The Fine Print

Did harsh campaign for governor turn off voters? Report says maybe.

The highly charged and negative campaign for governor might have turned off a higher number of voters this past year.

Or so suggests a new state report drawn up by the Florida Division of Elections.

The report - which is sent to the Florida Legislature after every major election - shows that the number of voters who did not cast a "valid" vote in November nearly doubled from four years ago, surging from .97 percent in 2006 to 1.83 percent overall. This number includes people who wrote down the wrong name on the ballot, left the ballot blank, or cast a vote for more than one candidate.

The biggest reason for the jump was because voters skipped the race between Rick Scott and Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink and left the ballot blank.

You can read more about it here at the Florida Tribune.

Here's a copy of the report: Download Overvote Undervote report

Rivera and others used leftover campaign cash on computers, cigars and meals

This past weekend the Miami Herald reported that an ongoing investigation into U.S. Rep. David Rivera was focusing on how he spent leftover campaign funds. The Herald story focused primarily on money spent by Rivera for his state Senate campaign. (In the end, Rivera dropped out of that race and ran for Congress.)

This isn't the first time that Rivera - and other lawmakers - have been asked about how they use leftover campaign cash.

Here's a first draft of a story from 2009 that I worked on for a news organization. (The reasons that the story never ran included that too much time had passed because the story focused on 2008, that the story neeeded to be more comprehensive, etc.)

But the story did include include comments from Rivera at the time.

Florida state lawmakers have used leftover campaign money on everything from new computers, cigars and meals months and weeks after they were re-elected, a review of 2008 campaign records show.

State law requires legislators running for office to shut down their campaign accounts 90 days after an election. That law also spells out how any leftover money can be used, including letting legislators give it to charity or back to donors or use it to thank voters.

But a review showed that dozens of questionable uses by legislators, with money spent on meals, gas, cigars, and trips to places such as Best Buy and Office Depot.  

Sen. Larcenia Bullard, D-Miami, spent more than $100 at an Ethopian restaurant in Miami nearly two months after she was re-elected without opposition in June 2008. Her campaign records also show she used campaign money to pay for a meeting at the New York City hotel that features a restaurant run by famed television chef Gordon Ramsay.

Bullard, who was re-elected without opposition in June 2008, denied knowing anything about the expenses when asked.

“I have no knowledge of it at all,’’ said Bullard, who said she wasn’t in New York City last summer.

Rep. Eddy Gonzalez, R- Hialeah, spent $486 for “campaign cigars” more than a month after Election Day. Rep. Ronald Brise, D-North Miami, spent money on gas and even a $2 parking charge after he was elected without opposition last June.

Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, spent $2,386 at Best Buy on Sept. 14 to replace a “stolen computer.”  The purchase came nearly three months after she was re-elected without opposition. She said her home was burglarized and the thief took off with the computer she used to do campaign reports.

Rep. Ron Saunders, D-Key West, spent money on gas at convenience stores and money on meals at restaurants in both Tallahassee and Key West in the days after his Republican opponent withdrew from the race. Rep. David Rivera, R-Miami, spent  $5,400 at Best Buy the day before the election on “information technology.” He then made two more trips to Best Buy and spent nearly $3,000 in December.

Rivera said he bought equipment, including computers and printers, to put together mailers to thank voters. He was allowed to keep the computers once he was done using it for campaign work.

“You also get to keep the paper clips you buy during  a campaign,’’ said Rivera. “I’m not the first candidate to buy a computer for a campaign.’’

 

 

 

 

 

Does Rick Scott has a stimulus problem?

Here's what Gov. Rick Scott said last summer when it comes to the federal stimulus:

"It's not free money,'' Scott told reporters during a campaign bus trip across North Florida.

Scott, who was then a candidate running against Attorney General Bill McCollum, also said at that time that he would not have balanced the state budget with any money from the controversial federal stimulus package.

"I would have figured out how to balance the budget without it," Scott said. "We have to live within our means, governments have to live within their means. There’s a day of reckoning."

Scott also said then that "stimulus spending didn't help us."

Let's flash forward to now. Scott last week signed a sweeping executive order that froze new rules - and suspended for up to 90 days any contract that is worth more than $1 million.

None of the contracts can go forward until the newly created Office of Fiscal Accountability and Regulatory Reform reviews them. Some of the contracts - including a $450 million sole source contract with Bank of America - have been approved. The Scott administration has also let loose nearly $90 million worth of road-building projects.

But some of the road projects - and just as importantly - some of the pending contracts were funded with federal stimulus dollars.

