Marco Rubio: From Poor Boy Cuban Hero to Grinder?
Marco Rubio, son of working class immigrants, Republican US Senate candidate and, of course, a hero, is facing questions stemming from spending decisions made during his reign as Speaker of the Florida House.
In 2007 while courageously leading the Florida House of Representatives, Rubio somehow found the time to become a true hero to a bereft group of judges who really really needed a new courthouse. A Taj Mahal courthouse.
Scheduled to be completed in November, it's a $48 million behemoth in which each judge will get a 60-inch LCD flat screen television in chambers (trimmed in mahogany), a private bathroom (featuring granite countertops) and a kitchen (complete with microwave and refrigerator).
How did it get funded? Like many things that gain life in Tallahassee, the courthouse grew out of a last-minute amendment on the last day of a legislative session. The funding for the courthouse was buried in the middle of a 142-page transportation bill, approved the last day of the 2007 session.
The state had never floated a bond issue to build a courthouse, but Sen. Victor Crist of Tampa attached the amendment that allowed the court to float a $33.5 million bond issue.
Several legislators say they were not aware the courthouse amendment was in the transportation bill when they voted on it.
Former Rep. Lorrane Ausley of Tallahassee voted against the bill, but she says she did not know about the amendment that was added to build the courthouse in her hometown.
"It was safer to vote no on things like that given the lack of transparency on stuff like this,'' Ausley said last week. "I do recall that the judges worked the halls pretty hard. I don't think the Legislature ever intended something like this.''
That bond issue didn’t quite cover all the extras so $16 million was taken from the state's Workers' Compensation Trust Fund.
Now Rubio, ever the bashful type, has refused to take credit for this kind hearted deed. In fact,
Rubio said Wednesday the proposal for the courthouse, which has been criticized as too luxurious in a time of severe budget constraints, originated in the Senate, not the House, which he controlled; and that it wasn't the Legislature's job to scrutinize building plans.
...Asked about the courthouse in an interview with the Tampa Tribune editorial board, Rubio, said, "That specific spending priority emerged from the Senate."
He said funding courts is "a core governmental function," but, "How that money is spent and what it's spent on is not what the Legislature does. The Legislature doesn't approve architectural plans, it doesn't approve purchasing orders."
In other parts of the interview, Rubio emphasized his commitment to cutting government spending and eliminating earmarks.
...The courthouse is being built on the outskirts of Tallahassee for the state 1st District Court of Appeal at a time when state courts are laying off employees and making do with inadequate or dilapidated quarters because of budget cuts.
...State Sen. Charlie Dean, R-Ocala, then chairman of the House council on law enforcement and courts, has been quoted in news reports as saying the project was pushed through at the request of two politically influential judges with connections to two Rubio aides. Dean couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday.
And it turns out that Dean may be on to something, for despite his protestations to the contrary, Rubio has been named as a “hero” by the very judges for who were elevated from mere mortals overseeing innocuous courtrooms to Hela Judges in charge of the Taj Fucking Mahal! Bitches!
Since the story first broke about the palatial new courthouse being built in Tallahassee, the former House speaker has said it was a Senate priority, and he couldn't even remember the money being appropriated to build it.
But now the St. Petersburg Times has obtained an e-mail circulated among the judges on the courthouse building committee that identifies the "heroes'' in delivering the money to build it.
Among them, the e-mail identifies a select few who were "especially helpful,'' including Rubio.
"I have never heard of this list'' of heroes, Rubio said this week.
...Dated April 29, 2008, the e-mail exchanged by judges on the building committee and court staffers encouraged them to personally thank those who helped secure the funding.
...Rubio, now a candidate for the U.S. Senate, has repeatedly said the courthouse was a Senate project and the House knew nothing about the architectural plans. He said it was part of the last-minute House and Senate give and take.
Rubio's appropriations chairman, former Rep. Ray Sansom, remembers it differently.
...He said 1st DCA Chief Judge Paul Hawkes frequently visited Sansom's office to remind him the project was a priority of the speaker's. As was Sansom's practice whenever someone said he had the speaker's backing, Sansom said he went to Rubio to make sure.
...In an unrelated case, Sansom has been criminally charged with grand theft in connection with a $6 million appropriation in the 2007 budget for a friend's airplane hangar. He has denied wrongdoing, and his trial is scheduled for January.
Poor Boy - Rubio’s altruistic inner Cuban wants no part of the credit for this selfless accomplishment. Despite his status as Hero, he seeks no recognition- he’d probably prefer to be hiding out on a submarine.
But Rubio may go from hero to the grinder. Rye? Well, a Grand Jury could soon be asking questions about the Taj Mahal courthouse.
A grand jury in Leon County will hear a complaint next week about the controversial new courthouse being built in Tallahassee for the 1st District Court of Appeal.
Leon State Attorney Willie Meggs said Wednesday that he has received a complaint from a citizen who wants a grand jury to review the situation surrounding the courthouse.
Meggs said he will bring the case to the grand jury when it meets Wednesday.
