Sharyn Smith, reporter’s go-to champion of Florida’s Sunshine Laws, dies

Sharyn Smith had fond memories of her first job as Attorney General Robert Shevin‘s chief enforcer of Florida’s open government laws. She spent her 16-hour days helping a highly committed and competitive cadre of publishers and media lawyers put meat on the bones of a muscular update to the Public Records Act and its groundbreaking companion, the Sunshine Law.

Both were conceived and passed when Smith, a Miami native, was still in school at Coral Gables High and the University of Miami.

Smith, who died Saturday of complications from heart surgery, would spend the rest of her career in public service. She was a trusted and influential adviser to lawmakers who did not take orders from Governors, lobbyists, or political consultants.

Smith worked closely with Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Arthur England and Florida State University College of Law Professor Pat Dore in crafting Florida’s landmark Administrative Procedures Act and would serve as the founding Director and Chief Judge of the Division of Administrative Hearings.

In retirement, Smith spent much of the 21st century helping the ever-dwindling population of reporters doing serious accountability journalism at the Miami Herald and other newspapers once owned by the Knight brothers, including the Tallahassee Democrat, where Kathryn Varn followed a paper trail that led to the state archives and Smith’s garage in Midtown; Varn produced a story that bears rereading as Election Day approaches.

Smith wasn’t afraid to be quoted. “What are they gonna do, disbar me?” she would say.

But she did not have a self-aggrandizing bone in her body.

Most of Smith’s work as a reliable source is known only to the reporters she supplied with tips, unlisted phone numbers, and plain brown envelopes stuffed with public records. Some of those envelopes are still out there, ripening into future headlines.

Let’s hope there’s an internet cafe in heaven.