The News Service of Florida
An appeals court will hear arguments Jan. 14 in a challenge to a state law that allows elected officials to set up blind trusts, according to an online docket.
The 1st District Court of Appeal scheduled oral arguments in the case filed by Jim Apthorp, a former chief of staff to the late Gov. Reubin Askew.
Apthorp and his lawyers contend that blind trusts violate the Florida Constitution’s open-government requirements. Those requirements include public officials providing details about their financial interests.
But Circuit Judge John Cooper of Leon County this summer upheld the constitutionality of blind trusts, finding that public officials with such trusts are not supposed to know any more than voters about what is in the accounts.
Gov. Rick Scott, who reported a net worth of $132.7 million as of the end of 2013, has used a blind trust.