...Two years ago a complaint sent to Meggs about former state Rep. Ray Sansom prompted a grand jury not only to indict Sansom but to issue a scathing report of how the Legislature handled the 2007 budget. The report criticized a system that lets a handful of powerful lawmakers make multimillion-dollar decisions in secret.
The grand jury urged the Legislature to "clean up the process" and make Florida "an example to the nation as a state that works for the people and not the special interest of those who have money to influence the Legislature."
It was in that same 2007 legislative session that the $33.5 million bond issue for the courthouse passed the Legislature as an amendment to a transportation bill.
Nothing like a good meaty scandal to chew on leading up to election day.
Dog And Pony Show Trial Bites Bondi
(Sorry for the shaggy dog story, but in this case I really couldn't just let sleeping dogs lie.)
As the dog days of summer wind down, Florida's Republican AG candidate Pam Bondi, recently rewarded with a Sarah Palin endorsement treat for learning right wing talking points, must be dog tired of the renewed interest in her dogged efforts to steal a family pet from Hurricane Katrina victims.
Every Dog Has Its Day
After the storm, top dog Hillsborough County Prosecutor Pam Bondi went to the Pinellas County Humane Society to see a man about a dog. Master Tank, a rescued Saint Bernard, had papers linking him to his Louisiana owners, but Pam Bondi, like any well trained right wing Christian, knows that her inerrant goodness trumps silly concepts like "the law."
She took the dog home, gave him a proper biblical name, and started teaching the old dog some new tricks.
It took a dog's age of hounding, but the real owners Steven and Dorreen Couture eventually tracked their pet to Bondi, recognized their lost canine, and politely said "Gimme Back My Dog."
Bondi's response: "Grrrrrr..."
Fighting Like Cats and Dogs
Bondi lawyered up with hot dog defense attorney Barry Cohen. The financially strapped hurricane victims from whom Bondi was trying to steal were forced to beg for scraps and, lucky dogs, ended up with an excellent pro bone-o attorney - Murray Silverstein.
Did Bondi Lie Like A Dog?
Silverstein worked like a dog - pointing to evidence and tugging out the facts - and soon had Pam Bondi chasing her own tail. Bondi tried to mislead the court by asserting that the Coutures were barking up the wrong tree - Bondi claimed that "her" dog was not the dog that the Coutures knew and loved and recognized.
Bondi's testimony was chewed up by Silverstein, who presented witnesses and documents to rebut, and Bondi was accused of dogging the facts by Dorreen Couture.
Bondi pointed to a September 2005 intake report from a makeshift shelter that indicated that a toenail on the dog's right paw had been removed. Bondi said the dog in her custody has all of its nails.
The Coutures contended that the nail had simply been clipped. A Largo veterinarian testified on the Coutures' behalf Monday on the difference between clipping and removing a dog's toenail.
The Coutures' attorney, Murray Silverstein, also submitted a statement from Dorreen Couture's brother, David Johnson. Johnson detailed a Sept. 6, 2006, Louisiana visit from Pam Bondi and an investigator. Johnson took the dogs to a shelter in 2005.
"Ms. Bondi identified herself, and said to me, 'I've been trying to find you for a year,' " Johnson said in the sworn affidavit. " 'I want to thank you for saving my dog's life.' Ms. Bondi then showed me six or more photographs of Master Tank."
Dorreen Couture said that visit confirms that Bondi knows that it's the same dog.
"It was just unbelievable that she would lie in court, being a state attorney," Dorreen Couture said. "But the judge saw through it and he ruled in our favor. Where are her values. I'm furious."
Dog Gone
Soon after being brought to heel by Silverstein, Bondi started sniffing around for a settlement. She agreed to return the dog she was trying to steal to its rightful owners. Because she loved the dog so much, she also insisted she be allowed to provide food and medicine for the dog's well being.
That Dog Wont Hunt
According to the Coutures, Bondi is a deadbeat mom - she stopped sending supplies soon after giving up custody.
"She was going to take care of him for the rest of his life and supply him with food and medicine," Dorreen Couture said recently from her rebuilt home in New Orleans. "She did for the first few months. After that, she was supposed to have her first visitation that September and she canceled."
Contact dwindled after that, Couture said. And the Coutures didn't reach out to Bondi, either.
"Why should I?" Couture said. "She stole my dog."
In The Doghouse
Bondi would obviously prefer to keep the case of the stolen dog on a short leash but Democrat Dan Gelber may well decide that it is a tough dog to keep on the porch - it's gonna be a dog eat dog campaign, and while it's true that if you lie down with dogs you may wake with fleas, Gelber should release the hounds and point out Bondi's dog faced lies.
ACTION - Support Dan Gelber
Shameless Self Promotion - Tune in to WMNF 88.5 FM in the Tampa area or streaming at wmnf.org at 4:00PM Labor Day as I spin 2 hours of commercial free music of by and in solidarity with the working class.
Bi-Party Crist Wont Pick Partner
Florida Governor and one-time leading Senatorial Candidate Charlie Crist is finding that coming out as bi-party is not the cakewalk that he was hoping for - his old friends feel betrayed and confused, his new friends are somewhat fickle, and his enemies are gleeful as he bends and twists to distance himself from the very party whose supporters he must approach if he is to have any chance to win.
