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Trying to decipher whether the 2008 session was “green” or not takes a Pantone color chart. There are spots of leafy green, mottled with the gray-green of hard cash, bright acid envy, and the pallid sheen of greenwash.
With his customary good cheer, Gov. Charlie Crist declared Tuesday the 2008 session, "a banner year on the environment, I dare say."
To continue reading, go to our blog The Fueling Station.
-Asjylyn Loder and Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writers
At a news conference with medical experts, Gov. Charlie Crist on Thursday emphasized the need for the House to follow the Senate's lead and pass his plan for a "market-driven" approach to finding affordable health coverage for the uninsured.
The House will consider a bill (HB 7081) that mixes Crist's "Cover Florida" proposal with its own separate program that includes a $1-million appropriation for a new corporation, Florida Health Choices, to manage the new initiative. Crist said the corporation is unnecessary but declined to say whether he would veto the bill, sponsored by Republican Rep. Aaron Bean, if it reached his desk.
"I'm all for oversight," Crist said. "I'm not sure we need to spend an additional million dollars to do what they can do very well themselves."
UPDATE: House Speaker Marco Rubio says the goal is to pass a bill with both Crist's ideas and Bean's. In what sounded like a dig at Crist's call for his plan only, Rubio said: "This place always works better when it's a two-way street. So that's what we're going to try to accomplish in the last two weeks of session."
The Senate property insurance package currently up on the floor -- and expected to pass-- has seen some interesting teamwork. Republican Sen. Jeff Atwater has spent much of the last two weeks working with Republican Sen. J.D. Alexander, who runs the committee where the bill last stopped.
Atwater has lately sounded a lot like Gov. Charlie Crist in his pounding of the industry and Alexander has historically been one of the Senate's chief defenders of the insurance industry.
Continue reading "Strange alliances on property insurance" »
Former Tampa Mayor Bill Poe Sr. and 19 others, including his wife and five children, have been sued by Florida regulators for engaging in what the state alleges was an elaborate scheme to divert more than $140-million from three property insurance companies even as the companies hurtled toward bankruptcy. Read about it here.
So the Florida Channel and some Senate Republicans are in a tizzy, because of the video the Florida Democratic Party released, which was clearly a product of the Florida Channel.
When the Florida Channel releases any footage recorded from the Legislature, they tell people that the video can't be used for political or commercial purposes; that's in accordance with their contract with the state. The Florida Channel has a record of only one person requesting that particular 2005 video of Sen. Jeff Atwater and it's William Stander of the Property Casualty Insurance Association (who is the lobbyist in the video).
Stander totally denies it. He says he did get a copy of the video, but denies handing it over to Florida Democrats.
"I had nothing to do with it," he said. "Hell, that commercial is more anti-me than anything. It makes me look bad."
The House is proposing moving $250 million out of Citizens' surplus funds to pay for an incentive program that gives low-interest loans to small insurance start-ups, according to the newest House budget proposal.
Citizens surplus is a pot of money that comes from premiums paid by its policyholders (like yours truly) set aside to pay claims. The proposal will be controversial, since Citizens has long said that they're not charging enough to pay potential claims that could arise from a major storm season. That means, there's a good chance a major hurricane could trigger assessments, without taking any money out of that pot.
Count George LeMieux among the critics, as he bashes the House's plan in his latest edition of the LeMieux report. Check out a House bill analysis.
It's out with the old, in with the new at Holland & Knight.
In a clean sweep that may reflect a desire for change among its ranks, three top leadership positions at Florida's second-largest law firm have turned over in the past week. One change of Tallahassee interest:
• Martha Barnett, a Tallahassee lobbyist and former American Bar Association president who was Holland & Knight's first female partner, lost her bid for re-election as board chair, a position she had held since 2003. A majority of the policymaking committee's 24 members selected Boston trial lawyer Ralph Lepore over Barnett.
Barnett is on the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission. Read more here.
Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty filed a complaint Wednesday against American General Life Insurance that seeks to suspend or even revoke the Houston-based company's license in Florida. The 22-page complaint details how American General repeatedly refused to provide life insurance or limited the coverage based on an applicant's future travel plans.
