The Fine Print

Mendelsohn case could reverberate throughout Tallahassee

The arrest of prominent opthalmologist Alan Mendelsohn could have reverberations throughout Tallahassee because of his connections to both Democratic and Republican politicians.

Much of the initial focus has been on his connections to Gov. Charlie Crist, but Mendelsohn's reach doesn't just end there.

For example, consider the list of lobbyists employed by Mutual Benefits - the company at the center of the probe that triggered Mendelsohn's arrest - at the time period cited in news accounts.

In 2004, the roster of lobbyists include Pete Antonacci, James Blosser, former Republican Party of Florida chairman Van Poole and Russ Klenet, the husband to Broward Mayor Stacy Ritter. Antonacci is a well-known attorney and former deputy Attorney General who represented Noelle Bush during his legal troubles. Blosser is a well-known Fort Lauderdale attorney and a one-time pioneer for President George Bush.

Reporter and blogger Bob Norman has written extensively about the Mutual Benefits case for several months now and has raised questions about Crist's actions as Attorney General. The feds, however, have told the Miami Herald that an investigation has cleared both Crist and current U.S. Sen. George LeMieux.

Mendelsohn was deeply involved in a notable 2001 fight over legislation that would have barred the use of optometrists in post-operative care. That bill was sponsored in the Florida House by then Rep. Mike Haridopolos as well as Rep. Jeff Atwater and Rep. Marco Rubio. In the Senate it was sponsored by Sen. Dan Webster and cosponsored by Sens. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Bill Posey (who are both now in Congress.)

Part of Mendelsohn's supposed pull was his ability to raise large amounts of money for politicians, as noted here when he helped raise money for State Sen. Eleanor Sobel last year in her primary fight with two other Broward County Democrats.

Mendelsohn has pleaded not guilty to charges, but this ongoing case could prove problematic for a lot of people.

The Lizard King remains in limbo

Probably no surprise here, but there's another meeting this morning of the Board of Executive Clemency and no, Mr. Morrison is nowhere to be found.

Back in June, Gov. Charlie Crist said he would give some "thought" to a pardon of Jim Morrison, a native of Florida who also attended Florida State University.

Fans of the singer - who died nearly 30 years ago - want the state to pardon him on indecent exposure charges that Morrison was convicted on following a concert at a Coral Gables auditorium.

Including today's meeting of the Clemency Board, there are likely six remaining times that Crist will have a chance to act on the request for Morrison's pardon.

But the thought remains that it would likely take a vote of the Board - including a yes vote by Crist - to even take up Morrison's case, which would then probably require an investigation. The reason the case of a dead man remains such a big deal for the Doors fan is that Florida doesn't wipe out someone's conviction if the person dies. Morrison's conviction was on appeal at the time he died.

By the way, go here if you would like to get a glimpse of a young Jim Morrison in a promotional film for Florida State University that was placed recently into the official state archives. It shows him getting a rejection letter from FSU as university officials warn that maybe they don't have the resources to let everyone attend the college. (The more things change, more things stay the same.)

Crist has created shadow panels to vet judges

Gov. Charlie Crist, whose push to put his stamp on Florida’s courts resulted in a scolding from the state’s highest court this summer, has quietly created shadow panels to help him vet those seeking judicial appointments across the state.

The Republican governor — an attorney himself — has turned to state legislators, a former president of the American Bar Association, a retired Florida Supreme Court justice and an NAACP attorney, among others, to interview potential judges already screened by one of the state’s official judicial nominating commissions.

But former House Speaker Marco Rubio, a Miami Republican challenging Crist in next year’s U.S. Senate primary, questioned why Crist was “circumventing” the nominating commissions “outside of the public light” with the shadow panels.

Rubio said it appeared Crist was inviting people to interview judges to win political support in the future.

“It appears the decision is being made to appease certain demographic groups, certain parts of the electorate,’’ Rubio said.

You can read the whole story here at the Daily Business Review, which is available free with registration.

Rubio talks about Sansom, party credit cards, and the looming fight with Crist

                              

Former House Speaker Marco Rubio - who is campaigning today in Central Florida - weighed in on several topics during a lengthy phone interview this morning.

Rubio, who has been getting a surge of publicity lately in his bid against Gov. Charlie Crist for the U.S. Senate, answered questions about Ray Sansom, party credit cards, and his expectation that Crist will soon ramp up negative attacks on him.

Rubio, who had a Republican Party of Florida credit card during his term as speaker and during the campaign period before he became Speaker in Nov. 2006, said that he supports showing credit card statements provided that everyone's records are shown at the same time. There have been calls by editorial boards and the Democrats for the RPOF to disclose credit card statements in the wake of disclosures that Sansom rang up more than $180,000 on his party card.

