‘A stain on the Cabinet’: History repeats in Tallahassee
The voters of Florida made at least one inspired choice last November. They elected Nicole “Nikki” Fried, a lawyer from Fort Lauderdale, to be commissioner of agriculture and consumer services, one of three statewide elected officials who make up the Cabinet.
It nearly didn’t happen. Fried defeated Matt Caldwell, a state legislator, by an astonishingly tiny margin of 6,753 votes out of more than eight million — in an election in which three statewide contests were settled by recounts. The race was exceedingly close, and what matters is that Floridians got it right.
The main reason Fried’s victory was so important is the most obvious one. She’s a Democrat. The defeat of U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson makes her the only statewide elected Democrat in Florida, which defies logic. In the nation’s largest swing state, which is so closely divided politically, it’s fundamentally wrong that Republicans have so much unchecked power. It’s the result of past gerrymandered districts drawn by selfinterested politicians, the influence of special interest money, and the historical failure of Democrats to recruit better candidates, among other factors.
Fried’s two fellow Cabinet members and Gov. Ron DeSantis, who presides over the Cabinet, are Republicans. Whenever possible, they must work in unison for the betterment of the state. But partisan differences cannot and should not be avoided. Fried has a unique duty to serve as a public watchdog, to be on alert for Republican misuse of power.
She performed this role admirably in the recent dismissal of Ronald Rubin. The state banking regulator was fired at a July 25 meeting based largely on charges of discrimination and sexual harassment in a report by the inspector general in the office of Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, a Cabinet member. The third member is Attorney General Ashley Moody. Rubin, who was hired in February and suspended in May, denied most of the allegations, and pushed back with separate charges of improper influence by a lobbyist and a Patronis campaign donor.
Fried emphasized that Rubin’s conduct warranted his dismissal, but she said it was done improperly, perhaps illegally. The online public notice of the meeting said this: “Inspector general report — Commissioner Ronald Rubin.” There were no backup documents to guide the public.
As Fried pointed out in a subsequent letter, the governor and Cabinet are bound by the Weidner settlement, a 2015 agreement between the state and multiple news outlets, including this one. It followed the suspicious and highly irregular firing of the state’s top law enforcement official without public notice or discussion.
That case involved Gerald Bailey, a former commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, whose removal was orchestrated by former Gov. Rick Scott with no explanation in December 2014, even though Bailey also reported to the Cabinet.
Controversy raged for months. News outlets sued, claiming violations of Florida’s Sunshine Law. The state settled, paid $55,000 in public money to cover the media’s legal fees and the Cabinet agreed to undergo mandatory Sunshine Law training.
Fried said the handling of Rubin’s case was not in the spirit of the Weidner settlement.
“Of what I am most sure is that this situation not only doesn’t serve the people of our state, it is a stain on the people’s Cabinet," Fried said.
With Rubin under indefinite suspension, what was the rush?
Distressed by a lack of public notice, Fried abstained from the vote and left the room. In our opinion, Fried should have stayed put and voted no for reasons she stated. But that could have been seen as legitimizing the vote, and there were questions about whether the inspector general report should have been released. Fried spoke to the Sun Sentinel, but declined to be quoted.
Six days before the July 25 vote, Patronis’ staff, citing the Weidner settlement and “intense media scrutiny,” asked that public notice of the issue be broadened to include a vote on Rubin’s employment and discussion of interim candidates and a process for hiring a replacement. DeSantis’ office said the original notice was sufficient. “Everybody knew this was on the agenda,” the governor said after the vote.
The next Cabinet meeting is Aug. 27. A search is underway for a new commissioner of the Office of Financial Regulation, the third person to hold this post in slightly more than a year. State officials promise a better vetting of candidates and greater transparency, but early signs aren’t encouraging.
The Cabinet created a webpage so the public can follow the search to fill this $166,000-a-year job. But a job description and criteria are nowhere to be found. Fried’s public notice concerns are wellfounded. Let’s get it right, Cabinet.