What was supposed to be a town hall forum on President Barack Obama’s health care reform plan this evening turned instead into a shouting match, complete with shoving and scuffles.
The forum featured Tampa legislators U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor and state Rep. Betty Reed and was scheduled to start at 6 p.m. It ended about 7:15 p.m. with Castor only able to say a few words, most of which were inaudible because of the shouting from protestors.
… There were at least two scuffles between protestors trying to enter and organizers manning the doors. One of those involved in a scuffle, Randy Arthur, of Oldsmar said he was injured by those manning the doors and said he would file a police report.
He and his wife, Kathy, were outside the meeting room when organizers tried to close the doors. Randy Arthur and others tried to stop them “and he didn’t give up,” Kathy Arthur said.
Randy Arthur, who owns an air conditioning service company, later talked to police officers, his knit shirt ripped and a few scratches visible on his chest. “They slammed him into the wall,” Kathy Arthur said.
Meanwhile, a Web site used by one group of Obama critics, the Tampa 9-12 Project, has messages posted by folks who said they witnessed the mayhem:
“Freedom loving patriots celebrated liberty by knocking down a disabled woman and starting a fist fight with someone. I feel sorry for the people who went there to learn, whether it was to support or criticize. Too bad they weren’t allowed to speak.”
Florida ranks last among all states in spending its share of highway money from the U.S. economic stimulus plan, a congressional committee said on Thursday.
In a letter to Florida Governor Charlie Crist, the committee’s chairman, Rep. James Oberstar, wrote that as of June 30, Florida had begun construction on highway projects totaling only 2 percent of the $1.346 billion set aside for it in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
“I strongly urge you to refocus your efforts to implement the Recovery Act and use the available funds to create and sustain family-wage jobs,” said Oberstar, who heads the House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
Gov. Charlie Crist today gave approval to his “dear friend” Frank Brogan taking over the state university system. “He’s a real state treasure, there’s no question about it.”
“It’s great to be home,” Brogan said at a press event at the governor’s office today.
It was supposed to be a routine public meeting by the staff of U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton.
By the end, The Miami Heraldreports, about 100 protesters besieged Klein’s staff at a north Broward County library on Wednesday, yelling in opposition to Democrats’ health-care reform proposals and even questioing whether President Obama is really a U.S. citizen. (more…)
Republican Gov. Charlie Crist was censured on Saturday by the Volusia County Republican Executive Committee. Read Palm Beach County Republican Jack Furnai’s account here
The move was to embarrass Crist for failing to support local Republican congressional candidates in 2008 and for his embrace of President Obama’s stimulus plan. Although it sounds like the vote mostly embarrassed the county GOP chairman, Joe Stich.
Palm Beach County Republicans will consider a similar censure motion next week. Asked about that vote, Crist implied that he wasn’t concerned about the outcome.
Democratic St. Lucie County Commissioner Chris Craft didn’t mention incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney in his statement Wednesday announcing he’s running for Rooney’s District 16 congressional seat. Rooney didn’t comment on Craft’s announcement, with a spokesman saying the congressman is too busy with his job to focus on 2010 politics.
National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Andy Sere and Florida Democratic Party spokesman Eric Jotkoff, however, served up some harsh commentary.
Democratic St. Lucie County Commissioner Chris Craft this afternoon announced he’s running for the congressional seat of freshman Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney of Tequesta.
Craft’s announcement, rumored for months, came a day sooner than he planned.
A press release scheduled for release Thursday was briefly posted on Craft’s old commission reelection Web site today, then taken down. The National Republican Congressional Committee saw the announcement and a spokesman branded Craft “a job-killing army of one” before the candidate himself had even gone public.
“I’m running for Congress because we need a representative who has shared the struggles of hardworking Floridians and can relate to the people of this district,” said Craft, who pledged to work with Republicans and Democrats as a “moderate voice” in Washington.
Negron: 60 percent of his votes were absentee ballots
Who needs election day?
