The Fine Print

Pam Bondi, the reporter and the money

Some more inside the Tallahassee bubble news...

Remember the lawsuit that disgraced former House Speaker Ray Sansom filed against the state to recover more than $800,000 in legal fees?

Sansom, if you recall, was charged with manipulating the state budget process in order to obtain $6 million in state money to pay for a hangar at the Destin airport that was really intended to be used by a businessman and major Republican donor.

His trial in 2011 ended when State Attorney Willie Meggs dropped the charges after a judge refused to let a key witness testify.

Sansom filed a civil lawsuit asking for payment of his legal fees. He asserts that his legal fees should be paid by taxpayers because it was connected to his legal duties.

The state, however, has fought this request, saying that despite the charges being dropped that Sansom's action were still "tainted" because he was seeking to do something on behalf of private interests not the public.

Well the trial is coming up soon and the office of Attorney General Pam Bondi has subpoenaed Tampa Tribune reporter James Rosica to testify in the case.

Rosica covered the trial for The Associated Press at the time.

Why is Bondi's office seeking to compel a reporter to appear at the trial? That's not really clear.

A spokesman for the attorney general refused to comment citing the pending litigation.

The subpoena given to Rosica last Friday does instruct him to bring a copy of the March 25, 2011 article he did on the criminal case. That story does note that both Sansom and businessman Jay Odom had agreed to pay restitution to Northwest Florida State College for costs related to the hangar.

During a court hearing in 2013 it was pointed out that Odom wound up paying Sansom's share of the restitution. Sansom's lawyer argued that Sansom never really consented to the payment and that it should not have been viewed as an admission of guilt.

Speaking of the Sansom civil trial....

One interesting tidbit from the legal battle. According to one court filing, Sansom in a deposition has defended his actions as House budget chairman by comparing himself to....John Thrasher.

Sansom noted that while he was speaker Thrasher helped obtain funding for a Florida State University medical school.

For their part attorneys for Bondi's office don't agree with the comparison.

"The difference in the two situations is stark,'' states the filing from last fall. "Mr. Thrasher put an appropriation in for a medical school building, and a medical school building was built. Mr. Sansom placed into the appropriations bill an appropriation for the 'Okaloose Jt Use Emergency Response Workforce Center" for building a hanger at the Destin airport for his campaign contributor, Jay Odom. A finding that this act was within the public interest essentially condones political corruption."

Odom by the way also appears to be a key person for the upcoming trial.

He has been fighting attempts to get him to answer questions related to the entire Sansom incident and the payment he made to the college. The state has also wanted to delve into his friendship with Sansom as well as ask him questions about his businesses.

Filings show that Odom, who was sentenced in 2013 to six months in jail and ordered to pay fines in connection with money he donated to the presidential campaign of Mike Huckabee, has been citing his Fifth Amendment privilege in order to rebuff these questions from the state. His attorneys say the threat of continued prosecution _ including potential racketeering charges_remain real.

From one of the court filings:

"The scope of the federal investigation is broad.

The federal authorities have gone to extreme efforts to seize virtually all of Mr. Odom's business and personal records and interview, or compel testimony, from a vast number of his friends, family members, employees and associates. Search warrants have been served on him, his businesses and his properties. With those search warrants, the federal authorities seized over 18 boxes (and other containers) of documents, copied the hard drives of eleven computers, and seized financial records relating to virtually every receipt and expenditure by Mr. Odom, or his companies."

The court filing adds that federal investigators have not only focused on the appropriation but the relationship between Odom and Sansom as well as "campaign contributions made by Mr. Odom's businesses to political candidates and causes."

In November, Judge Angela Dempsey ruled that Odom does have a right to assert his Fifth Amendment privilege, but she did say he needed to order two questions related to his decision to pay the restitution on behalf of Sansom.

