Gov. Charlie Crist was one of the few Republicans to support President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package this year.

He remains divided from many in his party as he reports that the stimulus plan is “working very well” in Florida (although he attributes this point of view to his stimulus czar, Don Winstead).

But Crist is not ready to get behind a second round of stimulus, which his likely Democratic U.S. Senate opponent, Kendrick Meek, says will be needed.

Listen to Crist here.

A group of four House Republicans – Chris Dorworth of Lake Mary, Steve Crisafulli of Merritt Island, Mike Horner of Kissimmee and Matt Hudson of Naples – is asking state CFO Alex Sink to call an independent investigation of her use of the state plane.

Sink has ordered her office to conduct a “thorough and immediate review” into whether she misused the state plane to pick up and drop off family members. Sink reimbursed the state for the cost of those flights before questions were raised.

But the lawmakers say the review might not be good enough. In this letter, they cite a story in which Sink reacts to a Miami Herald investigation of financier Allen Stanford, who struck a deal with state regulators to sell investments and move vast amounts of money offshore without government oversight.

Sink said the Office of Regulation should not investigate itself and the lawmakers are asking Sink to apply the same criteria to her office.

“If it’s good for the goose, it should be good for the gander,” Dorworth said in an interview.

Sink’s office responded that they had not yet received the letter and noted that she was “proactive” in paying for her family members to ride on the plane,

Dortworth, meanwhile, said he was not interested in seeking a similar investigation into Republican Bill McCollum’s use of the state plane. Sink and McCollum are expected to face one another in a 2010 race for governor.

(more…)

Republican Gov. Charlie Crist said he will indeed attend the Florida Press Association/Florida Society of Newspaper Editors convention tomorrow in Palm Beach – but only for the awards luncheon. (His special counsel on open government, Pat Gleason, is being honored.)

Crist, however, will not stick around for the afternoon to appear with his U.S. Senate primary opponent Marco Rubio at the groups’ afternoon Q&A for statewide candidates.

Asked when he would debate Rubio, Crist today said, “I have no idea.”

Asked today about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s comment that it would be “politics as usual” to finish out her term as a lame duck, Gov. Charlie Crist replied, “Is that what she said?”

“She did what’s right, obviously, for her family and, you know, her circumstances and I respect that,” Crist told reporters today. “Whatever is best for her is what she should do. And I’m sure that’s what she feels she’s doing.”

Does this help or hurt her in future campaigns?

“I have no idea. I honestly don’t,” Crist said

It’s taken seven years and as many court challenges, but the Florida Supreme Court today cleared the way for the Hometown Democracy proposed constitutional amendment to be on next year’s November ballot.

The court at last accepted that the cost of the citizens initiative, the brainchild of West Palm Beach land use lawyer Lesley Blackner and Tallahassee lawyer Ross Burnaman, is “indeterminate.”

The proposal would require that citizens approve changes to local comprehensive growth management plans before they can go into effect.

Two previous financial estimates conducted by state economists predicted the change would cost “millions of dollars” statewide, a premise the court rejected because that assumed that local governments would schedule special elections for the comp plans referenda.

Critics, including the Florida Chamber of Commerce and business-backed associations, of the Hometown Democracy initiative charge that the proposal will effectively halt growth around the state. They’ve got their own ballot initiative that would require allow voters to challenge comp plan amendments – but only if 10 percent of affected voters sign petitions at the local supervisors of elections office within 60 days of the changes being approved by local governments.

That proposal is still hundreds of thousands signatures short of the required 676,811 needed by Feb. 1 to get on the ballot.

A special primary election is slated for Aug. 25 to fill outgoing state House Rep. Priscilla Taylor’s District 84 seat.

Gov. Charlie Crist set the special primary date and a general special election for Sept. 22 to replace the West Palm beach Democrat, whom he appointed to replace Palm Beach County Commissioner Addie Greene.

