Bill Nelson goes back to court Wednesday, challenging Florida’s election signature match law

 

Sen. Bill Nelson and his attorneys will head back to U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida Wednesday afternoon in a fight for a ruling that would require ballots with “signature mismatches” be counted.

Nelson is suing the Florida Secretary of State and demanding the state count every mail-in and provisional ballot deemed to have a so-called “signature mismatch.” He also requests Saturday's deadline to canvass ballots be extended until the legal matter is resolved.

The threshold for a recount will be determined by the number of ballots reported by the canvassing board by noon Saturday. Those returns are what will determine recounts in not just the Senate race, but potentially the race for governor, agriculture commissioner and a smattering of statehouse seats.

In the complaint, his attorney wrote that by rejecting and discarding ballots with signature mismatches, the local canvassing boards are disenfranchising the voters who cast them. The complaint accused local canvassing boards of engaging “demonstrably standardless, inconsistent, and unreliable” process that has been shown to result in the “disproportionate rejection of [vote-by-mail] and provisional ballots cast by ethnic and racial minorities, as well as young, first-time voters.”

 

Mohammed Jazil, who is representing Secretary Ken Detzner, said in a hearing Friday that by changing the noon deadline, it would cause problems with the counties that have already submitted their unofficial returns.

He said that by 4 p.m. Friday, 52 of the state's 67 counties have already provided their returns to the state. 

"The counties would have to undo the counts they have already submitted and redo the counts," Jazil said."The recount would have to stop and then restart."

Judge Robert Hinkle, who is overseeing the case, said in scheduling hearing Friday that he doesn’t plan on rushing to make a ruling before noon Saturday.

“The subject this endeavor is to get this right,” he said in the hearing. “It’s far less urgent to have a ruling by noon tomorrow. It’s far more important to do this well.”

The state wants to defend the legality of the statute on signature matching, but Nelson’s side "wants a resolution as quickly possible.”

Nelson, who trails Gov. Rick Scott with a slim 0.18 percent margin, believes the final vote total will continue to move in his favor before a recount is called Saturday.

His election lawyer, Marc Elias, said on a conference call Thursday morning that by the end of the month, the senator will be preparing for a fourth term in Washington.

Broward County was still counting early voting and vote-by-mail ballots Friday. Nelson received 68.9 percent of the votes there in the primary. In Palm Beach County, where Nelson received 58.4 percent of the votes, the canvassing board was still counting vote-by-mail ballots.

Dinesh D'Souza mocked Parkland survivors. Now he's speaking at a Florida GOP event.

@alextdaugherty

When Parkland students traveled to Tallahassee a week after the nation's deadliest high school shooting to demand a ban on assault weapons, lawmakers from both parties listened to them.

Conservative commentator and author Dinesh D'Souza chose to make fun of them.

"Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs," D'Souza tweeted in response to a photo of emotional students when an assault weapons ban failed in the Florida House. "Adults 1, kids 0," he added. 

On Monday the Republican Party of Florida announced that D'Souza, who apologized for his comments, will speak at the 2018 Sunshine Summit in Orlando on June 28 and 29.

D'Souza, a conservative lightning rod who spent eight months in a halfway house for making $20,000 in illegal campaign contributions, said the grief of Parkland students inside the Florida Capitol was staged for media coverage.

"Genuine grief I can empathize with," he tweeted. "But grief organized for the cameras—politically orchestrated grief—strikes me as phony & inauthentic."

The Florida Democratic Party called on the Florida Republican Party to cancel D'Souza's appearance.

"Today, the Republican Party of Florida announced Dinesh D’Souza, Dan Bongino and Kayleigh McEnany as the first three speakers confirmed for the 2018 Sunshine Summit, June 28 and June 29 in Orlando," an email from Florida GOP chairman Blaise Ingoglia said. "We look forward to hearing their message of liberty, opportunity and limited government."

Read more here.

Some Florida Republicans begin push for stricter gun measures

@katieglueck @alextdaugherty

In what could signal the start of a shift in Republican politics, some GOP donors and officials in Florida are urging their political networks to consider some gun control measures and buck their party's longstanding refusal to even engage in the debate.

"I already have impressed upon people I talk to, the way the law is now is incorrect, it's wrong, it's a moral obligation to make certain changes to the law," said Ronald Krongold, a Miami-based board member of the Republican Jewish Coalition, speaking with McClatchy several days after a gunman in Parkland, Florida, killed 17 people in a school shooting. The interview also came hours before President Donald Trump moved to ban "bump stocks," which make semi-automatic weapons shoot much more rapidly.

Krongold said he's not issuing ultimatums, but that “this issue could influence who I support and who I don’t."

Major GOP donor Al Hoffman Jr., also of Florida, went further over the weekend, indicating to top GOP officials there that he would not support candidates or organizations that didn't back a new assault weapons ban, The New York Times reported.