The most high-profile case involved U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Pembroke Pines, who in 2005 asked American General to increase her current life insurance policy. She indicated on her application that she had future plans for international travel. They denied her. Read the story here.
Florida Power & Light today won state approval to build the state’s first new nuclear plants in more than two decades.
The unanimous decision this morning from the Florida Public Service Commission paved the way for the utility to build two new nuclear plants at its Turkey Point power station, 25 miles south of Miami. It also signaled the state’s unwavering support for new nuclear power, despite cost estimates that have tripled in little more than a year.
The project could cost $12-billion to $24-billion, depending on the type of reactor FPL selects. It would be among the largest investments ever undertaken by the nation’s electric industry, and perhaps the most expensive construction project ever built in Florida.
The Sunshine State loves solar, according to a new poll.
Solar showed strong support across party lines, according to the Mason-Dixon poll sponsored by the Florida Solar Energy Industries Association and the Vote Solar Initiative, both solar power advocates.
For more, see our sister blog, The Fueling Station.
-Asjylyn Loder, Times Staff Writer
When the Florida Senate and House vote to pass the $500 million in cuts to the existing budget on Wednesday, it appears as though they won't be passing a separate bill to eliminate future automatic cost-of-living increases in Medicaid reimbursements for hospitals, nursing homes and county health departments.
The Medicaid freeze was the significant difference between budget cut packages the chambers passed last week. Senate Republican leaders called the freeze a necessary cost-cutting measure that also stopped a certain segment of Medicaid providers from getting an unfair perk. Democrats and some in the House called it "premature," since it impacts the next fiscal year budget.
However, the freeze isn't off the table.
Let the brawling begin over who gets to be the boss of state energy policy. For more, go to our sister blog The Fueling Station.
- Asjylyn Loder, Times staff writer
Hurry and you might catch the air fare bargain of the year.
Tampa to Tallahassee and back for a mere $270. Yesterday, the deal was good only for Wednesday and Thursday of next week. After that, the cheapest seat shoots up to $401. Any earlier and you'd pay something north of $600.
"You could take a trip to Europe and back for that," says state Sen. Michael Fasano, R-New Port Richey, who makes the flight each week while the Legislature is in session. "New York is much cheaper. You can fly for half that amount to Washington, D.C."
Read about the reason why.
[Members of the Florida
Legislature, lobbyists and members of the media mingle
at the Associated Industries of Florida party Monday night. Scott Keeler | Times]
Heaping plates of fresh shrimp, carving stations of prime rib, cherries jubilee -- and liquor flowing like water. That was the scene Monday at Associated Industries of Florida as the business giant hosted its annual pre-session bash for legislators, lobbyists, media, business people and others in Tallahassee.
Faces in the crowd included Sen. Al Lawson, Rep. Marty Bowen, Allan Katz, John Wark, Marnie George, Rep. Adam Hasner, Steve Uhlfelder, Vivian Myrtetus, Jack Cory, Anne Mackenzie, Richard Pinsky, Jeff Ryan, CFO Alex Sink, Sen. Charlie Dean, Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, Chris Mobley, and Rep. Joe Gibbons.
The nice evening brought out a big crowd but there appeared to be light attendance among legislators. That might have had something to do with the requirement that lawmakers and staffers regulated by the ban on gifts, meals and drinks had to pay their way at $32 a person.
On Tuesday, the Legislature gets down to the business at hand of shrinking the state budget, by $543-million this year, up to $2.5-billion next. Come to think of it, what better metaphor for this session than a carving station?
Lesley Blackner, the environmental attorney and major force behind Hometown Democracy, is continuing her fight to get the initiative to the ballot.
Rumors were swirling last week, in part because Hometown Democracy didn't make the 2008 ballot, that she was giving it all up to become a purse designer. While Blacker has been making cloth purses for a few friends as encouragement to dump their leather bags for environmental reasons, she's not giving up the Hometown Democracy initiative.
"I don’t know where that came from," Blackner said. "No, it's not true."
