Newt Gingrich talks Puerto Rico, 'self-deportation' to Hispanic Republicans

Newt Gingrich may not have been at the Hispanic Leadership Network's Doral conference to listen to Sen. Marco Rubio, but it was clear to the audience here that Gingrich had a tough act to follow, after Rubio gave a sweeping immigration speech.

Gingrich, fresh off a breakfast with the Latin Builders Association and an impromptu press event to officially announce the backing from Hispanics including U.S. Rep. David Rivera, spoke for about 25 minutes, his wife, Callista, by his side.

He repeated many of the U.S. foreign policy themes he laid out Tuesday in a speech at Florida International University but also touched on Puerto Rico, which came up at Thursday night's debate in Jacksonville. At one point, a Puerto Rican woman from the audience interrupted Gingrich to try to get him to say whether he supports statehood for the island.

"I believe the people of Puerto Rico should make that decision," Gingrich said, receiving the most enthusiastic applause of his remarks when he told the woman, "If you don't like it, I disagree."

When he turned to immigration, Gingrich noted the failures of previous Republican and Democratic administrations. "I don't believe you can pass a comprehensive bill," he said, adding that it would face "too many enemies."

That's when he mentioned primary rival Mitt Romney -- 18 minutes into Gingrich's speech.

"This is where I have a big disagreement with Gov. Romney," Gingrich said regarding what to do with the about 11 million people who are in the United States illegally.

Gingrich, who had mocked Romney's mention of "self-deportation" at a Tampa debate Monday, said "a very significant number" of "young, unattached" undocumented immigrants would go back to their countries and apply for a guest-worker program under Gingrich's porposal. "Self-deportation in fact works for those groups," he admitted.

But not for everyone: "The idea that a grandmother is not going to be supported, the idea that she's going to self-deport...this is not a solution."

Gingrich ended with what he called "a very brief commercial."

"I am running for president," he said, sounding somewhat subdued. "We have a primary here on Tuesday. I'd love to have your support, your endorsement. I'd love you to go on YouTube, Facebook...even talk to people face-to-face.

"I will try to lead all Americans into a dramatically better future."

Jeb joins the Dis Newt Gingrich's Message Club over 'ridiculous' Crist bashing

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush dissed Republican candidate Newt Gingrich for invoking the name of former Republican-turned-independent Gov. Charlie Crist, whose former staffers work for Mitt Romney (some former Crist-ites also work for Gingrich's camp)

“That’s not a serious accusation,” Bush told the National Review Online. “Candidates win elections. I’m not a big Charlie Crist fan, as you recall, but these guys shouldn’t have that moniker attached to them, as if Governor Romney is part of some evil plot. That’s ridiculous.”

Bush's comments are a harsher version of Sen. Marco Rubio's statement on the matter Tuesday. Rubio followed up Wednesday with a forceful condemnation of Gingrich's Spanish-language radio ad that called Romney 'anti-immigrant.'

Not a good week for Gingrich heading into Tuesday's vote.

With Latin Builders in Miami, Newt Gingrich steers clear of mentioning Mitt Romney

The morning after another combative Republican primary debate, Newt Gingrich emphasized his pro-business, anti-regulation platform -– and his connections to Ronald Reagan as a young congressman -– in a speech before a Hispanic business group in downtown Miami on Friday.

Unmentioned in Gingrich’s 30-minute speech: Republican rival Mitt Romney.

Speaking at a candidate forum organized by the influential Latin Builders Association, Gingrich emphasized his years as Speaker of the House of Representatives, years when Congress passed welfare reform legislation and balanced the federal budget. And he also cast himself as an early champion of Reagan’s supply-side economics in the early 1980s.

Gingrich promised to go back to the supply-side “playbook” again if elected president, lowering taxes on corporations and gutting the federal bureaucracy. Among his proposals: Erasing the Environmental Protection Agency -– what he called a “dictatorial job-killing agency” -- and recasting it as the “Environmental Solutions Agency.”

Gingrich said his top priority as president will be to reduce unemployment.

