Lobbyists & monkeys & pols. Oh my! Police union blasts prosecutor Katherine Fernandez Rundle in mailers

It seems every Democrat in Miami is getting these Police Benevolent Association-funded mailers that call Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle "The Most CORRUPT politician in Miami-Dade County."

It didn't help Rundle that her top campaign consultant, Al Lorenzo, hired career criminal Gerardo Judas "Jerry" Ramos to help work on her campaign. Rundle also had to recuse herself from an absentee-ballot fraud investigation amid rumors that Lorenzo or someone in her campaign was tied to a ballot broker who has been charged for allegedly forging a voter's signature and violating a county ordinance prohibiting third parties from possessing more than two ballots of other voters.

These mailers were printed well before the ballot-fraud scandal hit. Some of the allegations in the fliers are a stretch or untrue. But what's clear is that law-enforcement in Miami-Dade County appears dysfunctional.

Forger's criminal past haunts Miami-Dade campaigns

A career criminal who embarrassed the campaigns of Miami-Dade’s mayor and state attorney may have conned one of their top political consultants over thousands of dollars in counterfeit postage stamps, according to authorities and court records.

Gerardo Judas “Jerry” Ramos, who ran a direct-mail business, pleaded guilty in 2009 to forging more than $2,000 in postage meter stamps on his laptop computer that he billed to consultant Al Lorenzo’s company for purported birthday greeting-card mailers, authorities said.

As part of the ruse, Ramos represented to Lorenzo and his company, Quantum Results, that the birthday mailers were being sent on behalf of local politicians to their constituents in 2006-07.

“He was making a few thousand dollars by ripping off his boss and ripping off the postal service, because the stamps were fake,” Postal Inspector Bladismir Rojo, the federal case agent, told The Miami Herald on Wednesday.

“The politicians had no idea [Ramos] was involved in this fraud,” he added.

Lorenzo’s failure to disclose Ramos’ lengthy criminal history to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez cost the consultant his job late Monday, one week before Tuesday’s election. Meanwhile, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle kept Lorenzo on her campaign, but told him to kick Ramos out.

Ramos, 47, could not be reached for comment. He served two years in federal prison on the postage-forgery conviction until his release in February 2011 and had a state criminal record dating back to 1989, including grand theft and credit-card fraud. “Ramos’ criminal history discloses that he is a habitual thief, fraud, forger and counterfeiter,” federal prosecutor Dwayne Williams said in court papers before Ramos’ sentencing in 2009. More here.

Florida to be host to final, and third, presidential debate

The Florida Society of News Editors will partner with Lynn University to help host the third and final fall presidential debate, the newspaper association said Wednesday. The debate is scheduled Oct. 22 on the Boca Raton campus.

The newspaper editors group will partner with the university on initiatives surrounding the debate, including education meetings with students and the creation of a news feed on the school's official debate website, debate2012.lynn.edu. FSNE also will host a panel discussion with journalists from Florida’s leading papers to explore topics related to the 2012 election.

"Florida is again at ground zero of a hotly contested presidential race, and it is fitting and appropriate to hold a debate in this swing state,"  Mark Russell, editor of the Orlando Sentinel and FSNE president, said in a statement. "FSNE is pleased to be  assisting Lynn in this worthy effort."

~ Aaron Sharockman

Little-known Glenn Burkett accuses Nelson of website hacking

Little-known Glenn Burkett, who is running for the Democratic nomination against incumbent U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, is accusing Nelson of hacking his website.

Here's the statement from Burkett.

Just one day after press release reporting over a thousand people per day and climbing was visiting the Glenn Burkett for U.S. Senate campaign web site was attacked early this morning. Voters are calling reporting the site is down. Glenn Burkett is Nelson's only competitor in the primary. Glenn Burkett's business and Foundation web sites are up and running. The company providing the server for the site is investigating the source of the hackers since 8 am this morning.
 
Voters today depend on researching candidates position on issues via web sites. Burkett does not believe this was an accident because it happened during early voting.

Nelson campaign manager Pete Mitchell called the claim "absurd."

