News Service Florida Political Blog

POLITICAL ROUNDUP FOR WEDNESDAY

Top morning politics story:

Quietly, Gov. Rick Scott is raising money for his re-elect. He spent his own money last time. The AP’s Gary Fineout has a good story this morning:

http://www.theledger.com/article/20120221/politics/120229835

There’s bound to be lots of talk in the Capitol the next couple weeks on just what the state of the race for Senate president in 2014 is. There were all kinds of rumors yesterday about whether Sen. Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, might step aside in his quest for that position, which Sen. Jack Latvala, R-St. Petersburg, is also interested in. The questions that arose haven’t really been answered, but the Tampa Bay Times talks about them

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/content/gardiner-survives-attempt-unseat-him-senate-presidency-fight?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+tampabaycom/blogs/buzz+%28The+Buzz+|+tampabay.com%29

Also:

Rubio book due in October

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/content/rubios-book-set-october-publication

League of Women Voters ready for rally, Villalobos talks about courts

http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/story/league-women-voters-brings-opposition-legislature-capitol

Connie Mack’s taxes

http://www2.tbo.com/news/politics/2012/feb/21/2/homestead-exemption-could-be-issue-for-mack-ar-361009/

Hastings and Frankel, once rivals, now on the same team

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/elections/fl-hastings-frankel-congress-20120221,0,4906168.story

Former Buchanan partner settles with FEC
http://htpolitics.com/2012/02/21/former-buchanan-partner-sam-kazran-settles-with-fec/

And, an ethics report out of Miami-Dade County criticizes free ticketshttp://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/21/2653735/miami-dade-ethics-report-rips.html

TUESDAY POLITICS ROUNDUP

Alex Sink considering another go: Bousquet’s column:
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/content/steve-bousquet-column-regret-over-2010-defeat-alex-sink-considers-2014-rematch

CONGRESSIONAL RACES

CD 6: Jacksonville City Councilman Richard Clark is asking St. Johns County voters to send him to Congress.
http://jacksonville.com/opinion/blog/403455/steve-patterson/2012-02-20/jacksonville-councilman-wants-seat-congress

Others in the race include former Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse CEO Craig Miller, a Republican, who dropped out of a U.S. Senate race to run for the seat and Jacksonville lawyer Ron DeSantis, also a Republican. GOP state Rep. Fred Costello, R-Ormond Beach, has been mentioned as a possible candidate.

CD 22: Broward County Commissioner Kristin Jacobs is running for Congress, setting up Democratic primary battle with Lois Frankel.
Sun-Sentinel’s Anthony Man writes, and has video: http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2012/02/kristin_jacobs_announces_bid_f.html

To veteran Miami politicos the phrase “The Diaz de la Portillas are coming” now means something new: all three DLP brothers are hoping to run for the Legislature this year, the Miami Herald reported Monday. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla is already in the Senate and will run for re-election. Former Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla is running for the House, according to paperwork filed last week. Renier Diaz de la Portilla, also a former state representative and current Miami-Dade School Board member, is running for a different House seat.

Here’s the Herald’s blog post with additional links:

Start your week off with the NSF political roundup:

TOP POLITICAL STORIES THIS MORNING

Who is JD Alexander?

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/18/2648344/jd-alexander-respected-feared.html

Could the Tampa convention be more than a coronation?

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/73070.html

President’s re-elect staffing up

http://www2.tbo.com/news/politics/2012/feb/19/obama-campaign-amassing-troops-in-florida-ar-360422/

US Senate candidates spoke Sunday evening in Tallahassee in a forum

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/elections/pb-senate-forum-20120219,0,6903251.story

CONGRESSIONAL RACES

CD 6: Craig Miller has made some money hires. They’re so money, and they don’t even know it.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2012/02/miller-hires-two-professional-fundraisers-for-cd-6-run.html

CD 16: A race is emerging for CD 16 – Buchanan has a fundraising edge, though, the Sarasota H-T reports

http://htpolitics.com/2012/02/19/buchanan-holds-fund-rasising-edge-in-emerging-district-16-race/

CD 17: Allen West hiring Chris LaCivita

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/after-once-decrying-swift-boat-tactics-u-s-2186114.html

