At the end of this past year, the Statewide Grand Jury in Florida issued its first Interim Report – Statewide Grand Jury Makes Anti-Corruption Recommendations in First Interim Report. (Report is here) According to the press release issued at that time –

"Key recommendations of the Statewide Grand Jury include:

– Expanding the definition of public employees to include private employees contracted by government entities that perform government services;
– Creating sentencing enhancements for offenses committed by officials who use their public position to facilitate their crimes;
– Creating an independent State Office of Inspector General, responsible for hiring and firing agency Inspectors General;
– Expanding definition of criminal bid tampering to include bid-rigging schemes; and
– Authorizing the Ethics Commission to initiate investigations with a supermajority vote of commission members."

This report comes at an interesting time, as the American Law Institute is gearing up for a new project called Principles of Government Ethics.

(esp)