“In the long run, the answer to the housing crisis is getting people to work,” Gingrich told the association, which includes many large homebuilders.

Gingrich opened his address by endorsing a new bill proposed by Miami congressman David Rivera that would provide citizenship to young immigrants who serve in the U.S. military.

Gingrich’s campaign also announced the creation of a Hispanic “steering committee” to generate support among Hispanic voters. The committee includes Rivera, Miami City Commissioner Francis Suarez, Miami-Dade Commissioner Xavier Suarez, and Otto Reich, a former ambassador and State Department official.

Romney, Gingrich’s chief rival in the polls, was not scheduled to appear before the builders association, though he was invited to the forum. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is scheduled to speak to the builders group later Friday.

--SCOTT HIAASEN

Doug Darling, head of Florida's economic development agency, resigns

Doug Darling, the executive director of Florida's economic development agency, is resigning from his post, according to a letter he sent Gov. Rick Scott on Thursday. 

The resignation comes less than a year after Darling accepted the position as head of the state's new Department of Economic Opportunity.

Here's Darling's resignation letter, which cites "personal reasons" for his departure:  Download DarlingResignationLetter

Darling's effective date of resignation will be Feb. 29, but he has requested to have his last day on Tuesday (Jan. 31).

Continue reading "Doug Darling, head of Florida's economic development agency, resigns"

Protesters interrupt Marco Rubio speech at Jeb Bush's Hispanic Leadership Network

UPDATE: Rubio gave a sweeping immigration speech where he derided both parties for playing politics with an issue so crucial to Hispanics, acknowledged his own party's shortcomings and called for a compassionate approach to dealing with the country's illegal immigrants. For our ongoing notes throughout the speech, see below.

Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican on the vice-presidential short list, will speak Friday morning to the Hispanic Leadership Network, former Gov. Jeb Bush's organization. Some 600 people have RSVP's to Friday's conference, which began Thursday night and featured a debate-watching party that appeared on CNN. (Read more about the debate here.)

In the lead-up to Rubio's speech, critics from a group called Presente Action had a propeller plane circling the Doral Golf Resort & Spa with a banner reading, Hey Marco: No Somos Rubios, which translates to "We aren't Rubios." It's a play on words on the word rubio, which in Spanish means blond or fair. The group is attacking Rubio largely over immigration, protesting that the senator doesn't support the pro-immigrant DREAM Act.

For updates on Rubio's speech once it begins, refresh this blog post.

After saying a few words in Spanish, Rubio, who was greeted by a standing ovation, said he got a text message froma friend telling him about the airplane banner. "Marco, we're not blond," he said, translating the banner. "Which, by coincidence, neither am I -- although if I'm in the Senate for another year, I may start being a little bit more gray."

The crowd laughed. Then Rubio immediately went into the issue of immigration -- and a couple of suit-clad protesters stood up, raised signs that said "Marco Rubio -- Latino or Tea-Partino" and asked Rubio why he isn't helping them. "You're an immigrant yourself!" they yelled.

Rubio appeared unfazed. Security approached the protesters while Rubio said, "I ask that you guys let them stay, because I think that they're going to be interested in what I'm going to say." Rubio got a standing ovation. "I don't want them to leave," he repeated. "I want them to stay."

"Let them stay!" chanted the crowd. 

But the protesters were escorted out.

"They came here to a crowd that they know may not be friendly," Rubio said. "I think God that I'm in a country where they can do that.

"I'm not who they think I am," he said. "I don't stand for what they claim I stand for."

Then, speaking without notes, an energized Rubio launched into a 20-minute speech his supporters said afterwards was one of the best they have heard throughout the presidential campaign.

"Our country has a broken legal immigration system," he began. "The status quo is unsustainable."

Rubio spoke of bipartisan support for a guest worker system and making it easier for people to obtain U.S. visas. But the policies haven't moved forward, he said, because of politics.

"We must admit that there are those among us that have used rhetoric that is harsh and intolerable and inexcusable," Rubio said. "And we must admit -- myself included -- that sometimes we've been too slow to condemn that language for what it is."

