Rick Scott's cash-hauling binge, $4.6m in 3 months, is just a warm-up

@MarcACaputo

Remember when we first told you that Rick Scott and Republicans are ready to spend "as much or more" than $100 million on his election? Consider this:

TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Rick Scott’s poll numbers remain stubbornly low, but by another measure he looks much stronger: raising money for his re-election campaign.

Scott’s political machine Let’s Get to Work raised a whopping $4.6 million in the first three months of 2013, raking in cash at the rate of $50,000 every day while chasing a goal of up to $100 million to fund his 2014 re-election campaign.

It’s an unheard of sum even in Florida politics, where money has always been critical.

Individual checks of $10,000 or more flood Scott’s campaign daily, many from businesses and individuals with a heavy stake in legislation, from Blue Cross Blue Shield to U.S. Sugar to an array of law firms with rosters of lobbying clients at the Capitol.

Pinellas County moneyman Bill Edwards stroked Scott a $500,000 check last week.

And while lawmakers are not allowed to accept donations during session because of the appearance of a crass quid pro quo, no such rule limits a governor’s ability to raise money, even though Scott’s veto pen makes him the final gatekeeper on all legislative decisions.

more here from Steve Bousquet

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/03/3321248/gov-rick-scott-raising-big-bucks.html#storylink=cpy

Atlantic/BBC highlights FL drug-war case, calls for Rick Scott pardon

The Atlantic:

John Horner, a 46-year-old fast-food restaurant worker, lost his eye in a 2000 accident and was prescribed painkillers. Years later, he met and befriended a guy who seemed to be in pain himself. His new friend asked if he could buy some of Horner's pain pills. Naturally, the friend was a police informant. Prosecutors in Central Florida say Horner was ultimately paid $1,800 for pills. "My public defender told me, 'They got you dead to rights,'" he said. "So I thought, 'OK, I guess there's no need taking this to trial.'" His story is recounted in a BBC News Service story about the problematic use of informants by U.S. law-enforcement agencies....

Prosecutors offered to shave years off his sentence if he became an informant himself and successfully helped send five others to prison on 25 year terms. He tried. But "Horner failed to make cases against drug traffickers," says the BBC. "As a result, he was sentenced to the full 25 years in October last year and is now serving his sentence in Liberty Correctional Institution."...

How about a pardon, Governor Rick Scott?

Full piece here

Comparing the Bean and Negron alternatives to Medicaid expansion

Sen. Aaron Bean has come up with a bare-bones approach to helping Florida's uninsured that he hopes his colleagues in both the Senate and the House will rally around.

The proposal, SB 7144, is one of two alternatives to Medicaid expansion up for debate in the Senate. The other, SB 1816 by Sen. Joe Negron, has already received the support of senators, Gov. Rick Scott and the medical community. But it could be a tough sell in the House because it requires Florida to accept roughly $55 billion in federal aid.

Bean's plan will be formally introduced during Tuesday's Health Policy Committee meeting. As a primer, here is a comparison of the two proposals.

In a nutshell

Negron plan: Creates a new state-based health insurance program for the uninsured. Appears to comply with the federal health care law, making Florida eligible to receive associated funding.

Bean plan: Creates a state program to help the uninsured pay for various health care options by subsidizing the costs. Does not appear to comply with the federal health care law, meaning Florida would not be eligible for associated funding.

What it's called

Negron plan: Healthy Florida program

Bean plan: Health Choice Plus program

Brevard Clerk files lawsuit against company brought to Fla. with economic incentives

A company that was hailed by Enterprise Florida and Gov. Rick Scott when it decided to move to Florida last year has wasted no time getting into legal trouble. 

The company, BlueWare Inc., is being sued by the Brevard County Clerk of Court after a $8.6 million contract has gone sour. 

The company is supposed to digitize millions of pages of records for the clerk’s office under a five-year, $8.6 million contract. But recently elected Clerk of Court Scott Ellis slammed the contract as corrupt and filed a lawsuit last week to recoup millions of dollars. 

“The entire bidding, selection and negotiation process regarding the (Invitation to Negotiate) was fundamentally flawed and against public policy because BlueGEM was intricately involved in the preparation of the ITN itself and essentially drafted the same,” the lawsuit reads. 

Ellis put it more plainly in a recent interview: “It was a sham bid.” 