Sunday on CNN's State of the Union, Crist declined to answer the caucus question - if elected, will he caucus with Democrats or Republicans? As he has for weeks, he evaded the question by asserting that he will "caucus with the people of Florida." Unfortunately, the people of Florida don't hand out committee assignments.
A few days ago, he tried to go both ways on healthcare. He stated that he would have voted for healthcare reform then he corrected himself and said he would not have voted for the bill. He doesn't like it - not one bit! But since it's already passed and everything, he thinks we should keep it and make it better. Of course, since he wont be sitting on any committees, his opinion may not matter all that much.
And last week in liberal Broward County, he thanked God that he was no longer a Republican then travelled to a much less progressive part of the state and bragged about being a "Jeb Bush Republican."
But even as Chain Gang Charlie repaints himself as a bi-party milquetoast with compassionate leanings who still enjoys the occasional hippie punching, Kendrick Meek and Florida Democrats are gearing up to remind voters of Crist's true preferences:
(Click to listen to wav audio file.)
This is Charlie Crist calling to set the record straight. I'm pro life, I oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants, I support traditional marriage, and I have never supported a new tax or big spending program.
The fact that Meek, a real Democrat, won the party nomination over self funding former Republican Jeff Greene will make life difficult for Crist. Democrats will use the boastful conservative's own words against him again and again and Democratic voters will continue to come home to Meek - Meek presents a clear progressive choice vs. Chain Gang Charlie's newly found wishy washy middle-of-the-roadism.
Meanwhile, Marc Rub's (Marco Rubio has had the vowels removed from the end of his name for conduct unbecoming a Hispanic, per Tampa's La Gaceta newspaper) campaign is hammering Crist as a turncoat and newly enflamed liberal. Crist wont be winning too many votes from this wing of his spurned party.
So far, Crist refuses to pick sides, but he can't win with independents only, his old party still hates him, and Democrats are warming to Meek - Meek is far and away the best candidate on the issues, and he is, in fact, just the kind of "better Democrat" that we need in DC.
Crist's approval ratings are dismal and he is a man without a party. Many observers do not see a way for him to win unless he promises to caucus with the Democrats, but just as he missed his oppurtunity to switch parties and clean Meek's clock in the Dem primary, Crist may again be waiting too long to pick sides.
Teach Your Children Hell? No!
Hillsborough County voters smote the Terry Kemple campaign a death blow on Tuesday. Despite raising more money than any other candidate in the four candidate non-partisan race, Kemple's extreme beliefs and religious agenda may have turned voters off as he barely managed a humiliating third place finish with less than twenty percent of the vote.
SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER DISTRICT 6
383 of 383 Precincts Reporting
Benjamin Fink 11.83% 12,939
April Griffin 48.37% 52,883
Sally A. Harris 20.63% 22,557
Terry Kemple 19.16% 20,953
Incumbent April Griffin garnered close to fifty percent of the vote and will face surprise second place finisher Sally Harris in a runoff in November.
State House 48: Tea Party Camping. With Fluoride.
Marg Baker is a Tea Party Republican candidate for Florida State House District 48, which covers parts of Northern Pinellas and Hillsborough Counties, near Tampa. She's been running a pretty standard issue Tea Party campaign. But lately she's achieved another level.
Marg hits all the right notes - she is a divorced, single pro-family, anti-government semi-retiree. She's likely on Medicare and she derives all her income from her monthly Social Security check. She knows that we can only increase state revenue by lowering taxes and doing away with regulations, and she hates the sorry state of her local water supply, which makes her sick when she drinks it.
In fact, she says that water is the most "pressing" issue for the people of her district, the essence of her campaign, if you will.
General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Lord, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: You know when fluoridation first began?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: I... no, no. I don't, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. Nineteen forty-six, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Uh, Jack, Jack, listen, tell me, tell me, Jack. When did you first... become... well, develop this theory?
General Jack D. Ripper: Well, I, uh... I... I... first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Hmm.
General Jack D. Ripper: Yes, a uh, a profound sense of fatigue... a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I... I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Hmm.
General Jack D. Ripper: I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women uh... women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I, uh... I do not avoid women, Mandrake.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: No.
General Jack D. Ripper: But I... I do deny them my essence.
At the same time, she likes to emphasize that her "most serious issue" is her one person quest to do away with early voting in Florida because early voting costs too much and leads to "corruption like ACORN."
Oh, and she has just thoughtfully proposed solving our immigration problem with Internment Camps!
Yes. Internment Camps.
"We can follow what happened back in the '40s or '50s."
"I was just a little girl in Miami, and they built camps for the people that snuck into the country because they were illegal," Baker said. "They put them in the camps and they shipped them back. We can do that. We can do E-Verify. We must stop them."
Baker could not be reached Wednesday to clarify what camps she means. But in World War II, the U.S. government forced about 110,000 Japanese-Americans and Japanese into internment camps after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Presidents have apologized to those who were interned, and Congress voted for compensation.