CD 22: Adam Hasner late last week picked up Jeb Bush’s endorsement in his congressional bid

http://atr.rollcall.com/florida-hasner-picks-up-jeb-bush-endorsement/

From the weekend:

Questions raised about how lines came to move in Congressional District 7 – good for Sandy Adams, notes John Mica.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/politics/os-redistricting-sandy-adams-20120216,0,3902423.story

From Politico on Florida’s digs in NC vs. Tampa

“The Democratic National Committee is putting Florida at the Marriott City Center this summer, a prime spot for delegates from the key swing state that’s close to the heart of convention activity. The Republicans haven’t announced their hotel sites yet, but the Florida delegation is likely to be in far less optimal digs at the convention they are hosting in Tampa. The delegation is being punished by the committee for holding their primary in January. Here’s the official link to the DNC hotel list: http://bit.ly/zNeBwn. The Charlotte Observer has an interactive map of all the DNC hotels: http://bit.ly/x5uKah. As a point of reference for what could happen to the RNC, this is what happened to Florida in 2008 at the Denver convention: http://bit.ly/ApxDoV.

www.newsserviceflorida.com

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports that Romney remains the main money man in Florida

Federal health officials this week rejected hitting beneficiaries with $10 monthly premiums and charges for some emergency-room visits.  The federal Medicaid agency, in a letter dated Thursday, notified the state that the proposals violated federal requirements that are designed, at least in part, to shield poor people from additional costs. While controversial, the proposed charges were a relatively small part of Florida’s move to overhaul Medicaid. The key part of the overhaul would eventually shift almost all beneficiaries into managed-care plans — an idea that remains under federal review.

Democratic lawmakers and advocates for Medicaid beneficiaries blasted the proposals last year when the Republican-controlled Legislature included them in a massive plan to revamp Medicaid.

www.newsserviceflorida.com
 

Former state House Majority Leader Adam Hasner has been lining up support across the right for his bid for Congress ever since stepping out of the race for a U.S. Senate seat. Now comes three legislative endorsements, from Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, Rep. Bill Hager, R-Boca Raton, and Rep. George Moraitis, R-Fort Lauderdale.

Hasner: “It is an honor to receive the endorsement of these leaders and friends. I served in the House with Ellyn and worked with her on many local issues, Bill is a friend who serves in the district I represented for eight years, and George is a rising conservative star in the state legislature.  Each has represented Broward and Palm Beach counties and served us with distinction.  I am very pleased to welcome them to our leadership team.”

So far, Hasner is the only Republican candidate who has filed to run in the 22nd Congressional District after Republican Congressman Allen West announced he would move to a more GOP-friendly seat as a result of redistricting.

In one of the first clear effects of the way legislative districts will be redrawn under the plans passed Thursday by the Senate, a Panhandle Republican lawmaker who finds himself living in the same district as a more senior GOP colleague said he’ll bow out of the Legislature for two years, hoping to return when the colleague leaves. Rep. Brad Drake, R-Eucheeanna, said he won’t run for House District 5 in 2012, but announced his candidacy for the seat in 2014. That will let Rep. Marti Coley, R-Marianna, who also lives in the district, run without facing another incumbent in a primary. Coley will be term-limited in two years.

“I am confident that Marti Coley can effectively represent our district; she currently represents part of Bay and Walton Counties and a majority of Jackson County,” Drake said in a statement. Coley said she was “honored” by Drake’s support. Republican leaders have said several GOP lawmakers now live in the same district as another Republican House member, and have offered that as proof that they didn’t try to protect any incumbents or better their own party’s position in the redistricting, which is now headed to the Supreme Court for review – and was also challenged in a lawsuit filed Thursday by Democrats. Voters recently put new redistricting standards in the constitution requiring that the process not take into account partisan considerations or incumbent protection.

After surprisingly vocal debate Tuesday in the Florida Senate over a memorial to the U.S. Congress – memorials don’t actually do anything –  the same could be true today. Yesterday it was opposition to the federal Dodd-Frank financial law that stirred up passions in the Senate. Today, the Senate considers telling Congress what it thinks of Sarbanes-Oxley.

