Florida voters barred ex-lawmakers from lobbying for 6 years, but revolving door still swings
TALLAHASSEE — In the month since the election, four former Florida lawmakers have taken jobs as lobbyists, and one state agency director left her position in October to lead a trade group for an industry she used to regulate.
This kind of revolving door between government and lobbying firms was supposed to end after voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2018 banning elected officials and agency heads from lobbying for six years after leaving their posts. But that amendment doesn’t take effect until the end of 2022, meaning the revolving door will continue to swing for another two years.
The measure appeared on the 2018 ballot as Amendment 12, and it easily cleared the 60% threshold needed to pass, earning the support of nearly 79% of voters. That was an overwhelming majority in an election that was so close it produced three statewide recounts for governor, U.S. Senate and agriculture commissioner.
“[That margin] just shows you the concern people have out there for this revolving door situation that we see in Florida,” said Ben Wilcox, research director of Integrity Florida, a Tallahassee-based ethics watchdog group that backed the amendment. “I think voters might be a little disappointed that it didn’t go into effect sooner.”
The amendment extended the current ban on lawmakers becoming lobbyists at the state level from two years to six, but two legislators who left their seats last month have signed up as apparent lobbyists.
Ex-Rep. David Santiago, R-Deltona, left office in November due to term limits. It was announced in October he was joining Colodny Fass, a lobbying firm that represents many insurance industry clients. After the election, he joined Floridians for Lawsuit Reform, a group pushing tort reform measures in the Legislature, as its executive director.
Former state Sen. Oscar Braynon, a Miami Gardens Democrat, joined The Southern Group, one of the premier lobbying firms in Tallahassee. Braynon served in the House and Senate and was term-limited this year. He will be based in the firm’s Miami office.
AshBritt Environmental, a major disaster recovery company that has landed several debris removal contracts in Florida after hurricanes, has hired Holly Raschein, a former Republican House member from Key Largo as its lobbyist. Raschein served from 2012-2020 and was term-limited this year.
It is unclear how Braynon and Raschein will get around the two-year lobby ban already in state law. Braynon did not answer a call and text seeking comment. Attempts to reach Raschein through AshBritt were unsuccessful.
In the past, lawmakers have opted to represent clients before city and county governments for two years before formally registering at the state level to lobby their former colleagues. One report in Florida Politics on Raschein’s hire says she’ll “direct (AshBritt’s) policy objectives at the local, state and federal levels.”
A third former lawmaker, Clay Ingram, a Pensacola Republican, was named as a lobbyist for Florida State University last month. He left office in 2018, so the two-year ban on lobbying doesn’t apply to him.
Mary Mayhew served as Secretary for the Agency for Health Care Administration under Gov. Ron DeSantis until Sept. 30, when she left to lead the Florida Hospital Association, a group whose members include hospitals regulated by AHCA.
Although Amendment 12 applies to agency heads, the two-year lobby ban in current law does not, and Mayhew has not registered to lobby on behalf of FHA, although she is the group’s president.
Amendment 12 was put forward by former Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, as a member of the Constitution Revision Commission, a panel that meets every 20 years to propose amendments to the state charter. He said he pushed for it because of what he saw during his time in the Senate from 2006 to 2016.
“It seemed to me that we had a sub rosa culture of people going into public office, whether it was elected office or appointed office, and creating a soft landing for themselves in the lobbying community,” Gaetz said. “I saw circumstances where people I served with in the Legislature spent their last year in the Legislature basically as an audition for which lobbying firm they could get hired by.”
Preventing lawmakers from lobbying for six years, the longest ban in the country, would cut down on former legislators turned lobbyists pressing their friends and former colleagues for appropriations or policy requests since most of them would be term-limited after that time.
Gaetz declined to name specific examples, but high-profile lawmakers who became lobbyists their terms ended in the last decade include former House Speaker Dean Cannon, who started his own company and eventually joined GrayRobinson, a top lobbying firm; and former Senate President Mike Haridopolos, who lobbies for U.S. Sugar Corp. among other clients.
Gaetz said he put the effective date for the amendment back to Dec. 31, 2022, because he didn’t want opponents of the measure to think he designed it with a particular lawmaker in mind.
“I wanted to spike any suggestion that Amendment 12 was designed to hurt specific people or to stop someone who was at the end of their legislative career from doing what they had intended to do,” Gaetz said. “I wanted to have a clean proposal that could not be attacked.”
The practice of lawmakers using loopholes to get around the two-year ban already in law worries Gaetz, but he said he has faith in DeSantis and current legislative leaders to uphold Amendment 12. Gaetz, a member of the Florida Commission on Ethics, could also have a role in making sure it’s upheld.
“With ethics, there will always be people looking for a side door into the public trough,” Gaetz said. “I’m concerned there will always be people looking for a side door, but that’s the nature of people.”
grohrer@orlandosentinel.com
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