But, if she saw a widespread need or interest for her cloth purses, she would make more and donate her proceeds to Hometown Democracy, she added.
George LeMieux unveiled "The LeMieux Report" Friday.
The former chief of staff and chief strategist for Gov. Charlie Crist thinks he has discovered a gap in the information marketplace and plans to fill it with a weekly one-page summary of commentary and analysis on legal, business and political issues. The problem, as LeMieux sees it, is a glut of news that takes busy executives too much time to sift through.
Published by his law firm, Gunster Yoakley, the premiere edition's topics include Crist's new market-based health care initiative, an anti-consumer glitch in the Save Our Homes tax cap and an economic stimulus package likely to surface in the legislative session. The free weekly report will be e-mailed to movers and shakers and be posted on the web site.
"I'm trying to make it a one-page, one-stop shop for business leaders in Florida," LeMieux said. "The news they need to know to be in the know." He said Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer suggested the idea to him, and he is developing it with after-hours help from Katie Gordon, a party spokeswoman.
Several senators on the Select Committee on Property Insurance Accountability were not pleased that they didn't get to question a reinsurance representative on Tuesday. Sen. Steve Geller cut off the questioning of Paul Walther, a representative from the reinsurance market, an area that plays an important role as to why property insurance rates remain high.
Sen. Geller and Sen. Jeff Atwater (the committee's co-chairs) got to ask all their questions, taking up roughly 20 minutes. Then, Geller pressed other senators to wrap up their questions, pointing out a lack of time.
Continue reading "Script irks senators on insurance panel" »
Gov. Charlie Crist wants to eliminate Certificates of Need (CON) for hospitals, and the Buzz is there's a mention of such a move buried in one of his budget recommendations. "One of the things I'd like to do is relax that process so that we get more health care providers to more Floridians in a more timely fashion," Crist said.
The proposal has spurred an interesting opposition movement, with the state's existing 289 full-service hospitals and some business groups, like Associated Industries of Florida, calling to keep the CON regulatory measure. Read more here. Basically, it's a fight between would-be new hospitals versus established hospitals.
Barney Bishop, head of Associated Industries of Florida, said his group opposes getting rid of CONs, even though hospitals end up spending small fortunes suing each other over the issue. "The reality is, this has existed for decades," Bishop said. "My hospital companies are suing each other over it, but they don't take it seriously. It's a part of business."
The Florida Senate committee investigating the property insurance industry wants more from Allstate -- a lot more.
In a letter, Sen. Jeff Atwater and Sen. Steve Geller are asking Allstate Insurance Corp. to produce hundreds of pages of documents relating to how the company does business, giving Allstate two weeks to comply. The senators are after most of the same documents the state is also seeking through an investigation led by Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty.
Lawmakers want to see internal communications between Allstate and its affiliates, as well as documents relating to hurricane modeling, rate filing, rating agencies and reinsurance contracts.
Business owners in Florida could have the option of buying a commercial property insurance policy that does not carry the threat of an assessment from state-backed Citizens Property Insurance, according to a state bill being drafted by Sen. Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton, and Rep. Garrett Richter, R-Naples. Read about it here.
Also, a House committee takes a look today at an idea CFO Alex Sink has to shed risk. Read about it here.
The Senate Select Committee on Property Insurance Accountability closed a two-day hearing Tuesday with a pair of sweeping proposals that could profoundly change how insurers do business in Florida.
- Require that insurance companies calculate their rates using only state-approved, long-term catastrophe models rather than short-term models that usually lead to higher rates.
-Find a way to reduce the risk in the state's catastrophe fund or CAT Fund, which lawmakers expanded by $12-billion last year, while at the same time keeping rates reasonable. Read more here.
The showdown Monday between state lawmakers and some of the biggest property insurers did little to clarify why rate cutting laws haven't worked and sparked several testy exchanges.
Do you make a profit on auto insurance, a state senator asked Allstate Floridian chief executive Joseph Richardson. "To my knowledge, I cannot comment," Richardson answered. "I don't want to comment on whether we are or whether we aren't, senator."
What's your annual salary, another senator inquired later.
"That's confidential information," Richardson said.
