Pam Bondi Responds to Sen. Darren Soto, Twitter: No 'Revolving Door' in Attorney General's Office

As the Florida Senate Ethics and Elections Committee deliberated on a historic elections reform bill that would overhaul existing state employee ethics laws, a tweet from the League of Women Voters of Florida added some drama to the proceedings.

"Sen. Darren Soto expresses concern about revolving door issue at the FL Attorney General's office and asks for regulation," tweeted the League at 4:24 p.m. (EST).

In politics, a 'revolving door' refers tothe practice of legislators and other government officials leaving their offices in order to work for organizations affected by their legislation or their regulations. Florida law presently imposes some restrictions on the practices, and the legislation approved by the committee Tuesday afternoon adds still others.

The League's tweet implied that Soto, D-Orlando, was alleging the presence of wrongdoing at Bondi's office, though as readers can see the senator implied nothing of the sort:

"Senator [Eleanor] Sobel [D-Hollywood] and I had a concern about a revolving door at the attorney general's office and other investigative agencies that we brought up last time. I wasn't sure if there had been any committee determinations or opinions on it, about folks who are working for the attorney generals office who then go and work for those who are being prosecuted by the attorney generals office and whether itd be appropriate to have a limitation on that revolving door.

The message tweeted by the League of Women Voters moments later was brought to Bondis attention by one of her staff members while she was attending another meeting. She left that meeting to make an unexpected appearance at the committee deliberations.

Shortly after entering the committee room, and asked the reason for her presence, Bondi said she wished to address disparaging remarks made about my office. Given permission to address the 13-member panel several minutes, Bondi did her best to diffuse what could have been a tense confrontation:

I think perhaps someone tweeted out something that misrepresented what Senator S-- er, a senator perhaps said, that I had a revolving door at my office. I just wanted to be here if anyone has any questions about any of the employees at my office.

Madame General, Soto replied, If anything was taken to be disparaging about your office I do apologize. We were just talking about ethics reform and [yours] was one of the many agencies and branches we were talking about, so if it was taken that way, that was not the intent.

Bondi replied: If you ever have any quest regarding my office, please come sit down with me and Ill be more than glad to talk about them, because Im very proud of what the attorney generals office does each day. So, thank you.

The exchange was cordial. A humorous back and forth followed, with laughs all around:

Chairman Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater: Were proud of you, too."

Sen. Oscar Braynon, D-Miami Gardens: Madame, do you follow me on Twitter? Its @oscarjb2. I tweet so you can follow.

Bondi: I got pulled out of a meeting for this, so thank you, thank you, senators. Sorry to have interrupted your meeting. I hope I added some entertainment today. Any other questions?

Latvala: Whats twitter?

At 6:09 p.m. (EST), the League of Women Voters tweeted: We apologize to @AGPamBondi for incorrectly paraphrasing Sen. Soto's remarks about revolving door issue, and we respect her office."