Twitter: @Britt_alana

Judge dismisses lawsuit attempt to remove justices from November ballot

In a rare ruling from the bench, Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit by two voters from Lee and Seminole counties who argued that the three justices seeking merit retention on the November ballot should be disqualified for using court-appointed staff to help them complete their qualifying papers.

Lawyers for Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner and for Justices R. Fred Lewis, Barbara Pariente and Peggy Quince argued that the case was without merit. They said there is a framework in place already, through the Florida Elections Commission and the state attorney, to address the concerns of the two voters. Detzner has determined that the three judges properly submitted their qualifying paperwork and should remain on the ballot.

Lewis said the plaintiffs, Bernard Long and Ron Flores,failed to prove they were personally harmed by allowing the process in place to go forward and ruled they had no standing to bring the lawsuit.

 "I don't think your clients get to speak for everybody,'' Lewis said, before dismissing the case with prejudice, ending the case because it was brought in error. Anticipating an appeal, he added, "we'll let the district court of appeal decide whether I'm right or not."

The lawyer for plaintiffs, Shannon Goessling of the conservative Southern Legal Foundation, immediately announced they will appeal the case and, if they lose there, will take it to the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court if they have to. Download Long and Flores lawsuit

Weldon juggles U.S. Senate primary race with family struggles

In the final days of his long-shot campaign for the U.S. Senate Republican nomination, Dave Weldon is also dealing with a family struggle.

Weldon’s 25-year-old daughter, Katie Weldon, who lives in Texas and has long battled drug addiction, gave birth July 21. Hospital tests found heroin in the newborn’s system, the Herald/Times discovered.

Katie Weldon hopes to regain custody of the child and is in a 90-day rehabilitation program, Weldon said.

"My wife and I love our daughter, Katie. We have often disagreed with her decisions but she is an adult and has set her own course in life that we cannot control,” Weldon said this week when asked about his daughter. Weldon also has a 14-year-old son.

Weldon, who served in Congress from 1995-2009, said his daughter is still on his health insurance, though he no longer supports her financially. He last saw Katie in October, although his wife Nancy visited more recently, he said.

Weldon and his wife have not met their new grandchild.

"We will continue to do what we can to show our love in the most appropriate way we can find,” he said.

Weldon is considered a heavy underdog against for the GOP nomination against Rep. Connie Mack IV. The winner of the Aug. 14 primary will likely face Democratic incumbent U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, who’s vying for his third term.

Twitter: @Britt_alana

Another Scott departure? Prisons chief seeks new job

Ken Tucker has brought stability to the Florida Department of Corrections, but he might not be around much longer. The fifth man to run the prison system in the past six years is angling for a new job.  

On the job for less than a year as chief of the nation's third-largest prison system, Tucker has told his senior staff and Gov. Rick Scott's office that he may leave as soon as October. He has applied for the directorship of an anti-drug initiative between the federal and state governments called the North Florida High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), and has made his intentions very clear to senior staff in the agency and to Scott's people.

"He did apply for the position, and he spoke with the governor's office first," said Tucker's spokeswoman, Ann Howard. 

Tucker's long career in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement may make him a logical fit for the new position: HIDTA works with FDLE in Northeast Florida on drug cases -- the kind Tucker worked on regularly earlier in his career. In addition, Tucker's roots are in that part of the state (he's a native of Bunnell and worked as a cop in Daytona Beach) and he and his wife are looking forward to living there once again, Howard said.

Tucker would have been gone by next spring anyway: His retirement in the state's DROP program is March 2013. Leaving sooner rather than later would give the governor's office time to groom a new prisons chief before the next legislative session begins next March. 

Tucker, 58, would be the eighth high-level agency head to depart since Scott took office 19 months ago. The national HIDTA director, Michael Gottlieb, works in the Office of National Drug Control Policy in the White House.

Even though he had no experience in corrections, Tucker was hired from FDLE to take over last August after Scott and his former chief of staff, Steve MacNamara, decided to dismiss Ed Buss, who had been highly recruited from Indiana but who soon ran afoul of the governor's office. 

-- Steve Bousquet

Rep. Michael Bileca gets ad love for challenged law banning hiring of firms tied to Cuba

No one was more vocal in praising a new Florida law prohibiting the state and local governments from hiring foreign-owned companies that do business in Cuba than Mauricio Claver-Carone, the executive director of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC.

