The Sunshine Amendment, which was added to the Florida Constitution in 1976, requires all state elected officials to make a “full and public disclosure” of their financial holdings every year.
In 2013, the Florida Legislature passed a law allowing lawmakers to use “blind trusts,” rather than filing a public report of their finances. The idea behind a blind trust is to prevent the owner from having any input in decisions made about the wealth that the trust contains.
Since the law was passed, only one politician has taken advantage of it: Gov. Rick Scott, by far the wealthiest governor in Florida history.
Rather than disclosing all his assets and financial transactions to the public, Scott opted to take the blind trust route.The blind trust, at least hypothetically, would ensure that Scott would not knowingly benefit financially from any government actions during his time in office.
However, a recent investigation and report by the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times suggest Scott’s trust may not have been so blind after all. Scott’s financial records, which the two papers reviewed extensively, are riddled with inconsistencies and missing information.
The governor failed to disclose the true value of 17 assets in eight different trust accounts that list him as an owner or partner. The financial information Scott provided on state disclosure forms also differed significantly from the reports he filed with the Federal Election Commission and the IRS.
Most notably, the partnerships and trusts owned by Scott’s family and operated by his financial advisers often act with the the same goals as the “blind trust,” which suggests the governor may have been involved in the decisions made regarding the trust.
Unfortunately, Scott’s lack of financial transparency seems to be an essential feature of his character. It bears repeating that before being elected as Florida governor, Scott ran a company that was a party to the largest Medicare fraud settlement in history. It is no surprise that Scott’s dishonest and shadowy financial dealings extend into his personal and political life.
Scott’s opponent in his re-election bid, Democratic nominee Charlie Crist, has not been the paragon of financial transparency during this campaign either. Crist has steadfastly refused to release his wife’s tax returns. For all his shortcomings in the area of financial transparency, even Scott has released his spouse’s financial records.
However, Crist has a record of financial disclosure and transparency from his tenure as Florida governor. Scott’s record, both in and out of office, is one of obfuscation and opacity.
The disastrous policies Scott has enacted during his time as governor would ideally deny him another term.
Florida voters deserve to know whether their elected officials are benefitting financially from policy decisions, and Scott has made every effort to hide this knowledge from them.