On the left of the political spectrum, politicians too have been guilty, Rubio said, of setting "unrealistic expectations" to appeal to Hispanic voters.

"It's not realistic to expect that you're going to deport 11 million people," he acknowledged. He added later, "No, we cannot legalize 11 million people."

Rubio spoke about his family, at one point appearing to get choked up, trying to make light of controversy stirred last fall when he was forced to correct a mistake on his website saying his parents came to the United States from Cuba after Fidel Castro came into power. They actually left Cuba before. "I got some dates wrong in my parent's immigration history," Rubio said. "And it created some uncomfortable days."

But, he said, it was "a blessing in disguise" to have to review his family's history. He told of his grandfather's polio and hardships and ask the audience to put themselves in the shoes of people in other countries facing similar hardship today for their children.

"There is no fence high enough, there is no ocean wide enough that most of us would not cross to provide to them what they do not have," he said. "I hope never again that young people will have to stand up in an event like this and hold up a sign because the issues been taken care of."

In the end, Rubio cited "The New Colossus," a poem by Emma Lazarus. ("I'm not a big poetry fan," Rubio admitted. "There's nothing wrong with poetry...now I'm going to get the poet people upset. You gotta be careful every vote counts," he joked.) The poem is engraved in a plaque inside the Statue of Liberty.

"A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame/Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name/Mother of Exiles," Rubio read.

"This is who we were for 225 years. This is who we've been," he said. "The question now is, is this who we will remain?" 

He received another standing ovation before leaving, without speaking to reporters.

 

Newt Gingrich announces backing of Miami Hispanic politicians

In the wake of Newt Gingrich's campaign events in Miami Friday, his campaign announced the launch of a "Hispanic Steering Committee" feeaturing several well-known Miami-area politicians.

Among them is U.S. Rep. David Rivera, who has been ushering and introducing Gingrich around South Florida. So is GOP fundraiser Ana Navarro, who had earlier worked for Jon Huntsman. Also on the list: Miami Commissioner Francis Suarez.

See press release after the jump.

Continue reading "Newt Gingrich announces backing of Miami Hispanic politicians"

Texting bill sponsor's a texter herself

It was a good day for Nancy Detert, R-Venice, whose texting bill died in the Senate last year. This year's version passed its third committee vote on Thursday, with just one more to go before a full Senate hearing.

  But it's a mild ban. Texting drivers could only be ticketed if they had already been stopped for some other offense, the first offense fine is only $30…and it doesn't apply to the kind of roadway texting that Detert does herself.

  The senator she says when she has to send a message from behind the wheel, she fiddles with her Android phone, brings up a speech-to-text app and dictates. Unlike manual typing, she claims, it is not distracting.

 "My eyes are still on the road, as opposed to the original texting which was the Blackberry, where you had to type with two thumbs, and there was no way you were looking at the road," Detert said. 

  Several studies suggest many Americans text while driving, although big majorities think it should be illegal. But two years ago, the Highway Loss Data Institute found that traffic safety did not improve in states that banned texting while driving.

  HLDI president Adrian Lund reported in 2010 that car crashes actually increased in three of the four states that were studied, possibly because drivers' effort to avoid detection made texting even more hazardous.

Texting-WR-rstone

 

Romney leads Gingrich in Florida 38-29 in new Quinnipiac poll

From Quinnipiac:

Just four days before the nation’s first big-state presidential primary,former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney opens up a 38 – 29 percent lead over former House Speaker Newt Gingrich among Republican likely voters in Florida, according to a Quinnipiac University poll taken Wednesday and released today.  Only 6 percent are undecided, but 32 percent say they might change their mind by Tuesday. 

This compares to results of a January 25 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University, showing Romney with 36 percent of likely primary voters to Gingrich’s 34 percent.  Wednesday’s survey showed Gingrich ahead 40 – 34 percent among voters surveyed after the South Carolina primary.

