JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The Florida Senate passed an amendment to an ethics bill on Wednesday that creates a specific nepotism exemption for relatives serving on the same voting body. <\/p>\n
This development clears the way for Jacksonville City Councilman Joe Carlucci to run for Jacksonville City Council Vice President, a position he has been considering.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n Both Carlucci and his father, Matt Carlucci, currently serve on City Council, raising questions about potential conflicts under existing nepotism rules if the younger Carlucci ran for a leadership position.<\/p>\n The amendment, filed by Senator Clay Yarborough, passed unanimously in the Senate<\/a>, 38-0.<\/p>\n Action News Jax first reported Tuesday<\/a> that the Florida Commission on Ethics split 3-3 when Joe Carlucci sought an opinion from the commission in January, with another vote originally scheduled for March. <\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n With the Senate\u2019s approval of the amended bill, the path for Carlucci\u2019s candidacy is now expected to officially clear the full legislature with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis expected to sign it as well.<\/p>\n Carlucci was thrust into the Finance Chairman position in December after former Chairman, Councilman Raul Arias, stepped down amid a month-long investigation<\/a> by Action News Jax reporter Ben Becker into his financial dealings. Arias had appeared to be on the fast track for the vice president position, which traditionally leads to becoming council president.<\/p>\n Candidates for council leadership positions must declare their intentions between March 1 to March 30. City Council votes in May on who will fill those posts for a one-year period starting July 1.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The Florida Senate passed an amendment to an ethics bill on Wednesday that creates a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[344,347,28,12337,4215,348,116,4040,351,118,117,73394,5898,349,25317,73395,350,346,345],"class_list":{"0":"post-152147","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action-news-jax","9":"tag-cbs47","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-florida-gov-ron-desantis","12":"tag-florida-senate","13":"tag-fox30","14":"tag-jacksonville","15":"tag-jacksonville-city-council","16":"tag-jacksonville-fl","17":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","18":"tag-jacksonville-news","19":"tag-joe-carlucci","20":"tag-matt-carlucci","21":"tag-northeast-florida","22":"tag-raul-arias","23":"tag-sen-clay-yarborough","24":"tag-southeast-georgia","25":"tag-wfox","26":"tag-wjax"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}