NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. – New Smyrna Beach joined a lawsuit filed this week against the state of Florida for requiring public disclosures from local elected officials that are considered so invasive that dozens of officials across the state have quit.
In one case, an entire town council quit, leaving residents without government representatives.
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The lawsuits filed in both federal and state courts concern a law, SB 774, that went into effect last year. It required local elected officials to publicly disclose every asset over $1,000 on a document called “Form 6″ — not just bank accounts, but also household and personal items like appliances, cars, jewelry and more.
The law was meant to build public trust and make sure officials don’t have conflicts of interest. All public officials in Florida are required to fill out the form from state offices like the governor on down. U.S. representatives and U.S. senators, however, are not required to file a Form 6.
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Twenty-six cities and towns and dozens of local officials joined the lawsuits against the Florida Commission on Ethics and its members. The lawsuit in Florida court calls the public disclosure law a violation of state privacy rights. The federal suit said the law is a violation of First Amendment rights.
The city of New Smyrna Beach was the only one in Central Florida that formally joined the suit, though others were considering it, including the city of Winter Park.
At the New Smyrna Beach city commission meeting Tuesday night, commissioners said it wasn’t just privacy rights that were at stake. Vice Mayor Vallie Perrine said information from the forms was plastered in the news media.
“My safety is not being considered here at all. This is a total violation of our rights,” Perrine said. “This is more government overreach and not transparency at all. And it is totally wrong. Had we known this, we may not have run.”
Commissioner Jason McGuirk said the situation also put the local officials between a rock and a hard place — go along with the forms and deal with an invasive system, or fight it and be accused of hiding something. He pointed to social media, where he said he saw dozens of videos that blasted local officials who resigned as corrupt.
“There’s just a lot of reasons why in my situation, as a father of young kids and a small business person, why I have a lot of problems with that,” McGuirk said. “But you’re immediately labeled corrupt if you try, if you say anything about it.”
Some 100 local officials across the state resigned before Jan. 1 to avoid having to file. Perrine pointed out that in some cases, the officials were doctors or lawyers who may have had to disclose information about clients.
News 6 reported in January that in Volusia County, two council members resigned in Orange City, and two commissioners resigned in Daytona Beach Shores.
Former Vice Mayor Bill O’Connor told News 6′s Molly Reed that if this law had been in effect when he’d gotten into politics seven years ago, he probably would not have run for office.
“This is my hometown, I know these people and they know me, they know what I have and what I don’t have. They don’t need to know I have a watch that costs $1,200. They just don’t need to know that,” O’Connor said.
In the end, the New Smyrna Beach City Commission voted 3-2 to join the lawsuit. Mayor Fred Cleveland also joined the lawsuit.
“Certainly joining could give the optics of, ‘What are you hiding there, Cleveland? What’s the problem?’” Cleveland said. “As Commissioner Perrine points out, it’s not about that, though someone could make it about that. It’s about the rights and privileges that we have as citizens and as public servants and as Americans. This is not a requirement that is being asked of people way up the line.”
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