Sen. Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, wanted more concrete answers.
"I haven't seen so much bobbing and weaving since Muhammad Ali did rope-a-dope," said Posey, who runs a Senate committee in charge of creating insurance policy. "We could be doing this forever."
The hearings continue today. Read the report here.
During an economic round-table at an Orlando tub manufacturer, Sen. John McCain talked about Florida's housing slump and what he would do to fix it.
"We are paying a price for violating one of the fundamental principles of economics: Don't lend money to people who can't pay it back," McCain said at Baker Manufacturing, which makes fiberglass bath and spa tubs.
McCain suggested cracking down on predatory lenders and mortgage brokers that "deceived people" as well as rating agencies "that gave high ratings based on nothing I know of." He also talked about making the mortgage process easier to understand and more transparent. "Why shouldn't (a mortgage document) be one page, and at the bottom say I understand this document?"
"I believe that the United States government is there to assist every citizen in this country in the event of a natural disaster. FEMA still has a long, long way to go," Sen. John McCain said at a Monday media-only press conference in Jacksonville at a private airport. "I think that's an appropriate role of the federal government....That's where I think the federal government responsibility extends. I know that various states have various agreements concerning various types of insurance. And I think that's the best way to do it. I'm a federalist, which means the states are the ones who make those decisions."
One day after Florida regulators ordered Allstate Corp. to stop selling all lines of new insurance in the state, the 1st District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee granted Allstate's emergency motion and lifted the ban.
Allstate argued in its motion that regulators did not give prior notice before issuing the ban, and that regulators can only use their power to shut a company down in the event of an emergency, which Allstate said does not exist.
A spokesman for insurance commissioner Kevin McCarty said regulators will ask that the order be reinstated, and will look into other penalties, including fines.
Regulators want Allstate to turn over hundreds of documents and explain why the company has not complied with state law and lowered its rates.
-- Tom Zucco, Times staff writer
Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty decided Thursday to throw the entire book at Allstate.
A day after telling Allstate to stop writing new auto insurance policies in Florida, McCarty, Florida's insurance commissioner, expanded his order to include all lines of insurance. As of noon Thursday, Allstate could no longer sell any new insurance of any kind in Florida, including auto, homeowners, medical malpractice, workers compensation, aircraft, and credit life and disability. Read more here.
UPDATE!! Allstate strikes back. They've filed an injunction in the First DCA to prevent OIR from suspending their licenses. See it here.
Gov. Charlie Crist said he supports the Commissioner Kevin McCarty's move, calling it "bold and bright and exactly the right thing to do."
Crist said that customers should "fire Allstate. They're not doing any great service, in my view, to the citizens and consumers of the state of Florida. I don't know why you'd want to keep them. They're charging incredibly rates. They're withholding documents. They seem to be handling themselves in a way that's beyond inappropriate. "
When asked what would he say to Allstate insurance agents who are going to lose potential new auto policy customers, now that Allstate can't write new auto policies, Crist said: "Too bad they work for such a bad company."
Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty gripped the lectern and leaned into the bank of microphones.
"We're going to hit them where it hurts," he said.
In a move unprecedented in Florida regulatory history, McCarty on Wednesday issued an order banning Allstate Insurance Corp. from writing new auto insurance policies in the state until the company complies with subpoenas sent by state regulators in October. Read more here.
SBA trustees could have had access to the internal SBA audit that first flagged troubles in the fixed income group months sooner than they actually did. Most SBA trustees, that's Gov. Charlie Crist, CFO Alex Sink and Attorney General Bill McCollum, have complained they learned of a March 2007 SBA internal audit red-flagging the fixed income group's risky behavior only a few weeks ago.
But all trustees have one appointee to the SBA audit committee, which considered the controversial audit at their August meeting as the subprime mortgage crisis unfolded. The audit's processing delays were so glaring in August, that the CFO’s appointee to that committee, Doug Darling, asked auditor Flerida Rivera-Alsing whether SBA management was dragging its feet. He took her to task for not being tougher on management in getting responses. He told her that her role wasn’t to “negotiate with management” or “make management feel good or look good.”