Continue reading "Romney leads Gingrich in Florida 38-29 in new Quinnipiac poll"

Fair Districts lambasts legislative maps, details alleged legal violations

The Fair Districts coalition broke its silence on the legislature's nearly completed redistricting maps late Thursday and delivered a 12-page letter to lawmakers lambasting their proposals for manipulating the political boundaries for partisan and incumbent advantage, in violation of the state Constitution.

"It appears that all maps under consideration were drawn with an intent to gain partisan advantage and/or to protect incumbents," the group wrote in its letter to House Redistricting Chairman Will Weatherford. "The Legislature’s refusal to follow this efficient and logical redistricting method proves that it wanted to retain its ability to surreptitiously favor a party or incumbents, and the numbers bear this out."

In short, the group which helped bring new state's redistricting standards to the state Constitution, accuses lawmakers of not only strategically protecting incumbents with the drawing of districts but doing it to strengthen weak districts, pick favorites in competitive areas, pack minority voters into districts and strategically secure a Republican majority for the next decade.

Continue reading "Fair Districts lambasts legislative maps, details alleged legal violations"

Daily Digest for Friday, 1/27

Daily Digest for 1/27 [Listen or Download

[iTunes link]

 

Fresh off the Thursday night presidential debate, lawmakers are slowing down on Day 18 of the session. Here's what we will watch in the House and elsewhere with the Senate out.

 

Three Stories To Think About Today

* Redistricting: The House Redistricting Committee will take up bills that draw new district maps for the Legislature and Congress.

* Prisons: Several lawmakers are set to tour Hillsborough Correctional Institute, an all-women's facility that faces closure by the state.

* Voting: A U.S. Senate panel has a hearing in Tampa on Florida's new election law, which Democrats say will suppress turnout.

 

Three Issues You Missed Yesterday

* Gov. Rick Scott's key jobs adviser, Doug Darling, is resigning.

* Students from across the state took to the Capitol to protest tuition hikes and other issues.

* Rep. David Rivera introduced a military-only version of the DREAM Act, called ARMS.

 

Who To Watch Today/Quotable Quotes

* 38 House members who would be fighting each other for seats if the redistricting maps are passed tomorrow. Some of the districts' cities possibly up for grabs include Jacksonville, Lakeland, Orlando, Tampa, St. Petersburg, West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Miami and Miami Beach, Hialeah, Hollywood and Sarasota.

The populist scraps with the patrician in the River City Rumble

The populist faced off with the patrician.

Newt Gingrich was expected to take it to Mitt Romney, whom he savaged on the campaign trail for Romney’s ties to Goldman Sachs and his bank accounts in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.

But Romney unexpectedly struck first when it came to one of the most treacherous of Florida political issues: Immigration – and Gingrich’s claims in a Spanish-language radio ad that Romney was “anti-immigrant.”

“That's simply unexcusable. That's inexcusable,” Romney, said glaring at Gingrich. “And, actually, Senator Marco Rubio came to my defense and said that ad was inexcusable and inflammatory and inappropriate.”

Gingrich edited the ad after Rubio made those comments Wednesday to The Miami Herald. The following day, the morning of the debate, Rubio praised Gingrich.

But the damage was done.

Continue reading "The populist scraps with the patrician in the River City Rumble"

Latino-vote coup? Puerto Rico Gov. Fortuño likely to endorse Mitt Romney tomorrow, sources say

The Hispanic Republican political world is buzzing with talk that Puerto Rico's governor, Luis Fortuño, has been in talks with Mitt Romney for an endorsement – and sources tell The Miami Herald he could swing his support as early as tomorrow in Orlando.

Romney’s campaign wouldn’t comment.

Friday would be a perfect day for an endorsement for Romney, who’s attending the Hispanic Leadership Network forum tomorrow in Doral before he heads to Orlando – seat of Orange County, which has one of the largest Puerto Rican Republican communities in the state.

More than 21,000 Hispanic Republicans live in the county, about 11 percent of the registered GOP. Nearby Osceola County has more than 8,500 registered Hispanic Republicans – about 21 percent of the GOP. It’s unclear how many are of Puerto Rican descent.