Ellis blames his predecessor, who lost a 2012 primary race for reelection, for entering into the poorly written contract and paying BlueWare millions of dollars upfront before the work could be done. 

Ellis said BlueWare’s vice president was a former business partner with the clerk. 

Indeed, a flag-raising 2012 internal memo from the clerk’s legal counsel stated: “There may be a civilian insider who will gain a benefit from the awarding of this contract.” 

According to the lawsuit, two other companies submitted bids for the digitization contract and would have charged less. BlueWare executives were allowed to participate in the selection process and the company was ultimately selected, the lawsuit states. 

Executives at BlueWare could not be immediately reached for comment. 

The company received incentives awards from the state worth $1.3 million, including a $560,000 cash grant for start-up costs.

Florida unemployment drops, Scott releases new job-creation chart on Easter egg

Via Doug Hanks

 Job growth continues in South Florida, despite thinned-out payrolls in local government that now serve as the main anchor to a full recovery in hiring for the region.

The February employment report generally brought good news statewide, as a recovery that once seemed at risk of stalling has appeared to regain steam. Broward and Miami-Dade added about 27,000 positions to payrolls, though Miami-Dade is down 5,400 jobs at the local-government level.

But there were two signs of concern in Miami-Dade’s report. The first: unemployment is on the rise again, leaping from 9.3 percent in January to 9.7 percent in February, the highest in 12 months. The numbers are seasonally adjusted, and considered a reliable barometer of month-to-month changes in hiring.

Part of the reason behind the spike looks encouraging: Miami-Dade has about 7,000 more job seekers in February than it did in January. That’s generally a positive trend, since it shows optimism toward hiring conditions. But the same survey of households found only a tiny uptick in people describing themselves as employed: up less than 1,000 in Miami-Dade.

Statewide, unemployment inched down to 7.7 percent from a revised 7.9 percent in January. Both employment and the labor force grew in Florida. Broward receives only raw unemployment numbers, and its jobless rate went from 6.7 percent to 6.2 percent. That’s the lowest since October 2008.

Read more here: 

 Gov. Rick Scott took time Friday to tout the state's falling unemployment rate, in a new "It's Working" video. 

"2013 has been a great year for Florida families," he said. 

See the video below:

 

UPDATED On eve of Obama visit, Scott seeks feds' port money

On the eve of President Barack Obama's scheduled visit to Port Miami on Friday, Gov. Rick Scott criticized the president for being "late to the party" on seaport improvements. The governor said the state is awaiting tens of millions of dollars in promised federal money for improvements in Miami and Jacksonville.

In the past three years, Scott said, Florida taxpayers have invested $425 million in seaport-related improvements, notably the dredging of the Miami port channel, to improve international trade with Latin America and Asia and prepare for the expansion of the Panama Canal.

"We could not wait for the federal government to come to the table with their share of the project," Scott said. "When President Obama comes to the port of Miami tomorrow, we would like him to commit the federal government's reimbursement of $75 million Florida taxpayer dollars that we have spent on the federal government's share of the dregding project."

Scott said the feds also owe Florida for $36 million in improvements to a turning notch at JaxPort, the seaport in Jacksonville, to accommodate larger container ships and cargo volumes.  

The governor, who is up for re-election next year, has made port funding a cornerstone of his job creation efforts in the state. On a conference call with reporters, Scott was joined by Port Miami director Bill Johnson, president of the Florida Ports Council. 

UPDATE: A White House spokeswoman said the administration did help fund a $340 million loan for the port's tunnel project, and it awarded a $23 million grant to restore freight rail service between the port and the Florida East Coast Railway. The administration also put the dredging project on an expedited permitting timeline last summer.

"The President believes that the Port of Miami can enhance the competitiveness of workers and businesses throughout the region and in the nation as a whole," spokeswoman Joanna Rosholm said. 

-- STEVE BOUSQUET AND PATRICIA MAZZEI

Digital Domain CEO hits back at damning IG report, blames Scott-Crist politics

Digital Domain debacle, take two.

The former CEO of Digital Domain is hitting back with an alternative script after an Inspector General report slammed the process that helped the now-defunct Port St. Lucie film studio get $20 million in taxpayer grants. 

John Textor said the claim by Gov. Rick Scott and Enterprise Florida that the Digital Domain deal was some kind of widely discredited proposal that had been blacklisted by Enterprise Florida, only to be slipped into the budget later by aggressive lawmakers and Gov. Charlie Crist—is complete fiction.

