State officials told a Senate panel that they're waiting for the value of the trampled stock to rise. A more economical solution is to use it for toilet paper -- you could supply every restroom in the Capitol.

Florida flushed more public money down the commode known as Enron than any other state -- a loss of $335 million on stocks and bonds purchased by the Board of Administration.

That's more than twice as much as the $144 million lost by the next biggest dupe, the University of California Regents.

The most remarkable thing about the Florida fiasco, however, was the stupefying timing of several huge Enron purchases -- transactions that have raised suspicions of insider finagling and political favoritism.

Last fall, as many major investors were dumping Enron shares as fast as they could, Florida was gobbling up more and more.

On Oct. 22, the Texas energy company reported $1.2 billion in losses and the Securities and Exchange Commission began investigating. Undeterred by the bleak headlines, Florida's pension fund swiftly purchased $7.1 million of Enron stock.

Two days later, after Enron CFO Andrew S. Fastow got canned, the pension fund bought 302,500 more shares and kept buying -- another 816,300 shares over the next six days.

The grimmer the news, the more hungrily Florida invested in the doomed company. In early November, when Enron conceded that it had overstated profits by a mere half-billion dollars, the pension fund snapped up another 1.2 million shares.

Only after Enron's proposed merger with another energy company fell apart did Florida finally bail out, unloading 7.6 million shares at a whopping 28 cents each -- a long dismal tumble from the $82 at which some of the shares were bought.

The $325 million in losses represents only a tiny fraction of the pension fund's $96 billion holdings, but it's still $325 million that belonged to public employees and their relatives.

Investigations are under way, lawsuits are brewing and political analysts are speculating about potential damage to Gov. Jeb Bush's re-election bid.

Enron's connections to the Bush family are well known. Former chairman ''Kenny Boy'' Lay is a pal and top contributor to President Bush, and a big supporter of his brother, Jeb, as well.

The governor is one of three trustees who ostensibly oversees Florida's pension fund, though the position appears to be more title than substance.

So far, there's no sign that the governor had a role in the Enron stock debacle. He says he knew nothing about it, although he might someday wish he'd paid closer attention to how the pension fund was being invested.

Most of the stock buys were conducted by Alliance Capital Management, one of many firms hired to invest state pension money. Alliance Vice Chairman Al Harrison insisted that he continued buying Enron, even as it augered into bankruptcy, because he was deceived by the company's rosy auditing reports.

It's called riding a stock down, and Alliance rode Enron straight into the abyss. Florida officials who questioned the stock purchases were assured by Alliance that Enron was solid, and due for a rebound.

Lots of people got bamboozled by the company, but most had the brains to stop buying once the stock was in free-fall. Not Alliance.

After the crash, it was noted that a recently retired Alliance executive named Frank Savage coincidentally was on Enron's board of directors. Alliance says Savage had nothing to do with investment decisions regarding the company's stock.

So the official explanation for how Florida's pension fund got reamed is that Alliance trusted Enron and its auditors, and Florida trusted Alliance.

Maybe that's exactly how it will play out in the lawsuits and investigations: No meddling by the governor on behalf of a high-powered political donor, no monkey business by the Enron board member at Alliance -- just $335 million worth of plain old blithering stupidity.

In the meantime, who can blame folks for being a little suspicious, what with Enron showering $235,000 on Florida politicians in the hope of advancing several big energy projects here. About 80 percent of that campaign money went to Republicans.

If Jeb Bush is worried about being stained by the scandal, he isn't acting like it. Just last month he flew to Houston for a fund raiser hosted by Richard Kinder, a former president of Enron.

Bush's campaign manager said the governor's appearance there was ''no problem'' because Kinder parted ways with Enron in 1996.

If only the state of Florida had been so smart.