...
"We've got to get them off the street, and they have to live and sleep somewhere," Baker said. "Not in prison, but they should be held until we ship them out and they should not mingle among the people.
"Who knows what diseases they are carrying or if they are criminals? They snuck in here and are walking among us. This is wrong.
Wait a minute. Camps in the nineteen-forties? Do you know what this means? The diseased criminal immigrants must have been in cahoots with the Reds! They were all part of a vast conspiracy, along with ACORN, to poison our water supply and sap and impurify our fluids during periods of early voting!
I need a blackboard.
Now, she made these remarks in front of a friendly 9-12 Project meetup on August 2, and they were warmly received by the audience, but no one else really noticed until the YouTube video started circulating.
Her campaign has not clarified her remarks about Miami camps in the 1940's or '50's, and there is some speculation that the model she had in mind was the Japanese internment camps of WWII, but there is another possibility.
There were camps in the Miami area for migrants in the '40's - migrant labor camps. Camps set up to house a workforce so desperate for employment that entire families were literally walking into the state hoping for a chance to work backbreaking agricultural jobs for subsistence wages. Luckily for the workers, generous area landowners stood ready to provide exactly that!
A lot of these families hailed from nearby Southern states - that is, they were American citizens, but migrant labor camps did not discriminate - they were quite happy to take in workers of all races regardless of immigration status, and to a wide-eyed pale-skinned little girl, all of those dirt encrusted farm laborers must have looked quite brown and foreign and deportable.
Most of the diverse people who comprised the influx of workers into Florida in the later years of the Great Depression came from other southern states.
These migrant laborers made their way south from Georgia and from throughout the Upper and Mid South (from Eastern North Carolina and Kentucky to Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma) after the loss of tenant positions on leased farm land, foreclosure, falling farm yields, or the closure of textile factories and other industries forced them away from their homes.
Some Sense of Security
Migrants took whatever little possessions they could carry and traveled, often with their entire families, to the warmth and agricultural abundance of Florida in search of sustenance, shelter, and some measure of economic security.
Of course, without those handy camps, the migrants would have been walking among Marg's friends and family, spreading disease and fluoride and ACORN propaganda.
So, maybe Marg was thinking of the Japanese-American citizens who were interned by our government, or maybe she was referencing the American migrant workers who were employed by generous landowners in order that she be provided with a refreshing glass of Florida orange juice every morning.
Regardless, it is obvious that her motives are pure - lily white, actually - and that she is a woman of great vision - a woman we can trust with our bodily fluids without fear of losing our essence.
I'll give Marg the last word (from the video):
"We gotta have guns!"
Teach Your Children Hell: Kemple Leads School Board Money Chase
A divorced family man who believes that teachers should have the academic freedom to bring God into the classroom but that they should never, ever, be allowed to mention the theory of contraception, is vying to fill one of the 7 positions on the Hillsborough County School Board, a group which is responsible for overseeing the 11th largest School District in the US.
District 6 candidate Terry Kemple was born to dirty fucking hippie parents and quickly fell prey to the evil secular elements of society - a society which forced him to choose to make himself a slave!
He continues...
And asks:
By the early 1980's, Kemple had evolved into a weak, drunken godless shell of a human being, but his pickled brain nonetheless made him a legend in his mind as he purposelessly motored the Northeast on boozy two-wheeled excursions, occasionally threatening his minor offspring with "a ride to Pennsylvania."
Kemple reinvented himself in the mid '80s. He was an alcoholic, divorced, separated from his daughters for 10 years. He would come by on his motorcycle to see the kids in Connecticut. He would say crazy things like, "Let's take a ride to Pennsylvania."...
In 1986, Kemple paid a visit to his oldest brother, Morry, headmaster of a Christian school in Jacksonville. He went to a tent revival on Sunday with Morry's family.
The star speaker was Tim Lee, the famous evangelist who had lost both his legs in Vietnam. Like Kemple, Lee had been rebellious, godless....
In the revival tent, Kemple felt overwhelmed. Tim Lee had lost his legs. He had lost his children. He went back that night to hear Lee tell the story again.
Kemple told brother Morry he wanted to change. Morry urged him to get started. "Find a church that preaches the Bible." Kemple lived just a few blocks from Bell Shoals Baptist Church. First thing he did was join the Bible class for singles.
First, Kemple leveraged Bible verses to convince his new church lady girlfriend to get a divorce. Then they married and Terry leveraged his shiny new Jesus-loving family-man cred to take on some of the most pressing issues of our times.
He has made the protection of children his mission. He has hosted sexual abstinence rallies for thousands of teenagers, lobbied for right-to-life laws, declared war on lap dancing. He cruises Christian Web sites. He collects evidence of God's banishment from classrooms, of pornographers' subversion of the First Amendment.
Kemple articulates an absolutist view — that homosexuals are stealing children from Christians by indoctrinating the young to gay lifestyles. He calls it the "homosexual agenda." Gay marriages pose the biggest threat of all.
