The Florida Legislature wants you kept in the dark

From Scathing Purple Musings

by Bob Sykes

Even the Florida GOP state senators whom are advancing PCB 7170 seem wary as its being moved forward as a committee bill. Heck, even the usually cocky and arrogant JD Alexander weaseled out of being associated with it and said “I didn’t draft the bill. I haven’t looked at all the language.”

Crafted in response to circuit judge Jackie Fulford’s ruling that the republican plan to privatize 30 state prisons was unconstitutional, such a secret privatization bill would have far-reaching implications. From the Associated Press:

TALLAHASSEE –A Senate committee, bucking a decades-long trend of open government in Florida, formally introduced two bills today aimed at allowing the secret privatization of prisons.

But the measures also would make secret the outsourcing of other state agency functions, which has raised concerns from open government advocates.

The Senate rules committee introduced the first bill (PCB 7170), which essentially means that an agency would not have to report its privatization of a program or service until after the contract is signed.

Committee chair John Thrasher, a St. Augustine Republican, told a standing-room-only audience that the introduction of the bill and that of its companion (PCB 7172) means both will be assigned to other committees for “substantive consideration.”

A staff analysis says the first bill “makes clear that the Legislature may direct privatization of agency function itself, without any agency request.”

The bills’ opponents, which include the First Amendment Foundation, have said the bills would keep the public in the dark about the costs of outsourcing any government service, not just prisons

A legislative body already so incestuous and neck-deep in conflicts of interests would be let loose to cut deals that best serve themselves. What this would mean for an education contracting system thats already snowballing out of control is chilling. Small wonder the editors of the Orlando Sentinel referred to this as “private privatizing.”

The measure would let state agencies conceal their privatizing or outsourcing plans until — and this comes straight out of the bill — “after the contract for the privatization and outsourcing has been executed.” In other words, after it’s a done deal.

This bill mocks any notion of government transparency and accountability. It’s especially offensive in Florida, where open government is both a tradition and a constitutional right.

Some legislative leaders might still be feeling burned from the firestorm they created last year when they passed a plan, later blocked by a state circuit judge, to privatize 29 state prisons in South Florida. Too bad.

If a plan for privatization or outsourcing can’t stand up to public scrutiny before it’s implemented, it’s probably not worth pursuing, anyway.

Legislators need to kill this bill.

Its one thing to deliberately mislead folks with the titles to legislation like a “Paycheck Protection Act,” a “Religious Freedom Bill” or even a “Teacher Protection Act“; buts its another thing entirely to change the rules and game the system in a way which only serves their own self-interest and agenda. This brazen and unprecedented attempt to grab power and suppress transparency represents the highest level of deceit by republican legislators to date.

http://bobsidlethoughtsandmusings.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/is-the-florida-rebublicans-secret-privatization-maneuver-the-most-deceitful-yet/