"If the party releases everyone's records, I have no problem with that,'' said Rubio.

Rubio said the procedure in place when he had a party card required him to go over the statement once a month and to personally pay any expenses that were not connected to his political work. Rubio said the American Express card he had would reflect negatively on his own personal credit rating if the bills were not timely paid. He said there were times that he didn't have the card and instead it was used by his travel agent.

Rubio said nearly all of his travel expenses as speaker were placed on the card because he did not want accusations that he was getting taxpayers to pay for events where he may have been talking about property tax reform or other legislative issues he was pushing.

Regarding Sansom's indictment, Rubio said that while there remains a "presumption of innocence" for the former Speaker that the indictment makes it clear that the $6 million of the appropriation for the Destin Airport was directed "solely" by then House budget chairman Sansom.

Rubio said that Crist probably knew more about the appropriation for the Destin Airport than he did as speaker because he was allowed to request information about all items in the budget.

"You could argue the governor knew more about this than I did,'' said Rubio. "He knew more about it than anyone from the Legislature because he had the power to veto it.''

Regarding his rival, Rubio said he is "absolutely" convinced that Crist will go negative against him at some point although he said that most of those focusing on the campaign right now are "insiders."

"The minute he goes negative he's going to have debate me,'' said Rubio. "There are differences in our record, in our beliefs, and our public statements."

Rubio says he already knows where some potential attacks will come from, including his support of raising the state's sales tax in exchange for getting rid of some of the property taxes charged to residents. Citing Crist's support of a cigarette tax hike, he said that "I'm the only guy in the race who didn't raise taxes."

When asked about the Legislature's use of increasing property values to increase funding for education during his eight years in office, Rubio argued that this was not the same thing because he didn't raise the underlying tax rate. "That wasn't that we said, let's go out and raise property taxes,'' said Rubio.

But wasn't that the same defense used by local governments during the contentious property tax debate under Rubio's watch? Weren't they doing the same thing, just using the extra money generated by the run-up in values instead of raising the actual millage rate? Rubio responded by saying he couldn't do anything about it until he took over as speaker.

"That's what we tried to stop,'' Rubio said.

What you need to know about Florida's financial future

A relatively-obscure arm of the Florida Legislature will give its final blessing to a 3-year long range financial outlook on Tuesday. This document is much better at analyzing the state's financial future because it does more than rely on estimates of how much sales tax money will come in during the coming year. Instead it attempts to put a pricetag on all the expected future costs while also trying to predict how much money the state will receive.

The Legislative Budget Commission heard a presentation about this outlook earlier this month, but today this panel of legislators must adopt the actual findings.

Here's the most important details to remember:

* Depending on what lawmakers decide to keep funding, the budget shortfall runs anywhere from $4.3 billion to $13.3 billion over the next three years. Translation: This could increase the pressure to adopt a gaming compact as well as keep intact recently-enacted fee hikes such as those for driver licenses and tags. It also means lawmakers could be in another rough session in 2010 because election year politics will collide with financial reality. And the problem gets even worse in 2011 when the federal stimulus money runs out.

* Part of the shortfall is caused by needs in education. An estimated $1.4 billion is needed to maintain per-student funding levels. This number DOES NOT include any funding in the 2010-11 year for class size reduction. Additionally, lottery revenue is not growing fast enough to keep up with continued demands caused by programs such as the Bright Futures scholarship program that picks up college tuition costs for students who did well in high school. Bright Future expenses are expected to rise 14 percent alone in 2010-11. The increased cost is pegged primarily to higher tuition rates over the next three years.

* Roughly $3 billion will be needed in Medicaid. Part of this need is driven by the fact that federal stimulus dollars that bulked up Medicaid will cease by the end of 2010. Additionally, the shortfall reflects the presumption that state lawmakers will continue the Medically Needy and a medicine program for the aged and disabled past 2010. Both programs under current law are due to expire at the end of next year.

* More than $1 billion will be needed over the next three years for the state's prison system.

* About $326 million will be owed to the federal government to cover interest payments for unemployment insurance costs. The state's unemployment fund required a federal loan this year. While there is no interest on the loan today, the U.S. government will start charging interest in 2011.

* More than $1 billion will be needed for state employee pay and benefits package if state lawmakers want to keep the Florida Retirement System actuarially sound. The projections show that $372 million will be needed during the 2010-11 budget year just for the pension plan. The increased cost also assumes a pay hike for state workers that mirrors inflation. Costs associated with health insurance are based on the premise that BOTH the state and employees will pay higher premiums - and that the nearly 30,000 state workers (and legislators) will continue to receive their health insurance for free.

