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Rubio disclaims responsibility for “Taj Mahal”

Posted Sep 15, 2010 by William March

Updated Sep 15, 2010 at 03:30 PM

In an interview, Marco Rubio, who was state House speaker when the luxe “Taj Mahal” courthouse in Tallahassee was put in the state budget, denied responsibility for it, saying the project originated in the Senate and that it wasn’t the Legislature’s job to check on whether the plans for the building were appropriate.

He also denied responsibility for another controversial project pushed through the state House during his tenure as speaker, an airplane hangar disguised as an educational building. That project led to indictment of former state Rep. Ray Sansom, who had been chosen by Rubio as House budget chief. It allegedly was intended to benefit a private jet business owned by a contributor allied with Sansom.

Asked about he courthouse in an interview with the Tampa Tribune editorial board, Rubio said, “That specific spending priority emerged from the Senate.”

He said funding courts is “a core governmental function,” but, “How that money is spent and what it’s spent on is not what the Legislature does. The Legislature doesn’t approve architectural plans, it doesn’t approve purchasing orders.”

The building, a new headquarters for the state’s 1st District Court of Appeal, has been criticized as overly costly and luxuriously appointed, at a time when court systems statewide are being forced to lay off employees and make do with inadequate or dilapidated quarters because of budget cuts.

It went through the Legislature in 2007 at the request of judges with connections to Republican legislative leaders.

For years, critics have condemned the passage of little-understood and little-discussed spending bills late in sessions of the Florida Legislature, when lawmakers are rushing to finish on time.

Rubio acknowledged that the amount spent for the building and its intended function are proper subjects of legislative purview.

But, he said, “Ultimately, as I said, it’s not a priority we pushed through the House, it’s something that came over from the Senate, I believe on the last day of session. The reality of it is that there are two chambers, as I learned in my years in Tallahassee, and in order to finish the people’s work within 60 days, there’s a give and take involved.”

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