Recently, Kemple has fought to give teachers the Academic Freedom to refute the Darwinist lies that are taught as "Biology," and he was a big part of the successful Florida campaign to deny the homosexuals their perverted marriage agenda item. Oh, and he wants kids to be taught abstinence only. In elementary school AND in college.
And how does that play out in the arena of sex education in public schools?
One of the things that's mentioned most frequently in the Bible is sexual immorality and how we are supposed to refrain from it. Much of the education that our kids get today... encourages them to become sexually involved at earlier and earlier ages....I'm old enough to remember when we weren't encouraged to have sex in school, and we didn't have sex.
So are you saying that schools are encouraging kids to have sex?
Yes....
So then I don't suppose you would agree with the proposed legislation called the Healthy Teens Act that would require school districts to emphasize abstinence while teaching students how to protect themselves from disease and pregnancy?
No....
So you're advocating abstinence only sex education for college students?
Why not? We need to turn that group around and give them some inducement not to be sexually active.
I'm not actually old enough to remember when we didn't have sex. If I ever do get that old, I hope that someone will shoot me.
The District 6 race is crowded, but only the top 2 vote getters in the 4-way non-partisan primary will advance to the November ballot. Incumbent April Griffin, backed by unions and other progressive groups, should be favored, but Kemple's church connections are proving to be lucrative.
Challenger Terry Kemple jumped to an early lead in campaign contributions, reporting $16,100 in April compared to $3,024 for incumbent April Griffin.
Griffin, 41, of Temple Terrace, is seeking her second term on the board and said she will report about $16,000 in contributions by the next deadline. Her donors include Iron Workers Local 397, the Hillsborough County Agricultural PAC, and retired principal Manuel Duran.
...Kemple, 63, of Brandon, president of the Christian-based Community Issues Council, said he has benefitted from the generosity of friends at church and in the community.
Kemple expects to report a total of $27,000 in contributions by the July 23 deadline.
Fifty-three of Kemple's 63 contributions are for $100 or more, and 20 are for $500 or more.
He received $300 from Orlando personal injury attorney John Stemberger, president of the conservative Florida Family Policy Council, whose interests tend to attract campaign money and votes, political analysts say.
Other top Kemple contributors include Bart Azzarelli of Dallas 1 Construction and Development in Thonotosassa; Mary Ott Wood of Plant City, president of Florida West Coast Credit Union; and 411 Communications of Tampa, a consulting firm whose clients have included Attorney General Bill McCollum and former U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez.
Griffin and Kemple will probably advance to the next round to face each other in November when Kemple's experience as an organizer combined with his notoriety and fundraising prowess among the local fundamentalist crowd could be enough to propel him to victory in a race that is off of most voters' radars.
He certainly has a fundraising advantage right now, and he seems to be going out of his way to appear reasonable to low knowledge voters - his official website is useless if you want to know anything about him. Luckily, some person has put together something a little more informative than the official Terry Kemple site.
But more important than making fun of him is supporting incumbent April Griffin.
The other side has been very successful in organizing to win local down ballot races such as this one for School Board. They know how important these positions really are, and they are praying to win.
Spread the word about Terry Kemple: make sure voters in November know who they they are voting for and what their candidate stands for. Kemple's fundamentalist machine is going to turn out for him. We have to turn out voters for April Griffin.
Support April Griffin for Hillsborough County School Board District 6.
And click through to this site to learn a lot more about Terry Kemple.
Editing The Constitution – Developing News
Note: The Florida Constitution series of posts is officially veering slightly off course with this post on developing news. However, upcoming posts on all the individual amendments are still planned. Stay tuned.
In Florida we saw major developments this week regarding constitutional amendments on this year's ballot. A gubernatorial candidate has sued to block the disbursement of funds under Florida's constitutional public financing system. Meanwhile, a judge kicked a misleading legislative initiative off the ballot while arguments were being made in court regarding two other amendments. Finally, a special legislative session has been scheduled to add an amendment to the ballot to ban oil drilling off of Florida's coasts.
Public Financing Challenged
Florida's sickly public campaign finance system is on its least legs, with a legislative amendment on November's ballot expected to deliver the final blow and end all public campaign financing in Florida.
In 1998, voters enshrined into the constitution a bare bones public financing system for some statewide offices. Unfortunately, despite the will of the voters, the system never gained much legislative support and now the Legislature is tired of spending perfectly good public money to help candidates compete when it’s stunningly obvious to everyone that raising private cash from corporations and wealthy influence peddlers or just outright buying the election for oneself is teh shit.
Unfortunately, the program that Jeb Bush referred to as “welfare for politicians” is probably doomed. The system is so broken and full of loopholes that it does little to help underfunded candidates compete, and the tide of special interest and corporate money has been rising in Florida just like elsewhere despite the public system.
There is absolutely no uprising in opposition to this bill, and with even public campaign financing stalwarts like Common Cause singing the death knell of the current system, this may be the last year for public financing in Florida.
But a funny thing happened on the way to amending the constitution: Self-funded and now front-running gubernatorial wannabuy Rick Scott has decided that even the moribund and half-hearted system that is currently in place is too much to bear during this election cycle and he wants it all gone. Now.