Gotcha questions and media bias? The Rick Scott press strategy

Until Charlie Crist and gay marriage changed the narrative late last week, Gov. Rick Scott was getting a buzz saw of negative publicity about the way he handles questions from the press.

As in Scott never directly answers them.

Scott's non-answers over his use of on-duty police at a campaign event was seized on first by television stations in the critical Tampa Bay media market and was mocked nationally by Anderson Cooper on CNN.

By week's end Scott was also getting hit by stations in voter-rich South Florida.

Any chance this will prompt Scott to change his strategy with the press and media?

In a word: No.

Let's set aside the fact that many politicians, including former Gov. Crist, avoid answering questions directly (with the possible exception of former Gov. Jeb Bush as correctly noted by Aaron Deslatte with the Orlando Sentinel.)

Instead let's remember how we got here.

Back in 2010 when Scott the "outsider" and a tea party favorite was on the trail the main campaign fear was a non-stop barrage of questions about Scott's record with Columbia/HCA. So he avoided editorial boards, was careful about his interactions with the press, and talked about jobs, jobs, jobs.

When he took office, that didn't change initially.

The Scott team tried to stay on message and to carry out an ambitious agenda of cutting taxes, spending and regulations. That created a lot of conflict with the press because the Scott folks didn't want to answer questions about issues that didn't have to do with Scott's theme of the day. (Which works during a campaign, but not when you are governor because lots of things happen in a big state that are out of your control.)

Then after Scott changed his first chief of staff he tried to communicate in a much less restrained fashion.

The problem was that as a person who did not have a lot of political street smarts prior to getting elected Scott and his team quickly realized that a handful of misstatements, gaffes, whatever would start to burn out of control (Anthropology majors, disappearing dogs, interactions with the King of Spain etc. etc.)

So with a third chief of staff and a new communications director Scott began sticking to the script again (for the most part). Scott only answers questions when it benefits his tactics and strategy.

Flash forward now to a tense, tight re-election campaign.

Reporters (and voters) may think it's important that Scott give a direct answer on same sex marriage and the court battles, or whether he is for or against the minimum wage.

That's not how Scott World sees it at all.

Instead there are people involved in the campaign who see these questions as a potential distraction that don't follow their script and narrative.

In other words, a question about the minimum wage is apparently viewed as a "gotcha question."

If Scott articulates reasons why he's opposed to it, then Democratic rival Crist, who is for it, will use the response to go after Scott on it. This takes attention away from the narrative that Scott has done things to improve the economy and has grown jobs.

Likewise a question about same-sex marriage (which is important to some folks in the GOP base) could equally cause the campaign to go off-message.

And the more that the media harps on Scott's decision to sidestep these questions then this may lead into accusations that the media is biased against the incumbent governor.

This theme has already started to trickle out a little.

Last Friday after The Miami Herald posted a story about Crist, Scott and climate change the governor's re-election campaign blasted out a statement saying that the Herald "decided not to include the entire statement." The "entire statement" included Scott taking shots at Crist over items such as Everglades restoration and springs restoration.

Most people who work with the press know full well that an entire lengthy statement is not likely to make a story, but the Scott campaign took the Herald to task nonetheless.

The question is whether or not this will be a prelude to a bigger pushback from the Scott campaign (or some of its alllies) contending that the media isn't doing a good enough job at going after Crist for his lack of policy papers, or exploring the Jim Greer and Scott Rothstein sagas. (Of course it's worth noting that whenever the Republican Party or Scott campaign wants to blast Crist for being a "lousy governor" they cite a long line of articles and editorials written when he was in office.)

Reporters won't stop asking questions about important issues affecting the state. And with three-and-a-half months to go until Election Day it's unlikely Gov. Scott will stop reciting the talking points from his script.

Could any of these bills get vetoed by Gov. Rick Scott?

Gov. Rick Scott on Wednesday will sign several bills that consist of the "jobs agenda" that he outlined last fall.

And that's when it will start to get interesting.

