RPOF rakes it in from industries with powerful legislative agenda

The annual compilation of the quiet agenda behind the legislative session was released last night and the RPOF campaign finance report revealed the following:

* ELECTRIC COMPANIES -- The largest single industry contributing to the Republican Party in the first quarter was the electric utilities industry, with a whopping $459,000. Stung by two unfavorable rate decisions by the PSC, a nettlesome requirement that they encourage customers to use less energy, and two appointments to the PSC of folks who never worked in or with the industry, and their agenda was clear. The Senate has obliged them by holding up confirmations for the PSC appointments. The House has made it difficult to pass a bill tightening PSC ethics. And both chambers are making it likely that the industry will get to charge customers the full cost of building major new solar energy plants without having to prove a need.

* GAMBLING -- As expected, the pari-mutuel interests were heavy contributors with $170,000 in large checks, as late as March 23. 

* RETAILERS -- Publix and WalMart gave $195,000. The bills to limit slip and fall lawsuits are making a bee line to the gov.

This is just's a sampling of the $7.8 million the party raised since Jan. 1. Stay tuned for more to come. It's worth noting that while legislators tout the fact that their fundraising ban prevents them from raising money while they're voting on these industry bills, the party can. It doesn't even have to follow the $500 limits.

Florida senator: Republican Crist, Democrat Sink think alike

Incoming Senate President Mike Haridopolos linked Republican Gov. Charlie Crist to Democratic CFO Alex Sink in a partisan missive criticizing Crist for vetoing the leadership funds legislation.

"His uninformed veto comments did not reflect the stringent details of the bill, rather, it parroted the talking points of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink," Haridopolos, the bill's Senate sponsor, said in a statement issued by his legislative office.

Haridopolos and Crist -- who spent a good chunk of time campaigning together for GOP presidential nominee John McCain in 2008 -- disagreed about whether the bill would let leading lawmakers raise money during the legislative session, a practice that is currently banned.

Read his full statement below.

Crist takes off the gloves, repeats veto threat all over the place

Speaking to a crowd of Realtors in the Capitol courtyard, Gov. Charlie Crist peppered his remarks with another veto threat and he later repeated his hint that the teacher tenure bill could be in trouble.

“If a bill gets to my desk that favors the property insurance industry, I will veto it,’’ he said to loud cheers. “You have to be the one that we fight for."

He told the crowd that said the property insurance market has stabilized. “In fact, property insurance in the Sunshine State because of new companies coming to the state, and a more stabilized market, have decreased 15 percent in the last three and a half years.”

Later, he told reporters, "this is the last time that we need to have a property insurance increase."

All the people that supported Jim Greer

In the political fallout from the criminal investigation of Jim Greer, one question remaining is who it will hurt. Gov. Charlie Crist was the obvious target when the initial news broke, given that he handpicked Greer for the GOP helm. But this flier for Greer's re-election -- slogan, "The service we trust. The leadership we need -- as chairman includes many more bold-faced names: including Attorney General Bill McCollum, Senate President Jeff Atwater and disgraced Speaker Ray Sansom and former Speaker Marco Rubio.

See the invite here.

The Greer fallout leads to divergent reactions

Amid the fallout that Jim Greer, Charlie Crist's handpicked party chairman, is facing a criminal investigation, the speculation is rampant about how this will affect the political dynamic on the campaign trail.

Florida political consultant Rick Wilson said this would void Crist's ability to attack GOP U.S. Senate opponent Marco Rubio as a corrupt big-spender when Greer, his close friend, "used the party like his own ATM."

"Charlie is at the minimum going to be on the witness stand in this affair," said Wilson, who is supporting Rubio.

$enate $end$ 'tran$parency' fundrai$ing bill to Cri$t

Under the watchword of "transparency" Republican senators just pushed through a bill that would reinstitute what were once known as "leadership funds" that allow legislative leaders to raise unlimited sums for campaign purposes through the political parties. Final vote: 25-11.

Lawmakers can raise unlimited sums now, but only on behalf of the party. And they have less control over how the money gets spent. They can also raise unlimited amounts of money through Committees of Continuous Existence, but they're limited in how much they can spend, namely $500 per candidate. With leadership funds, they can spend $25,000 on a candidate.

Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, said the new leadership funds will allow more people to see how legislative leaders are raising and spending money through the party. Currently, there's no way to see how much party money has been raised by or earmarked for legislators. The legislation follows the controversial reign of Jim Greer at the Republican Party of Florida.

Sen. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, said the bill was a "horrible idea" because it offered little in the way of reform for campaign finance.

"We have a system that would shock Floridians," Gelber said. "You’re going to have staffers going to the folks out there who have interests that they want us to look at and bills that they want us to hear and amendments they want us to pass. And they are going to be taking money from them during session for your leadership accounts. That is what’s going to happen. So whatever fiction you want to get rid of, you are creating a new and much more dangerous one to this process.”