The provision lets traditional candidates such as McCollum get tax dollars to subsidize their campaigns when they are being vastly outspent by independently wealthy candidates like Scott.
Scott must agree to limit his campaign expenditures to $24.9-million in the primary or else the state will give McCollum $1 for every dollar Scott spends over the cap. As Scott inches ever closer to that total, his lawsuit argues that the cap is a violation of his First Amendment rights because it restricts his free speech by benefiting his opponents' speech.
"The (U.S.) Supreme Court has concluded that a Legislature cannot enact laws that provide benefits to a candidate's opponents triggered by the candidate's exercise of the right to use funds for campaign speech," the suit says.
"The Supreme Court has also consistently concluded that restrictions on a candidate's ability to spend his own funds, or funds raised from others, cannot be justified either by the government's interest in reducing corruption or … equalizing the relative financial resources of candidates."
Scott sued the Secretary of State, a state agency, and the case has political implications beyond the lawsuit itself. It literally could put McCollum, the state's chief legal officer, on the defensive, because the attorney general routinely represents state agencies in court.
The legal action also highlights how McCollum is seeking help from taxpayers to fortify his campaign at a time when he is calling for fiscal austerity, budget cuts and a two-year freeze on local property tax increases on the campaign trail.
Scott wants an expedited hearing and a court injunction to block McCollum and the leading Democratic candidate for governor, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, from getting state matching money. The checks are scheduled to start flowing July 23.
That last bit is really important. Scott may or may not be able to stay under the cap that automatically triggers state matching funds, but he's more concerned with having to spend his personal funds to offset the state money that many candidates, including Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink, will get in a couple of weeks.
Scott told reporters he planned to limit his overall spending to keep from handing McCollum the matching money. "I believe we'll be within that limit," he said – though he also said he'd raise money for a so-called 527 group whose spending won't count against the cap.
But another part of the law gives public money directly to candidates, based on the number of Floridians who gave $250 or less since last September. For gubernatorial candidates, there's a two-for-one match of the first $150,000 in those contributions and a dollar-for-dollar match above that until the spending cap is reached. In 2006, candidate Charlie Crist collected more than $3.3 million in public funds.
That's the money set to be distributed on July 23 regardless of any caps, and all the eligible campaigns are counting on it. Rick Scott wont benefit from these funds and wants the possible lifeline yanked from both McCollum and Sink.
Amendment 7 Fail
If you've been following my still in progress series on Florida's Constitutional Amendments this week, you may have noticed that we haven't yet touched on the dueling redistricting amendments including the legislative initiative dubbed Amendment 7.
You read right: dueling amendments. 3 ballot positions. At dawn. Tuesday, November 2 2010.
Amendment 7 is a legislative initiative designed to undo the 2 citizen initiatives amendments 5 and 6 that immediately precede it on the ballot.
All three amendments deal with redistricting. Amendments 5 and 6 reached the ballot via petition and include language that the Florida Supreme Court has already signed off on. These amendments aim to bring a little fairness and sanity to the process of drawing political districts.
Our present system permits politicians to choose their voters instead of voters having a fair chance to choose their representatives. Legislators use sophisticated computers, voter registration data and past election returns to predict how particular voters will vote in the future. Then they choose which voters are most likely to vote for them and their party and place just enough of those voters in "safe" districts -- ones they are sure they can win. Those in charge also pack large numbers of unfavorable voters in into a few districts so the unfriendly voters will have a chance to win in fewer districts.
Each district is rigged to accomplish a particular result. Districts are set up to be either Democratic or Republican and opposing party candidates do not have a chance. Only 7% of Florida’s legislative elections are really competitive. Voters do not have a real choice in selecting their representatives because the elections are rigged before they even start.
The Republican led Florida Legislature, known for neither fairness nor sanity, but being pretty good at dirty tricks designed to thwart the will of the people, threw together Amendment 7 which is deceptively designed to sound benign while ripping the guts out of the Fair Districts initiatives.
Luckily for the people, the fairly insane dirty tricksters that slapped Amendment 7 together are not very good at actually writing amendments that conform to the law which states that each initiative must cover only a single subject and that it must contain a clear ballot summary.
A judge on Thursday struck down the Legislature's proposed constitutional amendment concerning political districts because, he said, it is too confusing for voters to understand.
Amendment 7 was drafted by the Republican-led Legislature in response to two other proposed amendments that a liberal-leaning citizens group placed on the ballot to make it tougher for lawmakers to draw political districts that favor a political party or an incumbent.
But the Legislature's proposal -- which lawmakers said would ``clarify'' the amendments of the Fair Districts Florida group -- created far more confusion, Tallahassee Circuit Judge James Shelfer said in a ruling from the bench.
``I can hardly think that the average voter going in the voting booth would be able to make an informed decision,'' Shelfer said. ``It took me three days -- in reading all of these cases, reading all of these briefings, hearing all of your arguments -- to get a handle on what this amendment did and its effect on the existing laws and the Constitution.''