Those remarks come as the Florida legislature scrambles to respond to last week’s shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that resulted in the deaths of 14 students and three faculty members over the course of six minutes. While there appears to be little GOP appetite for banning high-powered assault weapons —on Tuesday, the Florida House voted down a measure to even consider a bill that would ban them — incoming Florida Senate President Bill Galvano, a Republican, is promoting a slate of other ideas. Those include a "gun violence restraining order" which could keep certain at-risk individuals from accessing firearms, as well as raising the age for purchasing and possessing semi-automatic firearms, and banning bump stocks. On the last measure, he has an ally in Trump, who announced Tuesday that he has asked the Justice Department to pursue regulations that would ban bump stocks.

Read more here.

Mike and Karen Pence set sights on Florida

via @adamsmithtimes

Florida will be seeing a lot of the Pences in coming weeks. Second Lady Karen Pence is scheduled to visit FSU to talk about her art therapy initiative. Then on Nov. 2 Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to headline the Republican Party of Florida’s 2017 Statesman Dinner, an annual fundraising event to be held at Disney World.

“The RPOF is excited to welcome Vice President Mike Pence back as our keynote speaker for this year’s Statesman’s Dinner,” said RPOF Chairman Blaise Ingoglia. “Florida was crucial in winning the 2016 election and Vice President Pence was instrumental in rallying the base of our great State. We look forward to yet another enthusiastic message from our VP touting our President’s agenda of prosperity, while catapulting us to victory in 2018!”

The party’s news release said “Pence will deliver the headlining remarks of the night echoing President Trump’s vision for a stronger, bolder nation, and rally attendees for a successful 2018 midterm elections.”

Tickets for non-Republican Executive Committee members cost $200, and the dinner will be at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa in Orlando. More information here.

Trump's former Florida campaign chair is running for RNC committeewoman post

@alextdaugherty

Donald Trump's former Florida campaign director Karen Giorno is running to be the National Republican Committeewoman for Florida, as former committeewoman Sharon Day will step down to become the U.S. ambassador to Costa Rica. 

Girono was Trump's Florida director during the 2016 presidential primary from October 2015 to March 2016. After Trump secured the GOP nomination Giorno worked as a chief strategist in Florida for the campaign against Hillary Clinton from July to September 2016 before taking a role in Trump's national leadership team in New York during the final weeks of the campaign. 

"In these challenging times, our core beliefs are being tested every day and I intend to fight with the same passion, energy, and drive used to help guide the President to his historic victory in the Florida primary, the Florida General Election and across this great nation," Giorno said in a statement. I have the organizational, strategic, and fundraising skills honed over three decades in politics, that will help advance our Conservative Agenda and lead the way to new Republican victories in Florida and throughout the 50 states." 

 

 

How Richard Corcoran prepares for a possible 2018 run for governor

House Speaker Richard Corcoran says he won't announce whether he'll run for governor until seven months from now, after the 2018 legislative session. But the Pasco County Republican is laying the groundwork for a candidacy in a field where Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam has a big head start and where Senate Appropriations Chairman Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, has entered the field.

He may run and he may not, but Corcoran, 52, who began his rise through Republican ranks as a campaign strategist, has the instincts of an operative and the travel schedule of a full-time candidate. Whether dining with donors at Tampa's Capital Grillle or borrowing lobbyist friend Bill Rubin's Fort Lauderdale conference room to huddle with consultants, Corcoran keeps much of his political activity under the radar and does not publicize what he's doing.

Read more here about the four signs of a budding candidacy.

Tepid 2017 fundraising so far for Florida Republican and Democratic parties

via @adamsmithtimes

The latest quarterly campaign finance reports highlight the weakened state of both the Republican Party of Florida and the Florida Democratic Party in the era of super PACs and other political committees.

This is nothing new for the long-struggling Democrats, but the party had hoped newly elected Florida Democratic Chairman Stephen Bittel would prove to be a champion fundraiser. No sign of that yet. Even with Bittel personally stroking a $100,000 check to the party at the very end of the fundraising quarter, Democrats raised just $844,000. In the same quarter following the last presidential election cycle, the party raised more than $1.1 million.

The Republican Party of Florida, which Gov. Rick Scott has more or less abandoned to focus on his own "Let's Get to Work" political committee, reported raising $2.46-million in the first three months of the year. In that same quarter four years ago the state GOP raised $5.37 million.

The biggest check-writers to the state Republican Party included the Republican State Leadership Committee, which helps elect conservatives to state offices and donated $125,000 and the "Florida Roundtable" political committee of Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran, who is the only top Florida politician helping bankroll the state party.

Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, the all but announced candidate for governor in 2018 -- facing a possible primary challenge from Corcoran -- is focused on his own "Florida Grown" political committee, which has about $7.7 million on hand. Republican state senators also have their own committee separate from the state GOP and raised $1.43 million in the first three months of 2017.

--ADAM C. SMITH, Tampa Bay Times

Florida GOP wants to pay reelected chairman big bucks

via @adamsmithtimes

To the victor go the spoils.