There have been few surprises so far since the 2012 session ended. Scott signed the "inspirational messages" bill and this latest batch of legislation includes an overhaul of the unemployment compensation system and tax breaks, including another small cut of the state's corporate income tax.

But in the next few weeks Scott will sort out the remaining bills from this year and figure out whether or not he plans to go along with many of the ideas that his GOP colleagues in the Legislature acted on.

Not counting his budget vetoes, Scott last year vetoed 10 bills sent to him by state lawmakers, which is actually on par, or even a little bit below other governors in recent years.

Gov. Charlie Crist - who was at war with lawmakers during his independent bid for U.S. Senate in 2010 - vetoed 17 bills his final year in office (several of which were later overridden) and 18 bills in 2007. Back in 2005 then Gov. Jeb Bush a.k.a. "Veto Corleone" nixed some 36 bills sent to him by the Legislature.

It was Bush who told Scott in an email before he became governor that it was okay to veto "stupid bills."

Here then are some bills to watch Scott on in the next few days and weeks:

HB 5301: Back when Scott was campaigning against Bill McCollum in the GOP primary in 2010 he actually came out against what he called mandates being imposed on local governments. Scott told a group of business leaders in Panama City that he did not support strict limits on spending and taxes for local governments, saying at the time "I believe that what Tallahassee should be doing is dealing with Tallahassee issues." 

But sitting on his desk is a budget conforming bill that contains a contentious provision that withholds money from counties in an effort to collect $325 million in contested past-due Medicaid billings. County governments have argued this is yet another mandate, an argument that should have some resonance with Scott.

This legislation, however, includes several other changes, including a limit on how many times Medicaid will pay for hospital emergency room visits for non-pregnant adults and a provision that would allow the children of state employees to be enrolled in the state's subsidized KidCare program. Scott must act on this bill this week but there are signs that he will let it become law because it is tied to the state budget. (UPDATE: Scott signed the bill, although in a letter the governor tried to assuage counties that the state would "work diligently" to make sure that all the billings are valid and accurate. Counties, meanwhile, sharply criticized the decision as a "body blow" to taxpayers.)

HB 7129: This is the tuition bill for the University of Florida and Florida State University. If it becomes law the legislation would allow these two research universities to raise tuition annually above the existing 15 percent cap that now exists in state law. The logic behind the bill - which was a top priority for House Speaker Dean Cannon - is to give UF and FSU the financial resources to make themselves more nationally competitive. But the bill also clashes with Scott's oft-repeated line that tuition should not go up this year and that universities ought to give him more examples of spending existing money wisely before hiking tuition. (UPDATE: Scott vetoed this legislation saying it would increase the debt burden of students.

SB 1994: The Florida Polytechnic University bill. This is the legislation pushed by Sen. J.D. Alexander that would officially divorce the Lakeland branch campus of the University of South Florida and turn into the state's 12th public university. Scott so far has refused to take a stance on the creation of a new school, but has expressed skepticism about it. The problem for Scott, however, is if vetoes the bill then he wipes out $16 million in funding, including $6 million for the USF College of Pharmacy and $10 million to allow current USF Polytechnic students to complete their degrees at USF. (UPDATE: In a bit of surprise, Scott signed this legislation into law.)

HB 7117: This is an energy bill that was championed by Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam. But the legislation - which includes $16 million in renewable energy tax credits - has come under fire by several different groups, including conservative organizations as well as the Florida Renewable Energy Producers Association. Scott during his first two years in office has continued to be skeptical about energy issues, although his main objection has centered around proposals that would raise utility bills in order to pay for renewable energy. (UPDATE: Scott signed this law although he expressed concerned about some of the provisions.)