Democrats Mack Bernard and Hank Harper, a former state representative, have already filed to fill Taylor’s seat next year, when term limits would have forced Taylor out of office.

The third campaign finance announcement in minutes: Senate President Jeff Atwaters’s state CFO campaign. Atwater is facing state Rep. Pat Patterson, R-DeLand, in a primary.

Gov. Charlie Crist announced today that he raised $4.3 million in 50 days for his U.S. Senate campaign. That’s more than U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, the Democratic frontrunner has in six months and dwarfs the $340,000 collected by Crist’s primary opponent, former House Speaker Marco Rubio.

The campaign says it hasn’t figured out how much is for the primary campaign and how much is for the general. But what is clear is this shatters Republican Mel Martinez’s Florida fundraising record in Florida of $1.75 million $2.3 million for a U.S. Senate race in a single quarter.

Delray Beach activist Nick Loeb said today he raised $225,955 in his bid to replace state Sen. Jeff Atwater, a North Palm Beach Republican (and sitting Senate president) who is leaving office to run for state chief financial officer.

Loeb is in a GOP primary against state Reps. Carl Domino of Jupiter and Ellyn Bogdanoff of Fort Lauderdale. State campaign finance reports are due on Friday.

Loeb also said he refunded a total of $2,500 to six people who requested their money when he changed races. Loeb initially announced his candidacy for House District 87 to replace term-limited Rep. Adam Hasner, but changed his mind when Atwater announced he would be vacating seat.

Florida Atlantic University President Frank Brogan will apply to be the next chancellor of the state university system.

Brogan, in a message to FAU faculty, staff and students this morning, said he has been approached by many “influential” people to apply for the position and decided to do so after much reflection and discussion with his family.

More from The Post’s Kimberly Miller here.

State Sen. Dave Aronberg’s campaign for Florida’s top law-enforcement job is getting fund-raising help from an ex-convict whose latest arrest came as recently as last year.

Jeffrey R. Gibson, a Jupiter boxing instructor and partner in a hormone therapy product Web site, recently recruited contributors to a Palm Beach Gardens dinner to pump up the senator’s run for attorney general. “We need somebody we know and trust in this office,” Gibson wrote in an e-mail to invitees.

But court records from Arkansas, California and South Florida show the champion kickboxer-turned-businessman has an arrest record that doesn’t match the squeaky-clean image a law enforcement candidate might want from someone publicly supporting his campaign and soliciting contributions.

Read the rest of Post reporter Tony Doris’ story here.

A criminal investigation of former state House Speaker Ray Sansom has recovered e-mails that a state college failed to release as part of a public record requests from The Palm Beach Post.

The e-mails were among nearly two dozen that Northwest Florida State College officials recently turned over to Leon County State Attorney Willie Meggs but failed to release to media outlets that requested the same documents. In November, The Post asked the college to provide all communications between Richburg and Sansom from 2007 and 2008.

Similarly, The Post reported last week that Meggs’ case file includes e-mails to and from Sansom that House officials insisted did not exist.

More here.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush told the L.A. Times in January that he was impressed with President Obama and called the Democrat “smart, disciplined, not rash.”

But in an interview with Esquire magazine published today, Bush accuses Obama of having a “secret plan” he kept from voters in the campaign:

“He would not have gotten elected if he’d said, “My idea is to create a $1.8 trillion deficit for the next fiscal year. My idea is to spend $750 billion [the president's budget estimate puts this figure at $630 billion] over the next ten years on a government-sponsored, government-subsidized health-care policy. My idea is to create a massive cap-and-trade system [based on the idea] that CO2 is [a] pollutant and we need to tax it in a massive way to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.” … Had he said what he was going to do as a candidate, [Obama] would have lost.”

Bush goes on to compare approval ratings of his brother, former President George W. Bush, and Obama.

(more…)

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson is backing President Barack Obama’s efforts to stop oil “speculators” from driving up gas prices but doesn’t want him to stop there.

