Gov. Rick Scott is being held accountable for violating Florida’s Sunshine Law, but state taxpayers are the ones who are paying the price for his actions — literally.
Scott recently agreed to settle seven lawsuits that accused him of using private email to skirt the state’s public-records laws regarding a plan to buy a building near the governor’s mansion. Although Scott initially denied the allegations, after a judge ordered Google to turn over correspondence to and from the governor’s private Google email account, and the accounts of two of his staff members, Scott decided to settle. For using a separate email system to conduct public business in violation of the law. Scott agreed to pay a fine of $700,000. Or rather, he agreed to use state funds, not his own, to settle the score.
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