Darling also made the following foretelling statements, according to an audio transcript of the hearing:
“If management is not being responsive, I’ll tell you right now, my trustee wants to know that,” he said. “I can pretty well guarantee you that if we continue to get non-responsive replies there’s going to be new management," he added a bit later.
Florida Senate Select Committee on Property Insurance Accountability has invited five executives to testify during their Feb. 4th and 5th hearings. They include Hartford Insurance CFO Michael Dury, American Strategic Insurance Corp. CEO John Auer, Nationwide CEO William G. Jurgensen, Florida Farm Bureau CFO Michael Hill, and Allstate CEO Joseph Richardson.
It'll be interesting to see how executives accept the invitation and how many will need to be subpoenaed.
Strikingly missing? "Mr. Farm," in the words of Sen. Steve Geller. State Farm folks have been working hard to remind the Senate that they had struck a deal last year with OIR, brokered by the governor's office, to end most of their troubles (which resulted in getting their OIR hearings canceled).
Another local government investment fund has collapsed, but in this case no cities lost money because of a bailout from the Florida League of Cities. The fund involved about $187-million in funds owned by more than a dozen small Florida cities, including New Port Richey, that were invested in the Columbia Strategic Cash Portfolio, commonly known as Strat-Cash. Read Florida Trend's exclusive story here.
George LeMieux, Gov. Charlie Crist's ex-chief of staff, has a new task as Crist's liaison to the Council of 100, a 
nonpartisan group of high-powered business leaders. In a letter written a few days before he left to rejoin his old law firm, LeMieux notified council members that Crist wants him to work with the council to find ways of helping business in 2008.
"I am available to speak with you by phone or visit in person if you have ideas that you would like to share," LeMieux wrote in the Dec. 27 letter, which is here. The council's chairman is Tom James, chairman and CEO of Raymond James Financial.
In ordinary times, no one pays much attention to the State Board of Administration's audit committee. But in the aftermath of a $14-billion raid on a local government investment pool, the three-member committee on Wednesday embarked on its own investigation of what went wrong.
"Who knew what when?" Asked Melinda Miguel, Gov. Charlie Crist's inspector general and chair of the audit committee.
The panel is being prodded into action by Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, who has cited inadequate transparency and a sudden loss in investor confidence after a chunk of the fund's portfolio was downgraded to distressed-asset status in July.
The audit committee members are (from left in photo) Kimberly Ferrell, chief auditor in the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit under Attorney General Bill McCollum; Miguel, the panel's chairwoman; and Doug Darling, director of Sink's accounting and auditing division.
Darling urged the SBA's audit staff to look for emails that would determine whether securities brokers were "advising or pressuring or suggesting" that the state make risky investments.
-- Steve Bousquet
Florida prison boss Jim McDonough wants to get into the ring sooner rather than later with PRIDE, the private firm that he says does a poor job of finding jobs for inmates. The corrections secretary thought he had Dec. 13 nailed down for a hearing before Tampa Sen. Victor Crist's Senate committee -- but that was before PRIDE lobbyist Guy Spearman went to work.
After seeing a St. Petersburg Times story about the hearing, Spearman told Crist of planned rotator cuff surgery and of PRIDE counsel Wilbur Brewton's planned holiday trip to Thailand to see his daughter (read Spearman's letter here). "Victor this is NOT a delay tactic," Spearman wrote. "This is a scheduling conflict for the two people that have the most personal knowledge and the longest time with PRIDE."
Crist said the fair way was to wait until January, and that he would have done the same if the state asked. "I trust Chairman Crist's judgment on this matter," McDonough said. "It does seem odd, however, to request a postponement because two lobbyists are out of town. I'm prepared to speak for myself. I would expect PRIDE can do the same."
Florida and Google Inc. announced a partnership Monday that both say will make it easier for citizens to get access to public records through search engines. Gov. Charlie Crist said the Web site improvements will not cost the state any money, while a Google official, John Burchett, said he hoped his firm would receive increased traffic as a result.