HB 5011: State Information Technology. For most people outside of Tallahassee, this bill means little. But it's a big deal for the lobbyists and others who make a living off the millions spent by the state on technology. This bill blows up an existing state agency - the Agency for Enterprise Information Technology - and creates a new agency called the Agency for State Technology which reports to the governor and Cabinet. For those who aren't keeping count this would be the third reconfiguration of how the state handles technology issues in the last decade. The legislation also halts and repeals an already begun process to consolidate the state's email service. Rep. Denise Grimsley, the House budget chief, defended the move to get rid of the email consolidation, contending it would wind up costing the state more than anticipated. But it's worth pointing out that Scott himself early on wondered aloud why state government had multiple email accounts as opposed to the way that most businesses handle it. (UPDATE: Scott vetoed the bill.)

HB 945: Broadband Internet Service. This is another bill that not a lot of people kept an eye on. It transfers a federal stimulus-backed program from one state agency to another. But the legislation was pushed into law at the urging of lobbyists who work for a vendor that held a state contract that was not renewed. The Associated Press already reported that the legislative proposal was so closely aligned with the lobbying firm of former Republican Party of Florida chairman Al Cardenas that the Senate bill sponsor referred questions about the bill to a lobbyist working for Cardenas. That same AP story pointed out that the state agency now in control of the program has warned internally that the transfer will require federal approval and could put millions in federal grants in jeopardy. (UPDATE: This bill was signed by the governor.)

HB 937: Legal notices. Just consider this one a bit of a hunch. Scott of course famously shunned newspaper editorial boards during his 2010 campaign for governor. But since that time he has actually taken a keen interest in the news industry, including recent business moves in Florida such as the decision by Halifax Media to acquire papers owned by the New York Times Company. This legislation is aimed at ending a few years of battle over the future of legal notices. The bill requires the online listing of legal notices for no extra charge, but also keeps them in printed newspapers. In previous years legislators had tried to end the use of printed legal notices completely. The final product is supported by the Florida Press Association so it will be interesting to see how the governor responds.

Death knell for Florida newspapers?

(UPDATED: Despite the warning from Sen. Ronda Storms that the end of newspapers will soon be here, the Senate Community Affairs Committee refused on Tuesday morning to approve Storms' bill that would have allowed cities and counties to stop advertising in newspapers. Sen. Michael Bennett, R-Bradenton, called the thought of print newspapers dying "terrifying" and said that the Senate will spend the summer studying the potential impacts of the legislation. Several local government officials said they supported ending the legislation. Mayor Richard Kaplan of Lauderhill told Storms "When the Miami Herald is bankrupt then where is it going to be published?")

A Senate panel today will take up a measure that could have a dramatic impact on Florida newspapers across the state if ultimately adopted by the Florida Legislature.

The measure, SB 2292, would allow local governments to place legally required public notices on a government website as opposed to printing them in newspapers. The legislation is sponsored by Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Brandon, who is pushing other bills designed to lower costs for government entities, including one that would remove requirements that money must be set aside to buy art for new state buildings.

The legislation spells out that legal notices can be placed on the Internet as long as the local government has a library or other facility where members of the public can access the Internet for free. Another requirement is that the government allow members of the public to register to receive notices by mail or e-mail.

While there is no definite revenue impact associated with the legislation, the Senate bill analysis notes that "the impact of this legislation on the newspaper industry is indeterminate but likely to be substantial."

Florida newspapers have been hit hard by twin factors: The migration of readers to the Internet and the recessionary forces that have curtailed ads from major sources such as car dealers, department stores and real estate.

This has led newspapers across the state to cut down on the size of newspapers as well as the size of their staffs. There is rampant speculation that at least one, if not more, newspapers in the Sunshine State could be forced to shut down in the very near future. (Full disclosure: I was among those affected by a round of layoffs at The Miami Herald and I still freelance for various news organizations.)

In many towns and cities, the daily newspaper prints legal notices for everything from tax liens to comprehensive plan amendments. However, it is worth noting that in some large metro areas those ads do not always appear in the large metro paper, but in smaller papers that also circulate.