In fact, Textor said, Enterprise Florida actually recommended that Florida taxpayers chip in about $11.4 million to help Digital Domain bring jobs to the state.

An email Textor provided to the Herald/Times shows that an Enterprise Florida representative wrote Textor on March 18, 2009, saying that the organization would “present to [the Office of Tourism, Trade and Economic Development] relative to a one-time award of $6.1 million” and other awards for a “total potential FL economic incentive package” of $11.4 million. The email, not included in the IG report, said Digital Domain would be required to create 300 jobs. 

EFI never went through with a recommendation to OTTED (which is required for  economic incentives grants to be awarded), but Textor has a very different explanation for why that did not happen.

According to Enterprise Florida’s account, the organization refused to support funding because Digital Domain’s finances were “extremely weak” and its business model was suspect.  Textor has a different story, and questions Enterprise Florida’s credibility by pointing out that the organization believed Digital Domain’s business plan was strong enough to receive an $11.4 million incentives package. 

Textor believes that he and others are being thrown under the bus as a way for Gov. Rick Scott to attack the Crist administration, which was in charge when Digital Domain received funding by getting special language tacked onto the state's budget.

Bill Nelson has 'no intention' of running for gov, stays mum on Crist

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson said he is not planning to run against Gov. Rick Scott in the 2014 governor's race but stopped short of completely ruling it out.

"I'm not planning to run for governor," he said Wednesday in Tallahassee. "I have no intention of running for governor. I've got plenty to do as serving as the senator of this state, and that's why I'm here today, in my role as senator."

Will you say that you won't run for governor? a reporter asked. "I said what I said," Nelson replied

Jesus stomping incident at FAU draws Rick Scott rebuke

UPDATE: A spokeswoman says the State University System has been paying close attention to the events at Florida Atlantic University but isn't ready to address the governor's letter.

"The State University System prides itself not only on its commitment to academic freedom, but at the same time, its awesome responsibility to the people it serves," wrote spokeswoman Kim Wilmath. "We are gratified to know that FAU has apologized for any offense the exercise has caused and has pledged never to use this exercise again. Clearly, there were things the university could have done differently by its own acknowledgement."

ORIGINAL POST: Florida Atlantic University has apologized for a controversial classroom lesson that led critics to accuse the school of religious intolerance. But that didn't stop Gov. Rick Scott for stepping into the fray today.

Scott penned a letter to State University System Chancellor Frank Brogan demanding an investigation. "I am requesting a report of the incident, how it was handled and a statement of the university's policies to ensure this type of 'lesson' will not occur again," Scott wrote.

Earlier this month, a FAU instructor told students in an intercultural communications class to write the word "Jesus" on a piece of paper, throw it on the floor and stomp on it. A student later complained he was thrown out of class when he refused to participate.

The university initially defended the assignment, saying it was supposed to make students uncomfortable as they dealt with the power of words. Students were expected to hesitate and the lesson was intended to expose the emotional connection to cultural symbols, according to the Sun-Sentinel's overview of the lesson plan written by a professor in Wisconsin.

The incident became fodder on blogs and among conservatives who questioned whether such liberties would have been taken with other religions.

Rick Scott unveils first 2014 campaign ad

Gov. Rick Scott is officially in reelection mode.

Scott unveiled a high-quality campaign video on his Facebook page Monday called "first time" (nope, not like writer/actress Lena Dunham cheekily describing her first time voting for Barack Obama).

"This is the first time in five years that our unemployment rate has been below the national average," Scott says, "but we're not stopping there."

In the ad, Scott repeats talking points about the poor shape of the economy "in the four years before I became governor" (listening, Charlie Crist?), compared to the state's private sector growth (+282,000 jobs) and declining unemployment rate (now 7.8 percent) since he took office.

The scene: The March 18 press conference at Mitsubishi Power Systems in Orlando, where Scott is surrounded by a crew of approving employees in T-shirts and safety goggles as he talks into a mic. The unnamed facility manager tells the camera "it's unbelievable" how much better shape the state is in these days, and that he has hired 150 new employees. Another man says, "Gov. Scott gets it."

Gone is his 2010 mantra "let's get to work." Scott's new slogan, to the surprise of no one who watched his State of the State address or heard him speak this month, is "it's working." The video is hosted at ItsWorkingFlorida.com and paid for by his political committee, Let's Get to Work.