Not Republican Joe Negron, who capitalized on absentee and early voting on his way to a landslide victory in Tuesday’s special state Senate election.
Before the polls even opened Tuesday morning in Senate District 28, Negron had locked up 20,273 absentee ballots and 1,682 early votes for his race against Democrat Bill Ramos.
That’s more than twice as many votes as Ramos got for the entire election, according to unofficial returns.
In other words, the 11,584 people who cast ballots for Negron at their precincts on Tuesday’s traditional election day could have stayed home and their candidate still would have won by a fat margin.
State Attorney General candidate Dave Aronberg today announced a “Hillsborough County Steering Committee.” The announcement marks the first significant movement into the critical Central Florida area for the Greenacres Democrat.
Aronberg and his primary opponent, fellow state Sen. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, both have strong constituencies in South Florida, which makes securing the Interstate 4 Democrats from Orlando to Tampa pretty important to both campaigns.
So far, Gelber has held an edge in this area of the state if you put anything in endorsements: he was backed by a group of Democrats he once served with in the state House as well as Sen. Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa – the only Dem in the state Senate to publicly weigh in on the race.
The list of Aronberg’s Hillsborough group is after the jump.
Al Cardenas, who was a mentor for former House Speaker Marco Rubio, is backing Rubio’s Republican primary opponent, Gov. Charlie Crist, in the race for U.S. Senate.
From Cardenas:
““I witnessed Charlie’s energy, focus, and leadership as he went on to become our Commissioner of Education and Attorney General. Governor Crist re-energized the state’s top lawyer office and took that momentum to the Governor’s Mansion. He remains one of the most popular governors in our state’s history.”
“I have a long history with Speaker Marco Rubio; personally, professionally, and politically- along with a great respect for his passion and his ability to articulate the conservative principles that we share. I believe Marco has waged a spirited campaign and whichever path Marco chooses he has earned and deserves our respect.”
Cardenas served two terms as Chairman of the Republican Party of Florida under then-Gov. Jeb Bush.
What if all the voters who went to the polls Tuesday and cast ballots for Joe Negron had stayed home instead?
Republican Negron still would have won his special Senate election against Democrat Bill Ramos.
Ramos got 10,260 votes in the Senate District 28 race to replace retiring Ken Pruitt, according to unofficial returns. Negron piled up more votes than that from absentee ballots and early votes cast before the polls opened Tuesday.
Negron got 8,453 absentee votes and 908 early votes in Martin County. He got 1,666 absentees and 143 early votes in Indian River County. That’s 11,170 pre-Tuesday votes from those counties alone. Breakdowns from the three other counties in the district — Palm Beach, St. Lucie and Okeechobee — were not immediately available this morning.
Former Republican state Rep. Joe Negron of Stuart won a lopsided victory in a special state Senate election today to replace retiring Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, in a Treasure Coast-Palm Beach County seat.
Negron beat Democrat Bill Ramos by a 3-to-1 margin in Senate District 28, which includes all of Martin County and parts of Palm Beach, St. Lucie, Indian River and Okeechobee counties.
Negron, 47, will serve the final 15 months of Pruitt’s Senate term and face reelection in 2010.
Go ahead and color Martin County Republican red for Joe Negron in the special Senate District 28 race. With 52 of 52 Martin precincts reporting, Negron got 76 percent against Democrat Bill Ramos.
Still awaiting complete results from the other four counties that have precincts in the district, but it looks like a big win Negron.
Former Republican state Rep. Joe Negron of Stuart has a big lead over Democrat Bill Ramos in early and absentee ballots, early returns show.
Polls closed at 7 p.m. Tallies of early and absentee ballots from Palm Beach, Martin and Indian River counties show Negron with 11,288 votes to 3,362 for Ramos. St. Lucie and Okeechobee county totals weren’t immediately available.
The big lead is a reflection of Negron’s well-financed, well-organized campaign, which targeted absentee voters.
