even permissible. Talk around the Capitol was about whether Sansom should fully resign the speakership and allow Republicans to hold a new election to replace him.
"This is a mess," said Rep. Baxter Troutman, R-Winter Haven. "There's no page in the playbook that gives clear instructions on what to do and how to do it."
From what I can see, Sansom's stunning fall from grace is indicative, perhaps, of the start of a new day in Florida politics. Just as citizens are revolting against political and corporate corruption on the federal level, people here in Florida are revolting against it in Tallahassee as well. In previous years, Sansom's actions, disgusting as they are, would most likely have been quickly swept under the rug, which perhaps explains why Sansom was so blatant about what he was doing and didn't make much effort to hide it. Will the revolt be enough for Floridians to topple Republicans from their unfortunate longtime dominance of state political leadership? Time will tell.
(Note: If you're interested in reading up on this growing GOP scandal, the St. Petersburg Times chronicles all the dirty details here.)