A written ruling by Shelfer is expecting in the next few days. The case will likely be appealed to the state Supreme Court.
One paragraph from Amendment 7 stood out as being particularly complicated. It says ``the state shall take into consideration the ability of racial and language minorities to participate in the political process and elect candidates of their choice, and communities of common interest other than political parties may be respected and promoted, both without subordination to any other provision of this article.''
In a word, Amendment 7 was ``gobbledygook,'' said Ron Meyer, an attorney who argued against the Legislature's plan on behalf of the NAACP, which supported the Fair Districts proposals.
Plaintiffs say they will appeal and try to get Amendment 7 back on the ballot. Meanwhile, a challenge to Amendments 5 and 6 brought by lawmakers, including a Democrat, who fear running in Fair Districts is getting under way.
Attorneys for the Legislature, losers in their effort to protect their proposed amendment in court earlier in the day, were back later Thursday before a different judge, arguing that the other two amendments also should come off . They argued that the Supreme Court’s OK of the amendments for the ballot – which must precede any citizen-backed initiative going to the voters – was merely advisory and didn’t take into account any factual arguments over what the amendment might do.
But the Florida Department of State, joined by FairDistricts.org and former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, who intervened in the case, argued that there has never been a case where a circuit court has overruled the Supreme Court's consent to place a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot.
And in another twist, rumors are flying that a deal is in the works between the GOP Legislature (unfair and unsane) and No Party Charlie Crist (late to the party, but recently out of the closet as an open supporter of Fair Districts) to put an amended Amendment 7 back on the ballot in exchange for allowing Crist's drilling amendment a spot.
Oil Drilling Amendment?
No Party Governor and Senate Candidate Chrlie Crist first raised the possibility of a special session to consider placing an amendment on the ballot to ban drilling off of Florida's coasts in May. Now he has exercised his constitutional powers and called the Legislature into session specifically to consider his proposal.
Crist, who is running as an independent candidate for the U.S. Senate, took the unusual step of invoking his power as governor to unilaterally call lawmakers into a four-day special session on July 20-23.
Normally, governors call special sessions after reaching an agreement with legislative leaders on the agenda. But facing an Aug. 4 deadline to get the amendment on November ballot, Crist decided to act on his own after being ignored by House leaders.
And now the political calculations begin on who will win or lose if lawmakers reject or accept the governor's ultimatum. The outcome of the session could impact fall elections, ranging from the Senate race to the governor and Cabinet races to the legislative races.
The measure needs to pass both houses with 60 percent to earn a spot on the ballot, and although many Republicans hate the idea of a constitutional ban, right now, with the Gulf turning into a cesspool, not too many politicians are willing to commit to voting against it.
House leaders are generally cool to adding a proposed constitutional amendment banning drilling to the ballot. They point out that Florida law already bans drilling in state waters. They call the governor's move a political stunt.
``It's not productive to talk about re-banning something that's already illegal,'' said Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Republican from Fort Walton Beach.
But lawmakers also know that banning drilling is a political slam-dunk in an election year with images of oiled pelicans, tar balls and empty beachfront hotels on voters' minds.
``I congratulate the governor for at least giving the members a chance to vote on it before Election Day,'' said Sen. Dennis Jones, a Seminole Republican who supports Crist's independent bid for the U.S. Senate. ``That way, the general public will have a sense of where their representative stands.''
A ``no'' vote poses a political risk to Republicans whose districts include sugar-white sand on the Panhandle, fragile estuaries on the Nature Coast or South Florida beaches vulnerable to the loop current.
Most of those lawmakers said they would vote for a ban or are leaning toward it.
Developing.
Editing the Constitution: Amendment 1
Note: This week Over the next week or two I'll spend several days and diaries discussing the constitutional amendment process in Florida as well as the specific amendments that are on the November ballot this year. The first part of the series is here.
On Monday we learned how the Florida constitution can be amended and that the amendment process usually takes the form of a citizen initiative or a Legislative initiative.
Today, we'll look at one of the Legislative initiatives on the ballot this year. Amendment One has been introduced by the Legislature to do away with Florida's public campaign finance system.
As we learned yesterday, Florida's constitution is constantly morphing as new amendments are passed by voters and edited into the original text. We also saw some examples of the Legislature introducing amendments specifically to undo earlier, often progressive changes mandated by voters.
This year's Amendment One is just such an animal. In 1998, voters enshrined into the constitution a bare bones public financing system for some statewide offices. Unfortunately, despite the will of the voters, the system never gained much legislative support and now the Legislature is tired of spending perfectly good public money to help candidates compete when it's stunningly obvious to everyone that raising private cash from corporations and wealthy influence peddlers or just outright buying the election for oneself is teh shit.
Unfortunately, the program that Jeb Bush referred to as "welfare for politicians" is probably doomed. The system is so broken and full of loopholes that it does little to help underfunded candidates compete, and the tide of special interest and corporate money has been rising in Florida just like elsewhere despite the public system.
There is absolutely no uprising in opposition to this bill, and with even public campaign financing stalwarts like Common Cause singing the death knell of the current system, this may be the last year for public financing in Florida.