Haridopolos committee returns $294,500 to FL GOP

Remember how, amid the chaos of the state GOP chairman's resignation, nearly $1 million was quietly  stashed in two committees linked to incoming House Speaker Dean Cannon and Senate President Mike Haridopolos?

Well just as quietly, the group associated with Haridopolos -- The Alliance for a Strong Economy -- has given the money back. Its website shows expenditures of $100,000 and $294,500 in "dues refunds" to the Republican Party of Florida on Feb. 25, five days after state Sen. John Thrasher of St. Augustine was elected the new party chairman. The group also paid $3,000 to the Robert Watkins & Co. accounting firm in Tampa.

The group tied to Cannon, The Florida Liberty Fund, still has $655,000 of the party's money. Its most recent expenditure was nearly $15,000 to Tallahassee consultant Ron Sachs on Feb. 26.

UPDATE: We asked Haridopolos about the refund, and he said he didn't know all of the details on the move: "I guess we chose to move it over."

Asked if it was because of the change in the party leadership, he said: “Given the vote by the executive committee of the RPOF, I think we had that much more confidence in the board and the staff. And we made the decision to make sure we had the resources to make sure the party can still operate.”

Near the end of the interview, he still seemed a bit puzzled: "I’m not well versed on this issue right now ... We moved our money back in?"

Reporter: "I guess so. I thought you would have some role in that."

"I probably did," he said, noting that there are a handful of other senators on the committee.

Leadership funds begin to re-emerge

With all the problems in how political parties spend money, top Florida lawmakers are one step closer to getting the power to raise unlimited contributions and direct how the money is spent.

But don't call them leadership funds -- which were previously banished -- call them APCs. (Yes, one more acronym in a town that speaks only in capital letters.) It stands for affiliated party committees, which is, in essence, a leadership fund.

The language creating these APCs is attached to a bill that fixes the law concerning ECOs -- Electioneering Communication Organizations -- which was struck down in a court decision as unconstitutional. Without regulation, we are currently in "the wild wild West," said bill sponsor Rep. Seth McKeel, a Lakeland Republican, pointing to the recent special election in the Jacksonville area. 

Jeff Atwater's 'transparent' credit-card statements

Senate President Jeff Atwater, whose statements about “transparency” have become a hallmark, will only go so far when it comes to publicizing his Republican Party of Florida credit-card expenses.

Atwater said last week he “wouldn't care" who saw his American Express billing statements. But Atwater now says he doesn’t have them. RPOF has them. But it's refusing to release them.

Atwater recently reviewed his records at RPOF's George Bush building headquarters, just a few blocks down the hill from the state Capitol. But Atwater's not leaving with any copies of his records, either. After Atwater's statements last week about disclosing his records, his office said that it'll be up to RPOF to decide whether to release the president's records.

On Saturday, the RPOF chose a new chairman: Sen. John Thrasher. A Thrasher spokeswoman then said that the individual statements will remain confidential.

Going forward, the individual credit-card statements will likely remain shielded from public scrutiny. Thank a Thrasher-chaired Ethics and Election Committee vote for that. It passed legislation last week that, among other things, ensures party credit-card statements remain shielded from public view.  Thrasher said the legislation “doesn’t prevent anyone who had a credit card from giving that stuff up.”

It’s not as if billing records aren’t leaking out. Just ask a defensive Marco Rubio today about his AmEx charges. Then there's The Hard Rock London and Rubio's indicted successor as House Speaker, Ray Sansom. And don't forget Delmar Johnson's golfing in Cali.

Republicans say the individual statements shouldn't be disclosed because RPOF, like the Florida Democrat Party, is private. Also, credit-card charges are somewhat disclosed in campaign finance reports.

But it's not clear who spent what money, where and when -- especially in the past few years when guys like convicted Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein or accused scammer Dr. Alan Mendelsohn were raising money for the party to maintain political control in Florida. 

Democrats: McCollum's role in RPOF tainted, special prosecutor needed

Given Attorney General Bill McCollum's close ties to the GOP controversy, Democrats are now calling on Gov. Charlie Crist to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the secret contracts and accusations of misused money.

"Exactly what did Bill McCollum know about Jim Greer's secret sweet-heart deal to leave this job and precisely when didn't McCollum know it?" asked Democratic Party Chairman Karen Thurman in statement.

Thurman suggests McCollum has a conflict of interest that questions his "motivation not to investigator or get all the facts out on the table. Only an independent investigation by a special prosecutor can legitimately determine if crimes were committed by Republican politicians and officials."

Greer's term as head of the Republican Party of Florida officially ends Saturday when party activists will select a new chairman. But questions about party spending and contracts persist.

See full release below.