Now the Washington D.C.-based Claver-Carone, through another entity, Cuba Democracy Public Advocacy, has paid for a spot on Miami Spanish-language radio lauding state Rep. Michael Bileca. The Miami Republican, who faces GOP challenger Geno Perez in the Aug. 14 primary, was one of the sponsors of the law.

There's no mention in the ad that the law is now tied up in court.

A Miami federal judge blocked the law, saying it is unconstitutional because states cannot set foreign policy. The state has appealed.

The suit was brought forth by Odebrecht USA, the Coral Gables-based affiliate of the Brazilian engineering and construction giant that was one of the law's primary targets.

The ad says Bileca "did not let himself be intimidated" when he filed the legislation, which also bans the hiring of companies with business ties to Syria. But the bill flew under the radar in Tallahassee this year, and firms that were directly affected, such as Odebrecht, had no idea that it would be passed until after a near-unanimous majority of legislators approved it.

"We are profoundly grateful to Rep. Bileca for his leadership and exemplary decorum," the ad says. "Call Rep. Bileca and say thank you for confronting economic interests that fight the regimes that keep the Cuban and Syrian people oppressed."

Florida Reps. John Mica and Sandy Adams represent GOP mainstream vs. tea party in primary

UPDATE: Click here to view a copy of an invitation to a 2010 Adams fundraiser where Mica is listed as a co-host.

WINTER PARK — Two years ago, veteran U.S. Rep John Mica helped Sandy Adams get elected to Congress.

Now he's locked in the fight for his political life against her.

The incumbent vs. incumbent showdown in Florida's 7th Congressional District — a by-product of the once-in-a-decade reapportionment process — represents one of the few pieces of drama ahead of Florida's Aug. 14 congressional primaries.

Other incumbents face primaries, and open seats in northeast and southwest Florida have drawn large fields, but the race for the Republican nomination between Mica and Adams has evolved into another proxy war between mainstream Republicans, who have aligned with Mica, and Sarah Palin and tea party activists, who support Adams.

Next Tuesday's winner is expected to glide to re-election in November. The loser will be among 11 House members forced out of office this year in an incumbent vs. incumbent primary.

PolitiFact Florida: Fact-checking recent campaign attacks

PolitiFact Florida has fact-checked a flurry of political attacks. As we head toward the Florida primary on Aug. 14, here’s a summary of our recent fact-checks.

•  Liberal firebrand Alan Grayson is back. In 2010, the Democrat lost his seat representing the Orlando area in the U.S. House of Representatives. Grayson is running for a new seat and is back with attacks on his presumed opponent, former state Rep. John Quiñones, a Republican.

A mailer from Grayson claims, "Gov. Jeb Bush vetoed the Quiñones Plan because it was ‘taxation without representation on a large scale.’ " We rated that Half True. The mailer accurately quotes Bush’s veto but leaves out the rest of the story on the plan.

• U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson has launched a new attack ad on his presumed challenger Connie Mack IV, the Republican congressman from Fort Myers. Nelson, a Democrat, said Mack has been "a promoter for Hooters with a history of bar room brawling, altercations and road rage."

By examining public records and news accounts, we found that those events happened, but  years ago, when Mack was in his 20s. We rated Nelson’s statement Mostly True.

• A TV ad from American Crossroads says President Barack Obama has "added $4 billion in debt every day." We rated that Half True. The debt is going up by that much, but Obama isn’t the only one responsible for that.

• We also checked dueling claims in the Republican primary for Florida’s 7th congressional district in Central Florida. Thanks to redistricting, two incumbents -- John Mica and Sandy Adams -- are fighting for the nod.

Mica, a 20-year incumbent, said Barack Obama "counted on Sandy Adams" to approve stimulus spending. That got a Pants on Fire rating. Adams wasn’t even in Congress in 2009 when the stimulus passed.

Adams, meanwhile, charged that Mica “voted to borrow $10 trillion.” That got a Half True. Mica has voted for things that sent the deficit higher, but he didn’t vote for $10 trillion in borrowed spending. We rated her statement Half True.