Romney has scheduled a 6:15 p.m. press conference in Orlando. Said one Republican about a potential Fortuño endorsement: “This should happen.”

Said another: “It’s 99.9 percent going to happen.”

**Update Fortuño is coming to Florida tomorrow. He'll host a 2 p.m. tour and press conference with U.S. Senator  Marco Rubio, Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez, Commissioner Rebeca Sosa to discuss port security, drug trafficking and the U.S. Caribbean Border.
 
A Fortuño endorsement would be a coup purely from a media standpoint – it would guarantee high-profile, positive coverage and feed the Romney narrative of momentum.

Continue reading "Latino-vote coup? Puerto Rico Gov. Fortuño likely to endorse Mitt Romney tomorrow, sources say"

Key Scott jobs advisor Doug Darling is leaving

Doug Darling, a key job-creation advisor to Gov. Rick Scott, is resigning after eight months on the job, sources tell the Times/Herald.

Darling has been director of the newly-created Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO), a post that paid him $125,000 a year.  He was the point man in a Scott-inspired effort to achieve better coordination of Florida's multiple economic development programs. 

A retired high-ranking member of the U.S. Marine Corps, he previously served as chief of staff to the state's former environmental secretary, Mike Sole, and was chief of the state Division of Accounting and Auditing under former CFO Alex Sink. 

Controversy found its way to Darling's doorstep in November after he told Florida news outlets that millions of dollars were shelled out to Florida businesses in the form of financial incentives to create jobs, but they hadn't fulfilled the terms of their contracts.   

Word of Darling's departure began circling through the halls of the Capitol late Thursday afternoon. Darling did not respond to a message seeking comment. Sources say that his interim replacement will be Cynthia Lorenzo, who serves as secretary of the Agency for Workforce Innovation (AWI), the state employment agency. 

-- Steve Bousquet

With redistricting deal nearly done, 38 House members must battle it out

At least 38 sitting House members would be forced into a face off with one of their colleagues -- or move out of their current districts -- in a record-breaking incumbency shakeup, if the House Redistricting Committee votes out its maps for the House, Senate and Congress as expected on Friday.

The legislative musical chairs was started when voters approved Amendments 5 and 6, forcing lawmakers to ignore incumbent and political parties and draw districts according to political boundary lines, when possible, and in a way that protects minority voting strength.

The result pits Democrats against Democrats, one Republicans against a Democrat and, most unexpectedly, Republicans against Republicans in the chamber in which a super majority controls that party.

If the House committee passes the three maps as expected, they will then be brought to the House floor on Thursday, sent back to the Senate as early as Friday and then the legislative maps would be sent to the Florida Supreme Court for the required 30-day review.

"We're will neither accelerate or delay them,'' said House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, on Thursday. But, he added, they appeared to be moving at a steady pace to finish soon.

Continue reading "With redistricting deal nearly done, 38 House members must battle it out"

Two senators, two very different real estate investors

Both of Florida's senators made the news this week for their real estate investments. 

Tuesday, U.S. News and World Report noted that Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, has put up for sale his Arlington, Va., condo overlooking Washington D.C. If he gets the asking price of $1,995,000, USN&WR reported, "Nelson would recoup a profit of $835,000. He paid $1,160,000 for the condo in 2003." 

And today, jumping off a report in Reuters about Republican Sen. Marco Rubio's finances, BuzzFeed reports that he is "underwater."  

Writes BuzzFeed: "The junior senator from the state that is ground zero for the housing crisis -– and an oft-mentioned likely Vice Presidential nominee -– is also deep in debt, with two homes on which he owes more than the value of the house, an aide confirmed."

Students take tuition protests to Tallahassee

Some students protested tuition increases. Some lamented cuts to the Bright Futures scholarship program. And some said they were only after the extra credit.

But when the 200 or so university students cheered, chanted and booed on the Capitol steps Thursday, they all seemed to have one common goal.

“Being a student means you’ve sometimes got to speak truth to power, and let them know where you stand,” Rep. Darryl Rouson (D- St. Petersburg) said in preacher’s cadence, drawing wild cheers from the crowd.

