Bill Clinton and other big-name Dems have flooded Massachusetts to try to rescue Martha Coakley's Senate campaign.
Martha Coakley — who could become the first Democrat to lose a Massachusetts Senate race since 1972 — might be a familiar name to some Palm Beachers.
Coakley is the Democratic nominee in Tuesday’s surprisingly tight Bay State special election to replace late liberal icon Ted Kennedy.
Back in 1999, Coakley was district attorney for Middlesex County near Boston. She approved a plea deal that allowed Palm Beach socialite Stephen Fagan to avoid prison after kidnapping his daughters in a 1979 custody fight and hiding them from their mother until 1998.
The bank that gave Republican Marco Rubio a questionable $135,000 home equity loan received more bailout money than than any bank in Florida, according to ProPublica, a nonprofit group of investigative journalists.
Rubio didn’t have anything to do with the bank bailout money, which was first approved by President Bush’s administration. But Rubio is opposing a proposed bank tax from President Obama that the White House says could recover some of the projected losses from the bailout. (More about the tax here.)
The bank where Rubio received the loan, Doral-based U.S. Century, received a chunk for the bailout, but it does not appear it would have to pay the tax under Obama’s plan. The tax would be applied to banks with at least $50 billion in consolidated assets. U.S. Century claims 1.8 billion in total assets.
Democrats today jumped on Rubio for “opposing the full repayment of taxpayers for their money used to bailout his buddies in the financial industry.”
But expect more piling on: Democrats are using the issue to paint Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown as a shill for Wall Street for opposing the tax.
Brown is attempting the unthinkable: securing a Massachusetts U.S. Senate seat for Republicans in a special election to replace Ted Kennedy. Rubio is spending some of newly accumulated political capital by sending out multiple e-mails and Facebook messages asking Republicans to support Brown.
The Florida Democratic Party and Republican Marco Rubio have enjoyed an uneasy alliance in the past few months over a common enemy. Numerous times, Rubio and the Democrats have sent out e-mails within minutes of each other with mirror-image attacks on Republican Gov. Charlie Crist.
But today Democrats are turning their sights on Rubio, whose primary campaign against Crist been gaining momentum. By our count, it’s the first Democratic press release dedicated solely to Rubio since May 5, when Rubio formally announced his candidacy (just a few days before Crist’s own announcement).
The press release today hammers Rubio for receiving a $135,000 equity loan from a politically-connected bank. The loan came after Rubio bought a West Miami home for $550,000 in 2005 and had it valued at $735,000 a month later. The peg for the release is Rubio’s opposition to President Obama’s so-called Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee.
The aim of the White House plan is to recover projected losses from the government’s bank bailout. Rubio called it a “bank tax.”
We’ve got a feeling Rubio’s camp is giddy about the turn of events. From Rubio spokesman Alex Burgos:
“When the time comes to debate Democrats, we will have had plenty of experience highlighting the policy deficiencies they share with Charlie Crist on out-of-control stimulus spending, cap-and-trade, higher taxes and policies that trade individual freedom for more government.”
Phil Vangelakos: U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney’s 2008 campaign manager Tom Eldon: Florida Democratic pollster Allen West: Republican candidate for U.S. House in 2010 Javi Correoso: executive director of the Miami-Dade Republican Party Karl Dickey: Libertarian candidate for Palm Beach County Commission.
Sen. Nan Rich, D-Sunrise, in a letter to the editor:
Creation of jobs is critical, but not the kind Sen. Mike Haridopolos, R-Melbourne, and Rep. Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, would create under more-of-the-same trickle-down policies. Certainly not the kind created once government restrictions are removed, growth management and environmental protections are gutted and industry regulations are lifted.
Read the rest of the letter and find more links to other stories of statewide interest in the “Today’s Paper” box on the right hand side of the page.
The Florida Supreme Court today threw out the death sentence of convicted cop killer Paul Beasley Johnson because “the record here is so rife with evidence of previously undisclosed prosecutorial misconduct that we have no choice but to grant relief.”
In October, Gov. Charlie Crist ordered Johnson to be put to death by lethal injection in November.