Example: Scott has held up nearly $117 million worth of contracts that would take stimulus money and give it local groups around the state in order to do weatherization grants for low-income families. This is stimulus money that is intended to be used to help people lower their utility bills while also helping create jobs. The contracts now held up would go to organizations stretching across the state from Miami-Dade County to Orange County to Northeast Florida to Bay County. This program came under a little bit of scrutiny as some wondered why stimulus money was going to help people lower air-conditioning bills instead of helping their homes withstand winter weather. But information provided to Scott's office contends that the weatherization grants have created or saved 800 jobs as of the final quarter of 2010.

When asked about Scott's past comments regarding the stimulus, Brian Burgess, a spokesman for the governor said in an e-mail that this does not mean that the governor would halt the pending contracts. He said that the governor "thought it was wrong to use federal stimulus dollars (i.e. one time cash grants) to balance the state budget."

UPDATE: The Scott administration on early Friday evening announced it had approved a whole long list of contracts, including the contracts for weatherization grants that were funded with federal stimulus dollars.

 

 

 

Federal judge won't let Gov. Scott off the hook

Put this down in the "whatever happened to?" department.

A federal judge has refused to end a lawsuit that then-candidate Rick Scott used to block a key part of Florida’s public campaign finance system.

Scott last summer won a preliminary injunction from a federal appeals court that said the state could not give GOP rival Bill McCollum a dollar-for-dollar match of taxpayer money if Scott spent more than $24.9 million on his campaign.

The ruling was a blow to McCollum’s campaign who could not compete with Scott’s financial edge. Scott won the primary and then went on to spend roughly $73 million to win the governor’s race.

After Scott won the primary, his lawyers and lawyers for the Department of State asked a Tallahassee federal judge for a permanent injunction against the matching money provision.

But U.S. Judge Robert Hinkle in December shot down the request and instead put a hold on the lawsuit while the U.S. Supreme Court decides campaign finance cases from other states.

Hinkle noted that then interim Secretary of State Dawn Roberts had changed her position to fit the viewpoint of Scott.

“There is every reason to believe her change of heart was prompted solely by a good faith analysis of the evolving law in this area,” wrote Hinkle, noting the appeals court injunction. “But it is also true Ms. Roberts’ new position accords with that of the plaintiff – her soon to be new boss. The circumstances raise an issue, at least, over whether the court should act at all, and whether, if the court is going to act, the state’s interest in defending the statute should have independent representation.”

Republicans wanted to end the state’s public finance system entirely, but the amendment that would have removed it from the Florida Constitution was defeated by voters. 

Taxpayers wound up spending more than $5.82 million on campaigns in 2010.That amount could have been higher but the combination of the ruling in the Scott case - as well as Alex Sink's decision to decline any public money kept down the overall total.

Scott promises "eight years" that won't be boring

Rick Scott, the Naples businessman who shocked the political establishment in 2010, appears ready to push ahead with plans to shake up all of state government.

In a lengthy interview given days before he will sworn in as governor Scott even joked: "You think the next eight years will be boring? You will have plenty to write about."

You can read about the entire interview here at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

During the interview, which was given in the same room in the Capitol that former Gov. Jeb Bush used as his office, Scott touched on a number of subjects. But he didn't provide a lot of details, insisting instead that he will unveil comprehensive proposals between now and Feb. 4 when he must submit his first budget recommendations to the Florida Legislature.

But here are some key highlights:

* Scott still plans to donate his salary to charity, sell off the state plane and put his assets in a blind trust. The governor-elect says he has not yet decided who will get his more than $130,000 a year salary but that hasn't stopped people from already asking him for the money.

* Scott will decide by next week whether to withdraw some of the appointments that Gov. Charlie Crist has made in the waning days and weeks of his administration. Scott can call back the names of anyone who has not yet confirmed by the Florida Senate. "We're keeping all of our options open on what we're going to do," he said.

* The governor-elect has still not made his mind on what changes he will push to the Florida Retirement System other than requiring employees to contribute part of the cost.

* Scott wants to push ahead with his ambitious plan to expand the use of school vouchers, but he is still not sure if he will first ask the Florida Legislature to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would help make such a program immune to legal challenges.

* Scott will not back down from his promise to cut property taxes - even as the state struggles with a $3.5 billion budget gap. He also seems confident that he can accomplish his agenda - and take on other big items as well.

"It's not daunting,'' Scott said at one point. "It's going to be fun. It's going to be exciting."

* Scott said he will weigh in during the month of January on who he thinks should be the next chairman of the Republican Party of Florida. Scott personally interviewed candidates for the job at the party quarterly meeting last month.

* Scott, who has never held public office before, said he tried to turned to those from the private sector for top jobs in his administration because "I want to have people who have accomplished things and know what they are doing."