Many of the students were en route to Tallahassee before dawn, on busses from the state’s 11 universities. Thirty-three attended from the University of South Florida.

The rally came at a time when tuition has hiked 60 percent in four years, said Michael Long, chairman of the Florida Student Association.

Continue reading "Students take tuition protests to Tallahassee"

Rivera introduces a military-only version of the DREAM Act

Inspired by the discussion about immigration during Monday night's Republican presidential debate, Rep. David Rivera, R-Miami, has filed his own bill that would give young people who serve in the military a path to U.S. citizenship.

"If somebody is willing to die for America, then certainly they deserve a chance at life in America," Rivera said of his legislation.

Rivera's plan is called the Adjusted Residency for Military Service Act -- the ARMS Act. It's a variation on the DREAM Act, which would grant legal status to some children of undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally.

The DREAM Act passed the Democratic-controlled House last year, with the support of only a few Republicans, including Miami Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart and Lincoln Diaz-Balart. But it failed in the Senate, and the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee who took charge last year has said the DREAM Act won't get another hearing on his watch.

Rivera said he'd been quietly working on immigration reform since he came to Congress a year ago. He said he decided to go with the military-only piece because it already had the support of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich -- the GOP candidate who Rivera is backing in Tuesday's primary. But it also got a nod from former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney during Monday's presidential debate in Florida.

Continue reading "Rivera introduces a military-only version of the DREAM Act "

Pro-Gingrich PAC attacks Mitt Romney over 'blood money' in web ad

The Winning Our Future SuperPac has released a new ad that hits Mitt Romney from every angle possible -- ObamaCare, Cayman Islands tax shelters and even Medicare fraud. The committee said it was spending $6 million to advertise this week in Florida, but the signs of its footprint on TV are scarce, say, on the TV sets in Jacksonville and Orlando, where anti-Gingrich ads seem to prevail. Anyway, here's the new ad

Mitt Romney’s depressing tour of Florida stops at closed Jacksonville printing shop

Jon Cummings spoke so quietly the crowd at Mitt Romney’s rally had to tell him to speak up. He didn’t sound like a politician. He sounded like the man who shut down a century old business in the tough economy.

“Four years ago here, we had close to 50 people working,” Cummings said. “By the time I called everyone just after Christmas to tell them we were suspending operations, we had about 24 people left.”

Speaking in front of a giant “Obama isn’t working” sign next to an industrial trash bin, Cummings said the administration’s work-place regulations bore some blame. But so did the bad economy, competition from China, rising insurance costs and changes in technology.

“I have never seen anything like the last 3 years. It’s been a crazy, crazy ride,” Cummings said. ““We chose to quit the fight.”

Romney soon spoke and said the obvious: “This is not a happy day, here, in this plant of course.”

He blamed President Obama. “It’s an indication of what’s gone wrong with this administration,” Romney said. “Jon asked, ‘how long is this going to go on?’ And the answer is: it’s going to go on until January of 2013.”
.

Continue reading "Mitt Romney’s depressing tour of Florida stops at closed Jacksonville printing shop"

Senate committee votes to tighten parimutuel loopholes and free the racing dogs

For the second year in a row, the Senate Regulated Industries Committee narrowly approved a bill to allow Florida's 16 remaining dog tracks to stop racing greyhounds and allow their facilities to operate only card rooms or slots casinos.

The bill, by Sen. Maria Sachs, D-Boca Raton, gives each dog track the option of operating live racing and closes loopholes that have allowed the proliferation of other pari-mutuel permits by opening the door to a barrel racing track in Gretna and a summer jai alai permit for the owners of Magic City Casino.

"Those tracks that wish to continue to race will race,'' Sachs said. "It will be dictated by the market."

But, opponents said, the bill also gives the parimutuel industry free rein to use $7 million in existing tax credits to prop up their dying industry.

Continue reading "Senate committee votes to tighten parimutuel loopholes and free the racing dogs"