Gov. Ron DeSantis regularly jets around the state.
Last month, stops included Coral Gables, Jacksonville and Cape Canaveral, all to sign bills passed by the Florida Legislature earlier this year.
His voters may know that DeSantis went to those three cities, but they likely won't know how much it cost. The state says those financial records are exempt from public records disclosure, citing a 2023 law aimed at suppressing certain information to prevent endangerment of the governor and other officials. There is.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement publishes the total amount of the governor's travel expenses each year, but the agency recently denied a public records request from USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida seeking a detailed breakdown.
Open government advocates say the new law prevents citizens from knowing clearly whether personal and political travel, which should not be covered by tax dollars, is separated from official travel.
“I don't understand this contradiction,” said Michael Barfield, director of public access initiatives at the Florida Government Accountability Center. “…He was attending a public event. It makes no sense to defend that.” Stated. He filed multiple public records lawsuits against the governor. “It is my understanding that this bill does not preclude the release of amounts.”
He wasn't the only one who had that impression.
State Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat from Orlando, questioned the bill's (SB 1616) sponsors on the House floor in early May 2023 about financial transparency. “Ensuring that the public still knows how their money is being spent when it comes to travel; How do you balance that?”
“Nothing has changed in the financial picture that is now in the public record or in the reports that are now available,” Rep. Jeff Holcomb, R-Spring Hill, responded.
A year later, Eskamani said in a phone interview with reporters that the bill's Republican supporters should now try to make such information available to the public.
“Given the constant response from the bill's sponsors and others who tried to make the case that this bill was all about safety and security, supporters of the bill were under the impression that this information would continue to be released.” said Eskamani. “I've never bought into that logic or excuse, but there was no question that they were selling it to their colleagues.”
Traveling again: Florida governor's long business trip becomes a hot topic
The Florida governor's travels have been the subject of intrigue and controversy for decades. Attention to Mr. DeSantis' journey increased as he crisscrossed the United States in the months leading up to his unsuccessful presidential bid, which officially began on May 24, 2023.
According to a FDLE report released in August, the state spent more than $8 million protecting and transporting the governor in the 2022-23 fiscal year. The company recorded a multi-million dollar increase in spending compared to the previous year.
Law enforcement denied USA TODAY Network-Florida's bankruptcy request in early May, about nine months after the request.
The governor's office did not respond to requests for comment, but representatives for Mr. DeSantis have previously dismissed concerns about his travel behavior.
“The state does not coordinate or plan political travel, and taxpayers do not fund political travel,” spokesman Brian Griffin said in an email last year.
FDLE spokeswoman Dana Kelly said in an email only that the annual report is a “public record of expenses.”
The law went into effect on May 11, 2023, when DeSantis signed it.
“In a security situation, if you are targeted, what is your pattern of behavior? Unfortunately, I am one too, and I receive a lot of threats, but that's because people who don't want to “Do something good,'' DeSantis said at the time.
And that's how the bill's Republican sponsors framed the exemption, which also suppressed records about who visited the governor's mansion. The law applies not only to the governor, but also to his immediate family, the speaker of the House, the president of the Senate, and the chief justice of the state Supreme Court.
“We are a government in the sun,” bill sponsor State Sen. Jonathan Martin, a Fort Myers Republican, said on the Senate floor. “This allows us to continue to do so in new and interesting times, when seemingly innocuous information can be aggregated to reveal deeply personal aspects of your life.”
“Unfortunately, this very simple bill, which is truly intended to protect the safety and security of our highest-ranking public officials, has become politicized,” Holcomb said before the House vote. responded to the criticism.
Eskamani wasn't the only legislative Democrat with doubts. All of them voted against the bill.
“If someone's running for president, if they're running for governor, their travel should be transparent, their finances and everything, their actions should be transparent. ,” said Rep. Michelle Reiner, a St. Louis Democrat. St. Petersburg.
Mr. Holcomb and Mr. Martin did not respond to requests for comment.
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Transparency advocates claim violation of latest records exemption
American Oversight, the government accountability watchdog that sued the governor's office several months ago for alleged public records violations, said the law does not apply to spending. In an emailed statement, the group noted that the Florida Constitution requires that any exemption “shall not go beyond what is necessary to accomplish the purpose established by law.”
“That means that the exemption must be construed narrowly (in line with its stated purpose); otherwise it would be unconstitutional because it would be more broad than necessary to achieve that purpose. ,” said Ron Fein, principal advisor at American Oversight. “If your financial records contain security information that is subject to the exemption, they may be redacted.”
The law lists several examples of records that are exempt. Fine said the financial records do not fall into either category. And such records, he says, do not meet the law's purpose of preventing disclosure of records that “may endanger protected persons.”
Fein added that the law should never have been passed in the first place. “Not only is this law overbroad and likely violates the state constitution, it also violates Florida's commitment to government transparency.”
Bobby Bullock, executive director of the Florida First Amendment Foundation, warned lawmakers last year about how comprehensive the exemption could become. He read the bill and found that financial records were not expressly excluded.
And as a result, if the state chooses to consider them exempt security records, a legal challenge would be required to challenge it. “It's time to fight before the bill passes Congress,” Bullock said in a recent phone call. “Once a law is passed, it's much harder to push back.”
The Washington Post is pushing back. The company filed a lawsuit in Leon County Circuit Civil Court last year, arguing that the records exemption law is unconstitutional.
It was a high-profile case, as the Post reported: The lawsuit alleges that DeSantis' aides blocked the release of records related to taxpayer-funded travel and retaliated against those who objected. and attracted even more attention.
Barfield, of the Florida Government Accountability Center, said Florida's public records system, once lauded nationally for its transparency, is “broken at the state level.”
“The bottleneck is in the governor's office,” he said, pointing to a News 6 article showing how DeSantis' team reviews public records requests to state agencies.
“They know that we have scant resources to challenge denials of access to public records, whether it’s exorbitant fees or excessive and inordinate delays. I'm making the most of it.”
Contributed by News Service of Florida. This reporting content is supported by a partnership with Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. USA TODAY Network-Florida First Amendment reporter Douglas Soule can be reached at DSoule@gannett.com.