Federal regulators are considering curbing the sales of energy futures by investors and are trying to shed light on swapping of contracts outside by hedge fund managers and traders.

The administration should go further and return the law to pre-Enron era that left a “loophole,” Nelson wrote to in a letter to Obama today.

“We shouldn’t be allowing profiteers to flip oil contracts like condominiums,” he wrote.

Nelson’s filed a bill to close the loophole and require that all energy futures be traded on regulated exchanges like the New York Mercantile Exchange.

A pet Burmese python broke out of a glass cage last week and strangled to death a 2-year-old girl in her Florida bedroom.

The tragedy was the latest and most graphic example of a problem that has plagued the state for more than a decade: a nonnative species that is wreaking havoc in the Everglades, threatening the environment, native wildlife and people.

“It’s just a matter of time before one of these snakes gets to a visitor in the Florida Everglades,” said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.

Nelson has introduced a bill to ban imports of the snakes, after years of trying to persuade federal wildlife officials to restrict their entry into the country. (more…)

A coalition of cities filed a lawsuit against Gov. Charlie Crist and the leaders of the House and Senate over a controversial growth management bill.

The suit charges that SB 360, which eliminates the requirement that roads must be built before development can occur, creates an “unfunded mandate” by forcing local governments to foot the bill for infrastructure like roads.

The lawsuit was filed in Leon County by Jamie Cole, the lawyer who won a lawsuit against the legislature last year over a property tax amendment. The Florida Supreme Court tossed the legislature’s proposed amendment, spurring a special session that resulted in “Amendment 1,” which voters approved.

Read today’s lawsuit here.

The Florida House & Senate leaders said this morning they’ll hold committee meetings during these weeks this Fall:

· October 5-9, 2009

· November 2-6, 2009

· December 7-11, 2009

Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Marco Rubio announced today he collected $340,000 in contributions during the second quarter. More than 40 percent of that total came from online contributions. Rubio said he received a donation from each of the 50 states.

A quick note on that total: it’s more than the $255,000 he raised in the exploratory phase of his campaign in the first quarter, but less than the $363,000 that Democrat Dan Gelber raised for his U.S. Senate campaign during the first three months of the year. Gelber, who was in the state legislative session for a month of that time, was competing for dollars against U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek. Meek reported $1.5 million during the same time and Gelber later stepped away from the race and is now running for state attorney general. (Meek told us last night he’ll report about $1.2 million for the second quarter)

Of course, Rubio is running against a popular sitting governor, which makes his task considerably more difficult. (more…)

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin phoned former Vice President Dick Cheney, Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist in May, ABC News reported this morning.

Spokesmen for Palin and Crist declined to comment on the topic for conversation.

“GOV: Telephone Call Into Governor Crist,” reads a May 4 entry in Palin’s schedule. A spokeswoman for Crist said she did not know who had initiated contact, or what the subject of conversation was to have been, but the two did not speak. “It was a courtesy call. They know each other, both being governors,” said Crist spokeswoman Erin Isaac.

Meanwhile, check out our new topic in The Forum, which asks the state’s political strategists to make sense out of Palin’s surprising resignation.

U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, above left, said tonight that the country will probably need another round of stimulus money before long.

“There is more that needs to be done,” Meek said in an interview.

Meek, the frontrunner for the Democratic U.S Senate nomination, was responding to a story in the Palm Beach Post on Sunday that showed Florida is receiving fewer stimulus dollars per-person than any state in the country. Meek said he was planning to review the numbers when he returns to Washington.

“I’m going to pay very close attention to that,” Meek said. “It’s definitely worth looking at and seeing if there are future stimulus packages that Florida gets its fair share.”

Meek said the economy was not turning around as fast as Democrats had hoped. He said plenty of jobs had been saved with stimulus money, but not enough new jobs have been created.

(more…)