Many records that are public are beyond the reach of Google's "crawlers," the automated seekers of online data that slam into firewalls into Florida for all kinds of reasons. Examples of records that will now be searchable include public school FCAT scores, water and waste permits, employment data and consumers' commuting patterns.
The Google deal follows Crist's creation of an Office of Open Government; a study commission on how government can become more accessible to citizens; and an executive order requiring state agencies' basic documents to be in plain language.
Gov. Charlie Crist passed up a chance Monday to endorse Coleman Stipanovich, the state's investment-fund overseer at the center of a controversy over a recent run on a local government investment pool that has forced the state to suspend fund withdrawals.
Asked how high is his confidence in Stipanovich's ability, Crist said: "How high? It's hard to say. I think he works hard. He works hard." Asked if Stipanovich's job were in jeopardy, Crist said: "I wouldn't say that."
Continue reading "Crist weighs in on Stipanovich, fund mess" »
Things are getting testier between Florida's prison boss, Jim McDonough, and the folks at PRIDE, the St. Petersburg-based non-profit agency that runs inmate work programs in prisons across the state. In the latest skirmish, McDonough insists PRIDE banked $1.3-million since 2004 that rightfully belongs to the taxpayers. Read the full story here.
A panel of leaders studying Florida's tax system took two small but significant steps Friday. The group agreed to file bills for more detailed debate and study that would (a) require a systematic review of sales tax exemptions and (b) include Florida among states that have joined forces to support the taxation of goods sold over the Internet at the same rate as similar products sold in stores.
Both decisions were made by the Taxation & Budget Reform Commission's Finance & Taxation Committee, chaired by Gulf Power CEO Susan Story. (Discussing the issues, L-R, are Randy Miller of the Florida Retail Federation and Brian Yablonski of The St. Joe Co.) The larger 25-member commission can recommend changes in law to the Legislature or place proposed constitutional amendments on the 2008 ballot.
Forcing consumers to pay sales tax on purchases made from online stores clearly had stronger support than scrutinizing or eliminating sales tax exemptions.
Randy Miller of the Florida Retail Federation and telecommunications consultant Julia Johnson argued forcefully that the time is long overdue for Florida to tax Internet sales. They estimated that the revenue loss to the state in 2008 will be $2.35-billion, and that allowing online merchants to avoid collecting sales tax puts shopping-mall retailers at a competitive disadvantage.
As a former lawmaker who was termed out in 2006, ex-Rep. Ron Greenstein is barred from lobbying the House for two years. So why is he listed as one of 14 contract lobbyists employed by the Florida Retail Federation on the powerhouse group's website?
That's a mistake, says John Rogers, the retail lobby's general counsel. Greenstein was hired to advise the federation on Democratic House primary races in the 2008 cycle, not to lobby his former colleagues.
"That's coming down," Greenstein said when told of his listing on the site. "I'm just a consultant to them." Greenstein represented a Northwest Broward district for eight years and also is a part-time House employee through May 2008, working with the Democratic caucus. (Frank Terrafirma advises the group on GOP races).
UPDATE: The retail federation updated its website Nov. 8, removing Greenstein from its list of contract lobbyists.
The U.S. Department of Education inspector general says he will review actions by school districts in Florida and two other states that have bought educational equipment from a company owned by Neil Bush, the brother of the president and former Gov. Jeb Bush, The New York Times reports.
As the governor goes around today touting the property tax package the Legislature passed yesterday that promises to save homeowners in property taxes, insurance regulators just broke the bad news that homeowners are going to have to pay up a bit more for the bad hurricane season of 2004-2005, which resulted in Poe insurance companies going belly up.
The Office of Insurance Regulation just announced that they signed off on another one-time insurance assessment of 2 percent on about all liability premium, which was requested by the Florida Insurance Guarantee Association to pay off outstanding debt from Poe's insolvency. The fee impacts just about anyone who has an insurance liability policy, ranging from homeowners and auto to medical malpractice and aircraft, OIR said. Read the letter.
The Florida Chamber of Commerce at its annual meeting in Sandestin has installed its new president: Susan Story, CEO and president of Gulf Power in Pensacola. She replaces former Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings as chamber president for the coming year.