* Despite the fact that the state requires a "balanced budget" every year, the amount of debt continues to mount. In the last 10 years alone, the state's debt has gone from $15.4 billion to $24.3 billion. It is expected to reach nearly $29 billion by 2014. The annual payments on that debt are nearly $2 billion a year.

 

In the wake of Sansom, will lawmakers agree to tighten ethics laws?

Coming on the heels of the scandal involving Rep. Ray Sansom, there's one group that says it's time to toughen up Florida's ethics laws. Here's a story that I did on Friday for The News Service of Florida.

Responding to criticism that Florida's ethics laws are too weak, the state panel charged with enforcing those laws wants Florida legislators to make sweeping changes in the coming year.

Among the changes: A requirement that the governor and other top state officials place their investments in a blind trust as well as a tough new standard intended to crack down on politicians who avoid ethics charges for technical reasons.

Several members of the Florida Commission on Ethics said they were annoyed at the public perception that the commission is ineffective.

"Just because we don't hang everybody doesn't mean we're not effective,'' said Albert Massey, a Fort Lauderdale attorney and commission member.

Commissioners spent more than an hour on Friday debating what changes they want the Florida Legislature to take up during its 2010 session. Part of the debate centered over whether or not lawmakers would be willing to accept some of the proposals, but one member argued that they should not worry about whether something will eventually pass.

"It's the right thing to do,'' said Frank Kruppenbacher, an Orlando attorney. "The people in the state look to us to say 'here's what ought to happen.''

The commission has come up with roughly 17 pages of recommendations, many of which are minor, but also are aimed at issues that have repeatedly come before the commission. Some of the suggested changes include tweaking Florida's gift ban law so it applies the same way to executive branch lobbyists as lobbyists who appear before the Legislature, as well as tightening the state's anti-nepotism and voting conflict laws.

One key recommendation is one the ethics commission has pushed for several years: A requirement that the governor, the lieutenant governor and members of the Cabinet place their investments in a blind trust.

This change would shield elected officials from allegations of wrongdoing but would also limit how much information they could receive about the trust during their time in office. The push for this recommendation stems from ethics charges leveled back in 2006 against former Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher, who invested in companies that were doing business with the state. Former Gov. Jeb Bush and current Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink placed their investments in a blind trust upon taking office.

Under the proposal approved on Friday, the trust could not be controlled by another elected official or a relative. The trustee could also not disclose information to the elected official about the sources of income or holdings in the trust. And while the trust would have to be reported on financial disclosure forms, the elected official would not be required to disclose the sources of income included in the trust.

The ethics commission also agreed to ask for a new state law that would regulate the "appearance of impropriety" by requiring politicians to make sure that they act in the public interest and not appear to do favors or act under the influence of someone else.

Commission chairman Cheryl Forchilli said she thought that idea was "way too vague" and would be hard to apply in individual cases. But other commissioners said that it was time to apply all elected officials to the same type of standards that judges must already follow.

Kruppenbacher said that the ethics commission is repeatedly forced to clear people because of a strict reading of the law.

"You talk about the public thinking we don't do anything and having a perception problem with the commission,'' said Kruppenbacher. " It's because we keep getting neutered with the language. We are saying to the Legislature, 'Give us the power…to inherently use our judgment to know when somebody in elected or appointed office has acted contrary.'''

Crist's plan to help boost state's economy is stalled

Eight months after vowing to spend $10 million in state money to "plant the seeds" to create new jobs, an economic stimulus program initiated by Gov. Charlie Crist has yet to hand out a dime.

Crist urged state lawmakers in January to set what he called a "modest investment" for his economic gardening program. The request came at the same time lawmakers made nearly $1.5 billion in cuts from the state budget.

The delay in starting the stimulus program is disappointing legislators who voted for it and proof to critics that it was not needed.

"We did that in special session because one, it was a priority of the governor, and two, we hoped it would help small businesses that were successful grow," said Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey and the sponsor of the legislation that created the program. "It's disappointing that a good program to create jobs hasn't even begun yet."

Sen. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, who voted against the program during the January special session, said he always thought the program was "like throwing money up in the air."

More on Crist's stalled economic gardening program here.

Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville and chairman of a special committee to look at Florida's economy, said the inability to get the program up and running quickly is more evidence that the state needs to retool its economic development efforts.

While the controversial growth management bill was one effort to spur economic activity, Gaetz said that more is needed.

"Florida has to become more competitive,'' Gaetz said last week. "We can't wait at the welcome station with a glass of orange juice and a real estate map and expect that to be Florida's economic policy. Those days are long, long gone."

Catch me if you can: The 527 version

Here's one political tale that features an international flight attendant, at least one of Florida's master political architects, and of course, racially-tinged attacks on candidates come election time.

No, this has nothing to do with the onslaught of unregulated mailers and ads targeted at State Senate District 8 voters but it does prove that even under the old laws it's hard to figure out who's really pulling the strings sometimes.