The high court stayed the execution and heard oral arguments on the case in which Johnson was convicted of going on a drug-induced killing spree in Polk County in 1981. Johnson was convicted of murdering three men, including a Polk County Sheriff’s deputy.
In its ruling today, the court found that prosecutors intentionally got a jailhouse informer to get information from Johnson, take notes and give the notes to investigators. Prosecutors then lied about their role in soliciting the information at Johnson’s trial in 1981.
At a later trial in 1988, a different prosecutor used the same testimony that helped persuade the jury to hand down a 7-5 vote in favor of the death penalty, the court ruled today.
Johnson’s death sentence is now thrown out and he will have to be resentenced.
The court blamed Hardy Pickard, the original prosecutor, for today’s ruling.
“His misconduct tainted the State‘s case at every stage of the proceedings and irremediably compromised the integrity of the entire 1988 penalty phase proceeding. This is not a case of overzealous advocacy, but rather a case of deliberately misleading both the trial court and this Court. It must be emphasized that in our American legal system there is no room for such misconduct, no matter how disturbing a crime may be or how unsympathetic a defendant is. The same principles of law apply equally to cases that have stirred passionate public outcry as to those that have not,” the ruling reads.
“In our system of justice, ends do not justify means. Rather, experience teaches that the means become the end and that irregular and untruthful arguments lead to unreliable results. Lawlessness by a defendant never justifies lawless conduct at trial…The State must cling to the higher standard even in its dealings with those who do not. Accordingly, we must grant relief,” the opinion concludes.
Justice Ricky Polston dissented and Justices Peggy Quince and Charles Canady recused themselves.
Palm Beach County Commissioner Jeff Koons asked utility regulators to approve Florida Power & Light Co.’s $1.2 billion rate hike, saying the utility is the county’s largest employer and needed the extra money to help the state go green.
“While no one – especially in the current economy – looks forward to higher electric bills, FPL’s proposed rate increase is necessary in order to make a greater investment in green technology, energy sources that will ultimately protect the consumer from uncertainties and bill fluctuations in the future,” Koons wrote in a letter to commissioners on Jan. 5 expressing his personal opinion on the rate case.
FPL President Armando Olivera said the company will immediately halt modernization projects at its Riviera Beach and Cape Canaveral power plants and cease moving forward with most of its efforts to build two new nuclear reactors at its Turkey Point facility.
He said the projects could have brought 20,000 new jobs to Florida over the next five years.
The White House announced this morning that Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, will be in South Florida on Saturday — exact location and time not yet announced — to meet with members of the Haitian-American community and responders who are mobilizing relief efforts after Tuesday’s 7.0 earthquake devastated Haiti.
Gov. Charlie Crist took credit for the Public Service Commission’s unanimous decision yesterday to grant FPL a $75 million-a-year rate hike, just a fraction of $1.2 billion the Juno Beach-based utility had sought.
Crist revamped the panel with two new appointments, Commissioners David Klement and Benjamin “Steve” Stevens,” late last year and appointed Chairwoman Nancy Argenziano and Nathan Skop in 2007. Crist’s appointments were intended to create a more consumer-friendly commission that in previous years when PSC votes were considered to lean more toward the utilities it regulates.
Asked if he had an impact on yesterday’s vote, Crist said: “It’s fairly obvious, isn’t it?”
The FPL decision came on the heels of a vote Monday in which the PSC denied Progress Energy Florida’s $500 million rate hike request and ordered them to repay $23 million in depreciation costs to consumers.
Crist last year effectively fired two commissioners by not reappointing them and the PSC delayed votes on the issues until the new commissioners took office this month.
Crist dismissed Florida Power & Light Co. President Armando Olivera’s assertion that the PSC vote will cost the state 20,000 new jobs from projects it is now putting on hold.
“Well we certainly don’t hope for that. I don’t think that’s going to be the case. I think that what happened is the Public Service Commission is an independent body that has a duty to perform their job. I think they did exactly that,” Crist said.
Former Gov. Jeb Bush made a rare return to the state Capitol today to join Republican Gov. Charlie Crist at a education press conference.
Bush stumbled out of the governor’s office and nearly knocked down a sign set up for the conference. “I’m not used to this anymore,” he said to a surprised press corps.
