Howard Troxler: The Florida picture:

• On Wednesday Jim Greer, the previous chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, was arrested and accused of stealing a piece of the party's contribution action.

• In an unrelated case, the previous speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, Ray Sansom, is under criminal indictment and is awaiting trial.

• So many local officials have been removed from office around the state because of corruption or criminal charges, especially in South Florida, that the governor asked the Supreme Court to convene a statewide grand jury to investigate public corruption.

• The grand jury that indicted Sansom issued a report blasting the influence of money in our state Legislature and called for reform.

• As my colleagues Lucy Morgan and Adam Smith now report, the names of at least a dozen political figures have popped up in five major ongoing federal investigations into Florida's "pay-to-play culture."

Look. There's something sick at work when you can fork over $52,000 to get your name in the biggest letters on the governor's birthday cake, as did the now-notorious donor Scott Rothstein of Fort Lauderdale.

(More here)