Negron and Ramos are vying to replace retiring state Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, in Republican-leaning Senate District 28.
“The speaker (Larry Cretul) hired me and gave me very simple instructions. He said .. as best as I can remember, ‘Mr. Kahn, I want you to conduct fair, independent and through probable cause investigation. I want a written report with your determination whether probable cause exists to conclude if Representative Sansom violated that rules.’ At that point he shook my hand, stood up and walked out.”
“If nothing else were a factor, the timing of the action of the board of trustees in confirming the hiring of Representative Sansom on the same day that he ascended to the speaker’s chair created an appearance of quid pro quo upon which I found it was reasonable that Miss Smith could base her complaint of diminished respect for the House of Representatives.”
“The precise factual issue that likely will be presented to you … is exactly when Representative Sansom first knew he was creating a $6 million facility that was intended at that time to be used at least some of the time as a hangar Mr. Odom, a constituent with whom Representative Sansom enjoyed long-standing, close, complicated, intertwined relationships.”
A House panel charged with determining whether Republican Rep. Ray Sansom violated the chamber’s ethics rules decided today to hire an independent counsel to present them the facts of the case. But the committee will not meet again until October – after the start of Sansom’s criminal trial.
Porth
Rep. Ari Porth, one of two Democrats on the five-member panel, urged the committee to impose deadlines for their work, noting the ethics complaint was filed in January.
“It’s now early August. I think we need to move forward expeditiously,” Porth said.
But other members warned of interfering with the court case, scheduled to start Sept. 29.
A House special investigator, Stephen Kahn, noted that Sansom referred to the criminal charges when he refused to be interviewed for his report. Kahn wondered aloud whether Sansom’s defense would rely on “RHIP” – a military acronym for “rank has its privileges.”
Asked after the hearing about that possible defense, Sansom’s attorney, Richard Coates, declined to comment.
“He’s looking forward … to cooperating,” Coates said about Sansom. “But right now we’ve got these other issues out there.”
Delray Beach City Commissioner Mack Bernard announced today he’s been endorsed by Priscilla Taylor and Addie Greene.
Bernard is hoping to outlast Riviera Beach Councilman Cedrick Thomas in the Aug. 25 election to replace Taylor, D-West Palm Beach, in the state House. Taylor was recently appointed to replace Greene on the Palm Beach County Commission.
From Bernard:
“I am honored to have the trust and support of two distinguished veteran lawmakers, both of whom previously represented District 84 in the Florida Legislature. Former State Representative Priscilla Taylor was known as someone who fought hard for the residents of the district. I realize I have some very big shoes to fill.”
In a preview of their upcoming book, The Battle for America 2008, Washington Post reporters Dana Balz & Haynes Johnson write that Gov. Charlie Crist was among John McCain’s six finalists for vice president:
McCain’s search for a running mate had started in the spring with about two dozen names. Palin was not a serious candidate. One person said she wasn’t even on the initial list; others said she was — barely. It was only later in the summer, when the campaign team became alarmed at the size of Obama’s lead among women, that she was added to the list of genuine contenders. “Toward the end of the process, in July, we started taking a look at, like okay, who are we missing? Let’s take a sharper look at women candidates and try that one more time,” Davis said. “That’s when Palin came on.” Palin, he added, “stood out significantly from the rest of that list.”
Former Republican House Speaker Marco Rubio, who has positioned himself as the arch-conservative candidate in a U.S. Senate primary against Gov. Charlie Crist, told a group of activists this weekend that he is surprised to find himself running an “insurgent campaign” from the ideological right.
The video above is from Atlanta, where Rubio spoke at the RedState Gathering – a convention of conservative bloggers and activists.
“Just to tell you about the politics of my race. It’s pretty simple: 1.2 million Republicans will vote in this election. No one in the world can convince me that there aren’t 600,000 or 700,000 conservative Republicans in Florida. No one in the world can convince me it costs $15 million to reach them.”
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