Last month the Florida Elections Commission was forced to drop a case against a shadowy 527 group known as People for Fairness and Equality. The reasoning for ending the case - which revolved around the group's failure to register its office location and its registered agent - was that Judge Stephan Mickle had earlier this year struck down the Florida law governing electioneering communication organizations (ECO's or 527's for the section of federal tax laws that govern them).

People for Fairness and Equality was a major player in the 2004 elections, going after then-Rep. Susan Bucher and Ron Saunders in a nasty state Senate primary. The direct mail pieces against Saunders - who was running against Larcenia Bullard - portrayed Saunders as someone trying to "turn back the clock" because he was a white man taking on a black woman. One mailer even had pictures from the infamous scenes from Birmingham showing police hosing down civil rights protesters. Some of the mailers said "Don't Take Away Our Voice." Saunders, who will lead House Democrats in 2010, lost to Bullard.

Trying to find out who backed this group - even under the old state law - isn't easy. While the group received money from U.S. Sugar and Florida Crystals, over a two-year period it also got more than $400,000 from Americans for Free Speech, a group not registered with the state of Florida. Instead Internal Revenue Service records show that Americans for Free Speech is a Washington D.C. outfit that was set up back in 2004 with help from Randy Nielsen and Tallahassee attorney John French. And if you trace that's group money you have to plow through records through several other Florida and Washington based groups. The fact that the group got money from U.S. Sugar also means that it wouldn't be surprising if other political operatives were also involved but there's no official record of that.

People for Fairness and Equality wound up in 2005 paying a fine of $1,000 for not putting some proper disclaimers on ads it ran in the 2004 race against Saunders. But when it came time for the Elections Commission to investigate the group again in 2006 they ran into a brick wall. French, who had been the attorney for the group, was no longer around to help. He said that he couldn't find his client to tell him what to do so he withdrew from representing the organization.

"If I can't get guidance, I can't represent them,'' said French.

Why was this? Because the chairman for People for Fairness and Equality is Bridget Billinge from Port St. Lucie and apparently she's a hard woman to find. Her mother told investigators for the Elections Commission that Billinge is an "international flight attendant who is seldom home." Her mother went on to tell investigators that Billinge got involved with the committee following the Sept. 11 attack because she had been laid off by the airlines, but now that she had been recalled and was no longer involved with the group. Because Billinge could not be located, an administrative judge halted the elections commission action against the group in 2008, leading ultimately to the decision in August to drop the case all together.

Report warns that DCF problems - and big dollar lawsuits - could persist

Earlier this summer the Department of Children and Families agreed to pay two abused foster children nearly $4 million. Since the payment was for a federal lawsuit, the payment is not subject to the state's sovereign immunity laws or a claims bill in the Legislature.

This settlement was the latest resolved by DCF under the leadership of first Bob Butterworth and now George Sheldon since early 2007. It reflects the position that it is wrong for the state to drag out litigation in cases where children were harmed due in part or whole to the state's negligence.

But while both Butterworth and Sheldon have tried to change the culture at the state's child welfare agency a report issued by two DCF employees - one of whom has since left the agency - warns that litigation could continue to plague the state.

The 24-page report - entitled "Risky Business: How Common Sense and Uncommon Talent Can Reduce Lawsuits and Save the Lives of Children" - concludes the agency gets bogged down by its own rules and does not have enough competent people who constantly question what's going on. It also says the agency only respond to problems when they produce headlines and glaring media coverage and that not enough employees question what's going on.

While this analysis by Neil Skene and Florence Snyder is largely anecdotal, it contains several examples including:

--A DCF employee was fired for bringing sweets to her elderly father at a nursing home because it was deemed she was abusing her father. When it got up to the secretary level, a decision was made to settle the case and to offer to rehire the employee.

--DCF sued a caregiver over $1,441 in caregiver funds which accidentally went to the grandmother instead of the uncle of a child who shared responsibility. The grandmother actually reported the mistake and was told by a caseworker to cash the check. Once a top official learned of the lawsuit, it was withdrawn.

--It appears that no one in DCF was paying attention to internal reports regarding the use of psychotropic drugs and that Sheldon himself had to learn from a newspaper reporter that one office in DCF had raised questions about the policy the department was following. 

The report concludes that improvements have been made at DCF but that more needs to be done to transform the agency.

"We cannot expect perfection from any organization, much less from one that deals with problems that entail so much judgment,'' write Skene and Snyder who also add: "The Department CAN 'keep it going' and achieve much more than it has, but only if it more extensively turns its reactive, case-by-case, determined problem solving into a permanent rethinking of the organization and management structure itself."

Here's the report: Download Skene and Snyder_Final Thoughts