Rick Scott, Florida popular governor made a special surprise appearance at the Florida Bar Annual Meeting where he urged attorneys and Bar leadership to
GET THEM FORECLOSURES MOVING….IF COURTS CAN’T SPEED THINGS THOUGH….TAKE EM OUT OF COURT AND LET’S GO NON-JUDICIAL
Now we all need to be very, very careful about the Imperial Government that is lording over this state and especially careful when the emperor starts offering suggestions about how to resolve the very real issues that plague our court system. In an abstract sense, our court system works just fine, thank you very much…..these fellas sorta worked all that out a few hundred years ago when they drafted this neat document called THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
The plan for our courts as represented in that document provided that the best idea was for our courts to be independent from the pressures of the executive and legislative branch, but that’s not at all happening in this state. In fact, the intense pressure our courts are getting from the executive and the legislative are a big reason why our government is failing. The legislature has effectively de-funded our courts so that they cannot function properly….our judicial budget makes up less than 1% of the entire state budget.
During Scott’s meeting in Orlando, he argued that businesses were not coming to Florida because our courts were not throwing people out of their homes quick enough…..OH, WAIT, WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT, NOW I GET IT….Florida’s economy, like the national economy, is not suffering from serious structural problems based on policies that ship jobs offshore….our nation’s economic woes and job losses are the result of DEADBEAT HOMEOWNERS.
That’s right, businesses are afraid to move to Florida because our courts cannot figure out how to throw people into the street faster. So let’s GET BACK TO WORK…..let’s double down on the court process and let’s get courts moving and let’s throw more people out into the street! Nevermind that the legislature and executive branch have choked our courts by not funding them.
Nevermind that all across the country state, federal and bankruptcy courts are exposing fundamental problems with the entire foreclosure…yes, in Florida, we do things differently. And it’s that different judicial process that is the very real problem in this state. There are many reasons why Florida is bad for business right now but I would say that an underfunded judicial system that functions in a rather unpredictable and erratic manner would be a real problem for businesses that might consider moving here….oh and then there’s the big pink elephant in the middle of the room which is recent analysis that suggests Florida might be the most corrupt state in the nation…..HERALD TRIBUNE
I don’t have much hope…and neither do others….as Yves Smith from Naked Capitalism describes:
Florida continues to show a rather disconcerting willingness to throw its citizens’ rights under the bus to help the banks. The state created special foreclosure courts to clear up a substantial backlog, which might not have been such a bad idea if they had been properly implemented. However, they were staffed with retired judges, many of whom seemed to put speed over due process. There have been numerous reports of judges refusing to hear motions or evidence presented by borrowers, to the point where the ACLU contested the procedures used as violations of due process.
To some degree, this has become moot since these kangaroo courts are expected to be shuttered (they required an extension of funding to continue). Moreover, new foreclosure filings have slowed in Florida as a result of the robo-signing scandal. The revelation of widespread abuses by banks has led some judges to dismiss cases with dubious documentation; judges are also complaining that banks are seldom coming to hearings on foreclosure cases.
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