Story will steer the Chamber agenda at a time when she also holds a key position as a member of the Florida Taxation and Budget Reform Commission, which has the power to put tax reform proposals directly before voters in the 2008 general election. Story is chair of the TBRC's Finance and Taxation Committee, the group most closely involved in reviewing the state's tax base. The Chamber has long opposed repealing sales tax exemptions.
Israeli police officers wait outside a store while Gov. Charlie Crist shops. [Steve Bousquet | Times]
The list of passengers traveling with Gov. Charlie Crist on a trade mission to Brazil and Chile in less than two weeks numbers 177, more than four times the size of the group that joined Crist to Israel and Jordan in May. The Enterprise Florida-led trip to Sao Paulo (Nov. 3-8) includes meetings with business and political leaders and a tour of Embraer, the aircraft manufacturer.
The travel roster is heavy with South Florida business leaders, port directors from around Florida and a much bigger traveling press. Media types include WFLA anchor-reporter Keith Cate, Florida Trend publisher Lynda Keever, David Adams of the St. Petersburg Times, reporter Doreen Hemlock and photographer-videographer Carey Wagner from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Jennifer Klarman-Santiago, the Miami TV reporter who attended a Yom Kippur service with Crist last month. (She is listed as representing HDNews, a high definition news channel).
A political committee controlled by two Republican legislators from Manatee County continues to rake in big-dollar contributions from interesting sources. Citizens for Housing and Urban Growth, run by Sen. Mike Bennett and Rep. Ron Reagan, just logged in a $50,000 check from a Largo company, Angelo's Aggregate Materials. The firm's plan to expand a landfill near Dade City -- which requires approval by the state Department of Environmental Protection -- has stirred environmental concerns as far away as Tampa.
Bennett and Reagan are among about two dozen Florida lawmakers who control fund-raising groups known as CCEs, committees of continuous existence. The committees appeal to lawmakers because they are not subject to the $500 contribution limits that apply to a legislator's own election campaign. CHUG has to date taken in more than $700,000. Under Senate rules, Bennett must maintain a committee website and to promptly post contributions (the House has no similar rule). The committee's biggest recent expenditure is $14,000 to Bill Helmich's Tallahassee consulting firm.
Voters who have signed no-growth Florida Hometown Democracy petitions are getting letters from a group using the new petition revocation law to prevent Hometown from reaching the 2008 ballot. It's a first-of-its-kind test of whether a revocation effort can be effective. More here.
In a decision that is likely to jolt Florida's political world, the state Division of Elections has ruled that political committees are prohibited by law from paying for issue-oriented polls. Candidate polls? Those are legal, the state says, but issue-oriented polls are not. For decades, interest group political committees all along the political spectrum have been doing issue polling.
The legal opinion, issued last week, was authored by Gary Holland, an attorney in the elections division. It was issued in response to a request by Jon Kislak of Florida Red and Blue Inc., the group opposing efforts to put a ban on same-sex marriages into the state Constitution. The effect of this opinion is that groups keenly interested in, say, the Jan. 29 property tax referendum are barred by law from sampling public opinion on the issue. Read the opinion here.
How do you publish a correction on an office building?
Owners of the Florida Press Center in Tallahassee, where most of the capital press is located (including The Buzz), recently repainted the place and had a new sign installed next to the front door. One minor problem: The sign says "336 W. College Ave," and the building is at 336 East College Avenue.
"It will be corrected," said Dean Ridings of the Florida Press Association, owners of the three-story building (he said he thought a mock-up of the sign by the contractor was just that -- a mock-up). The mail carrier making his rounds Monday asked whether the papers still wanted their mail sent to the, uh, new address.
Former Public Service Commission member Rudy Bradley of St. Petersburg was fined $5,000 Friday for his role in a notorious case in which he was fed a memo written by Verizon as part of a rate hearing, read from it to argue the utility's position, and kept it secret.
A unanimous Commission on Ethics punished Bradley for violating a law that bars private communication between PSC members and utilities they regulate on the merits of a pending case. Any contact must be disclosed within 15 days. The largest fine the panel can levy is $10,000. Full story in comments.
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