After 20 Years Of Florida's Gift Ban, Some Would Like To Make A Return

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — In early December, members of the Florida House got an early Christmas package: A clear bag full of swag including a Bluetooth speaker, a "Go Outdoors Florida" branded Yeti tumbler and a small blanket also featuring some Florida branding.

But by the end of the day, employees with the House sergeant-at-arms went office to office to collect the bags after the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission “rescinded” its distribution of Go Outdoors Florida “marketing materials” to House members.

Why? Because the giveaway could be seen as a violation of a 20-year-old law that prohibits legislators and others in top roles in state government from accepting anything of value from lobbyists or the principals that hire them

A spokesperson for the commission did not acknowledge if legal concerns led to the decision to gather up the swag bags.

But the incident suggests that knowledge about the law known informally as the “gift ban” — heralded at the time it was passed as one of the strictest laws in the nation — has faded over time, while questions have mounted as to whether the law has truly curbed the ability of special interests to sway legislators and other state officials.

Florida’s gift ban, which also included a requirement that lobbyists disclose what they get paid from their clients (albeit it not in exact amounts), took effect Jan. 1, 2006.

The law's passage followed a series of incidents detailed in news reports at the time, including a state senator leaning on lobbyists to pay for a trip to South Africa, reports of legislators routinely calling up lobbyists to get their credit card numbers to pay for meals and a gambling company paying to jet four legislators to Canada to visit a casino.

In the years since its passage, the law — which also applies to the governor and other top state officials — has either been ignored or sidestepped in various ways, while making it awkward for a legislator to accept token items such as a bottle of water.

But Tom Lee, the former state Senate president and husband of Rep. Laurel Lee who championed the legislation, still thinks it was the right thing to do.

“It’s very difficult to paint a picture for the public of the Sodom and Gomorrah that was Tallahassee in the ‘90s and early 2000s,” said Lee. “You literally had members living out of the wallets of lobbyists. The transgressions were just voluminous and were almost always the rule and not the exception. While people complain today about a bottle of water being a technical violation that’s not ever what people were after.”

Mark Herron, a longtime ethics and elections lawyer based in Tallahassee, questions the value of the law. He said it has made it more difficult for social interactions with legislators while prompting lobbyists and special interests to pour money into loosely regulated political committees that could then pick up expenses for lawmakers.

“Prior to the gift ban, lobbyists were able to establish relationships with members of the Legislature based on sharing a meal or a drink,” Herron said. “After the gift ban, relationships became more transactional based on contributions to a members political committee and campaign.”

The gift ban also created an outcry from Tallahassee restaurant owners, who blamed it for curtailing their business and claimed it even led to some closures. Attempts to tweak the ban since then have gone nowhere in the Legislature.

Several Tallahassee lobbyists declined to discuss the gift ban or their interactions with legislators publicly. But Ron Book, a well-known South Florida lobbyist who unsuccessfully challenged the law because it required him to disclose his lobbying income, remains critical of the measure.

“I don’t think anything changed as a result of the lobbyist reform act,” said Book, who called the compensation reporting requirements that were part of the law “absurd.” “Those lawmakers that are honest today were honest yesterday.”

Book argued it “cheapens the process” to make someone put a "few bucks" on a table if they accept something to drink or eat. Book also said some legislators would “barter” items with lobbyists and show up at dinner parties with cheap wine to justify eating and drinking at the event.

Anecdotes about bartering and lawmakers attending events at lobbyist homes have rippled through town over the years. POLITICO reported in 2022 that Florida Power & Light — the state’s largest electric utility — was operating a private event space in downtown Tallahassee to host lawmakers and lobbyists. One legislator was quoted saying at the time that “he always pays” when he went there.

Gov. Ron DeSantis' adherence to the gift ban has also been questioned during his time in office. Last year, the state’s ethics commission rejected a complaint centered on a golf simulator worth $28,000 that wealthy home builder Mori Hosseini sent to the governor’s mansion in 2019.

The commission concluded that the simulator — which was kept in the gym portion of the cabana that is located near the main building of the mansion — was not a gift because it is being kept as property of the state and does not belong directly to DeSantis.

Legislators, meanwhile, can go on excursions and other trips because their costs are picked up by either their own political committee or by legislative leadership funds or the state's two political parties. These events often officially function as fundraisers so the freebies to legislators are allowed.

Campaign records, for example, show that in 2025 alone Walt Disney theme parks donated nearly $800,000 worth of food, drinks, entertaining and lodging to political organizations including the Republican Party of Florida as well as leadership funds for House Democrats and Senate Republicans. Universal, which also operates theme parks in central Florida, has done the same this year spending $450,000 on lodging, tickets and food.

Senate Republicans spent nearly $100,000 for expenses related to an annual fundraising trip held in Pebble Beach, California, and home to some of the nation’s most famed golf courses. Many top Senate Republicans made the trip out West to the golf resort.

Even with such notable loopholes, State Sen. Don Gaetz, who is a former member of the state’s ethics commission and pushed forward restrictions approved by voters, called the gift ban a “good law.”

“I like the gift ban because I don’t like to feel obliged to anyone because of their generosity,” said Gaetz, who recently had to return fruit baskets that were delivered to his office in Pensacola by people who didn’t know about the gift ban.

“If you begin the loose the gift ban it becomes a very, very slippery slope,” said Gaetz who is currently chair of the state Senate Ethics and Elections Committee.