Senate “memorials” are largely symbolic resolutions giving Congress a piece of the Legislature’s mind. But when Sen. Garrett Richter, R-Naples, brought up a memorial Tuesday urging Congress to repeal the federal Dodd-Frank financial law, he touched off a lengthy — and partisan — fight. The Republican-dominated Senate approved the memorial 27-12 on a party line vote, with Richter and other supporters saying regulations in the 2010 law have hurt small banks and the abilities of Florida businesses to get loans. “Dodd-Frank was an inappropriate regulatory response to the panic of 2008,” said Richter, a banker. But Democrats said the law includes needed consumer protections, such as a federal consumer protection bureau. “You’re about to vote on something that you truly don’t understand,” Sen. Chris Smith, D-Fort Lauderdale, told supporters of the measure. At one point in the debate, Sen. Steve Oelrich, R-Cross Creek, blasted former U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Connecticut, and U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, R-Massachusetts, the namesakes of the law. “These are the two architects of the financial crisis in our nation,” said Oelrich, who is expected to run for Congress this year.

Sarbanes-Oxley, or Sarbox, is similarly infamous amoung the big corporate types. The 2002 law set tougher standards for all company management and their boards and followed corporate and accounting scandals of a decade ago, like the Enron fiasco. That massive overhaul of corporate governance standards was very popular in Congress when it was passed and signed into law by then President George W. Bush. Companies, however, have often bridled under its requirements – including most recently Facebook, which said in a recent letter to propsective shareholders, essentially, that being a public company is really hard. Complying with Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank “will increase our legal and financial compliance costs, make some activities more difficult, time-consuming, or costly, and increase demand on our systems and resources,” the company said.

Tuesday politics round up

Some Florida Republicans are considering a different path
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/politics/fl-gop-fractures-prompt-third-party-20120206,0,1486693.story

Legislators will skip this event honoring them
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/elections/fl-xgr–democrats-fundraising-20120206,0,7866682.story

Inevitable:
Tebow talked up for political possibilities
http://www.politico.com/blogs/click/2012/02/tim-tebow-id-possibly-run-for-office-113592.html

Brown, Young get their earmarks

The Washington Post this week did a big project looking at how some members of Congress have managed to get money into the budget that “either held the potential to enhance the surroundings of a lawmaker’s own property, or aided entities connected to their immediate family.” Two Florida members were among the 50 members whose earmarks looked to do that, Rep. Corrine Brown, a Democrat from Jacksonville and Rep. C.W. “Bill” Young, a Republican from St. Petersburg.

Here’s what the piece said:

Rep. Corrine Brown (D – Fla.)
Spending with family connections: $16.9 million
Between 2005 and 2010, Brown helped secure $21.9 million for six clients of a lobbying firm where her daughter works. The clients paid the firm more than $1 million to represent them before Congress. Brown was the sole sponsor of $1.79 million in earmarks sent to a seventh client, the Community Rehabilitation Center, while her daughter worked as a lobbyist on behalf of the center, the Florida Times-Union reported in 2010. The congresswoman declined requests for an interview. Her daughter did not respond to requests for comment.

Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R – Fla.)
Spending with family connections: $73.2 million
Over a decade, Young helped secure $73 million for companies that employed his sons, according to the St. Petersburg Times. One worked as a security administrator in the St. Petersburg office of Science Applications International Corp., a defense contractor; the other as an outreach specialist for the National Forensic Science Technology Center. Young’s spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.Young told the Times in a 2008 story that the earmarks were based on merit, not because the programs employed his sons.

Here’s the piece:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/capitol-assets/public-projects-private-interests/

CONGRESSIONAL RACE WATCH

DWS has another challenger: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/fl-dws-challenger-d20-brf-20120206,0,5800486.story

Also:

The rhetoric around South Florida congressional races is heating up
http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_91/florida_anger_confusion_musical_chairs_allen_west_patrick_murphy-212166-1.html?pos=hln

Redistricting
Bradenton’s mayor likes the new congressional map
http://htpolitics.com/2012/02/06/bradenton-mayor-likes-new-redistricting-map/

And
Former state Sen. Mandy Dawson plans to plead guilty in a federal case that accuses her of income tax evasion, according to court records filed Monday.  http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime/former-florida-sen-mandy-dawson-to-plead-guilty-2156526.html