Shortly after overwhelmingly re-electing state Rep. Blaise Ingoglia as chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, the party's board members this weekend voted behind closed doors to reward him financially as well. Ingoglia had forgone a salary as party chairman after winning election in 2015, but board members voted Saturday that he should not only receive the $115,000 annual pay in 2017 and 2018, but also receive $230,000 in back pay for 2015 and 2016.

"We did the impossible by Republicans taking Florida. All the way down the line we were successful, and it was because of all the programs that Blaise put together over the last two years," said Nancy Riley, a state committeewoman from Pinellas said of the vote.

Just because the party authorized the money doesn't mean he'll accept it, Ingoglia told The Tampa Bay Times.

"While I am thankful that my executive board recognized my hard work and dedication to our party this past election cycle in wanting to give me back pay for deferring my salary, I have not yet made a decision whether to take it," he said in a text.

National Committeewoman Sharon Day, who is also co-chairman of the RNC, voted against the authorization, which she said came as a surprise to her.

"He campaigned (for re-election) saying that he hadn't taken a salary in two years. It was just my personal opinon that he made a choice not to take a salary," said Day, who was one of only two people to vote against the payments. 

"I think we had new members that didn't understand what was going on, and Blaise was in the room, so that made it awkward," Day said.

Republicans make final pitch to lead state party

@JeremySWallace

On the eve of Republican activists deciding who will lead the Florida GOP for the next two years, the two candidates battling for the helm were leaving nothing to chance on Friday night in Orlando.

Current Republican Party of Florida chairman Blaise Ingoglia jumped from conference room to conference room at the Rosen Centre Hotel trying to shoot down what he called false rumors that he would use the party to help Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran if he decided to run for governor in 2018 in a field that could include current Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam. Never mind that neither Corcoran, a Pasco Republican, or Putnam, a Polk County Republican have declared to run. Still, Ingoglia said he felt compelled to address the rumors that he said are flying around in emails.

“I just want to set the record straight here,” Ingoglia, a Hernando County Republican, told a room full of county Republican Party chairs. “The Republican Party will remain neutral and I will remain neutral in the primary as I always do.”

Coming off a year in which Republicans dominated Democrats at the ballot box, you would think Ingoglia’s position would be secure. But Sarasota Republican Christian Ziegler has aggressively campaigned against Ingoglia, saying the party needs to be more unified going into 2018 when the governor’s race will be on the ballot. Since Ingoglia first one the position in 2015, Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Senate have worked more independently from the RPOF. Ziegler said if he wins Saturday morning’s election, he’d work to bring all the different segments of the RPOF back together.

"It’s a shame" that the governor isn’t more involved with the party, Ziegler told the same group of Republican Party chairs a few minutes after Ingoglia addressed the same group.

Later, before another group of activists in another conference room crowd, Ziegler emphasized that the has a “great relationship with the governor” and talks to him regularly.

Scott has not publicly backed either candidate for the post.

On Saturday morning, both candidates will get one more chance to appeal to party activists before a final vote is taken for the position which pays $115,000 a year.

The state leader is picked by county party leaders from each of the 67 counties. Each county has the potential of 3 votes, plus the governor, the House Speaker and Senate President each have 10 voters. In addition, Republican members of Congress from Florida, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, and the four elected cabinet members all get a vote.

The intriguing subplots -- featuring Trump and Breitbart -- of the race for Florida GOP chairman

via @adamsmithtimes

Florida Republicans will elect their party chairman on Saturday and, knowing current Chairman Blaise Ingoglia knack for whipping and counting votes, I'd be surprised if Sarasota State Committeeman Christian Ziegler knocks him off. But state Rep. Ingoglia is not a lock, does face a serious challenge, and the race has some pretty juicy undercurrents and sub plots thanks to Ingoglia's second job as a member of the Florida House.

As a state Representative, Ingoglia is widely viewed as House Speaker "Richard Corcoran's guy." And Corcoran, fairly or not, is viewed as the de facto state GOP boss. That's especially true since Gov. Rick Scott pretty much disowned the Republican Party of Florida after its leaders elected Ingoglia party chairman, rather than his preferred candidate. Neither the governor nor the Florida Senate nor any Cabinet members is aggressively raising money for the Republican Party of Corcoran/Ignolia.

That's why this Florida GOP chairman's race at least symbolically represents several intra-party proxy battles:

**Scott vs. Corcoran (though there is no sign Scott is actively helping Ziegler).

**Likely gubernatorial candidate Adam Putnam vs. potential gubernatorial candidate Corcoran.

**Scott vs. Marco Rubio. Rubio endorsed Ingoglia, while Scott has stayed officially neutral. Who really leads the Florida GOP today, the senator working well with the state party and could challenge President Trump in 2020 or the strong Trump supporter likely 2018 senate candidate who relies on his own political committee?

**Donald Trump, Scott vs. the GOP establishment. Corcoran was vocal early on with his contempt for "repugnant" President-elect Trump, and Ingoglia certainly kept his distance from Trump, regularly refusing to discuss his party's nominee publicly. Trump himself was mistrustful of Ingoglia during Florida's March, 2016 primary.