“The campaign finance law really has become so messed up, the question is whether we should even try to save it,” said Ben Wilcox, a board member with Common Cause Florida, which has long supported the state public finance system.
“The system has been so manipulated, it doesn’t look much like it was intended to look,” he added.
...
since its earliest days, the public finance system has been gamed by lawmakers, its supporters say.The most dramatic move came five years ago, when the Republican-controlled Legislature nearly tripled spending limits for those running for governor -- raising the spending roof to where this year, candidates can spend as much as $24.9 million and still qualify for taxpayer money.
Spending limits for Cabinet candidates also were raised fivefold that year, from $2 million.
The spending caps were bumped skyward in 2005 in anticipation of a freespending battle in the governor’s race – beginning with a costly GOP primary between now-Gov. Charlie Crist and rival Tom Gallagher.
Eventually, Crist pocketed more than $3.3 million in public funds, while also spending $20 million in the governor’s race. He also drew at least that much financial support from the Florida Republican Party.
Party backing didn’t count toward the spending cap. And having the party cover campaign expenses and air television ads was among the first means candidates used to sidestep spending limits.
The rise of 527 groups in this year’s Republican primary has further blurred the role of spending limits. Such shadowy organizations, named for the section of the IRS code that governs them, can raise and spend unlimited amounts to influence an election – usually through TV ads aimed at tearing down an opponent.
Ironically, Republican Gubernatorial candidate and House Impeachment Manager Bill McCollum, an ardent opponent of public campaign financing, may be one of the last politicians to ever benefit from the system, as his floundering campaign is about to receive a gift in the form of matching contributions from the state. He needs every penny he can scrape together - his self-financing opponent has unlimited funds.
I'm certainly not going to shed any tears for McCollum, but it's apparent that whether Amendment 1 passes or not that the financing system in Florida is already really broken. McCollum's opponent Rick Scott is attempting to buy the GOP Governor's race, and Jeff Greene is trying to do the same in the Democratic Senate primary, and both of them may prevail due solely to the vast amounts of cash they are spending.
Amendment 1 aims to tear down the last vestiges of a crippled and broken down system. Public financing has been defanged and declawed and essentially left for dead for years. November's vote will be the public execution.
Editing the Constitution
Florida's constitution is truly an evolving document. Every two years, amendments are proposed and and those that pass muster with Florida voters are edited into the text of the original document rather than just being tacked on at the end.
The current version of our state constitution is full of seamless and not so seamless examples of good, bad and meh amendments that have been incorporated into the constitution over the years. Pregnant pigs, pregnant minors, a minimum wage and fishing nets are just a few of the subjects addressed in the constitution thanks to the amendment process.
There are five ways to put amendments to the Florida constitution on the ballot, but three are rarely used: two seperate commissions that meet every twenty years, and the Constitutional Convention process which must be initiated by the voters.
The two other methods, the legislative and citizen initiative processes, are fairly common and typically produce a bunch of measures for voters to consider every couple of years.
The citizen initiative is a petition gathering process and can sometimes result in popular measures that are maddeningly progressive in the eyes of our conservative GOP Legislature.
The Legislative initiative is typically crafted with the help of lobbyists in back rooms and can be designed with ulterior motives in mind.
Sometimes, especially in the past few cycles, the Legislature has been known to respond to successful citizen initiatives with amendments that aim to change or cancel out completely the citizens' efforts.
In 2000, Two years after Jeb Bush was elected Governor, citizens proposed and passed a High Speed Rail amendment, enshrining the forward thinking concept into the constitution and legally locking the Legislature and Governor into action.
But Bush and the GOP dominated Legislature failed to fund the rail project as they placed their own anti-rail amendment in the ballot in 2004 and they managed to convince the voters to cancel out the previous measure.
Similarly, class size is still being debated. Citizens passed an amendment in 2002 mandating specific teacher to student ratios in public schools. The Legislature has been trying to get it watered down for years, and this year another Legislative initiative is on the ballot which aims to change the way heads are counted in the classrooms, thus weakening the original amendment.
So the pattern is becoming clear: first, the citizens propose an amendment which passes with majority support. Then the politicians respond by seeking to water down or completely do away with the citizen mandate. But just undoing amendments wasn't enough for the Legislature.
Between class size and high speed rail and some other mandates from the voters, including language protecting pregnant pigs from the worst abuses of corporate farming, the Governor and Legislature, as well as the powerful business interests that backed them, were starting to feel a little lack of control. So in 2006, as well as pushing amendments to undo the amendments they didn't like, they managed to get a super majority requirement amendment into the constitution.
That's right: stung by repeated voter demands to address important issues, Florida's leaders talked the voters into making it harder for the voters to speak out. From now on, all amendments to the Florida constitution would require a sixty percent majority to pass.
Which pretty much brings us up to date. As things currently stand, voters this year will have three citizen sponsored initiatives and six legislative initiatives to vote on, several of which are designed to dilute or cancel current or past citizen efforts.
All of which is fodder for several more posts this week. Stay tuned.