The conference is about a report from the Council of 100, “Closing the Talent Gap.”
Florida Power & Light Co. President Armando Olivera said that utility regulators’ decision to grant the power company just $75 million of its requested $1 billion rate hike this year will cost the state 20,000 new jobs.
He accused the Public Service Commission of politicizing the proposed rate hike, eliciting this response from Commissioner Nathan Skop at the close of yesterday’s 11-hour proceedings.
“The commission’s worked hard to decide this case on the merits in a fair and impartial manner. We were very deliberate in the decisions that we made here today. The reality is that FPL is going to have to make do in difficult economic times,” Skop said. “I know that FPL today is a strong company and no doubt will be a strong company tomorrow. They have an ambitious capital program and will invest in Florida’s future and any suggestion that that should not be achievable would be a complete falsehood.”
Wismick St. Jean, who’s running for a Wellington village council seat, had scheduled a campaign fund-raiser for tonight at the Player’s Club. Instead, he’s turning it into an event to collect donations for earthquake-devastated Haiti.
“Haiti is not equipped to handle an earthquake of this magnitude 7.0 on its own. The Haitian people need your prayer and your financial assistance at this time in history,” St. Jean said in a press release.
Bob Smith, the former New Hampshire Senator who now lives in Sarasota and is making a longshot bid for the GOP Senate nomination against better-known rivals Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio, pitched his candidacy at the Palm Beach County Republican Party’s monthly meeting tonight in West Palm Beach.
Smith didn’t speak ill of Crist or Rubio, but said his 12 years in the Senate (1991-2003) give him experience and seniority his rivals lack to push the conservative agenda in Washington.
“I know that this has been a very active quote-unquote two-person race. That’s the way it’s all reported,” Smith told the GOP activists. “It’s seven months away, folks. Straw polls and polls don’t mean a heck of a lot now. Anything can happen. All I ask is if you’re not committed, keep an open mind.”
The Public Service Commission granted Florida Power & Light a $75,470,948 annual rate hike – just a fraction of the $1 billion rate hike it sought for this year.
Based on a typical customer’s bill with 1,000 kilowatt hours of use, customers will pay 75 cents a month more than what they are now paying. That’s far less than the $8.85 the Juno Beach-based utility had sought.
“The reality is that FPL is going to have to make due in these tough difficult times,” Commissioner Nathan Skop said.
Florida Power & Light Co. President Armando Olivera accused utility reagulators risking customers’ electrical service by slashing Florida Power & Light’s requested $1.2 billion rate increase by at least 90 percent.
“Today, politics trumped economics,” Olivera told reporters as he left the meeting still in progress at about 6:15 to return to South Florida on the corporate jet.
Olivera said the Juno Beach-based utility will immediately cease modernization efforts at its Riviera Beach and Cape Canaveral plants and halt work on a new nuclear plant that would have put 20,000 workers on the job this year.
The commission decided to limit FPL’s profits to 10 percent – far less than the 12.5 percent the company sought. Commissioner Nathan Skop said that FPL’s proposal was based more on a desire to increase cash flow than on substance.
That return on equity could be bad for the state’s largest utility’s 4 million customers, Olivera said.
“It’s conceivable our reliability will be impacted,” he said.
Olivera said the panel’s votes on more than 100 items today – still underway – coupled with a denial of Progress Energy Florida’s $500 million rate hike request Monday “sends a chilling effect on anybody who wants to invest in this state.”
Olivera said it’s too soon to say whether any of the utility’s 10,499 workers will be laid off but that “we’re going to be looking at every aspect of our operation.” He said that information would be revealed to employees before anyone else.
“The most immediate thing is not to spend money we don’t have,” Olivera said.
The Public Service Commission dealt another blow to Florida Power & Light, this time unanimously rejecting a 12.5 percent return on equity sought in its $1.2 billion-a-year rate hike request.
The panel again went lower than their staff recommended, setting the return on equity – the amount of profit for shareholders – at 10 percent. PSC staff had recommended 10.75 percent.
FPL says it needs the higher return to allow it to borrow more cheaply to make investments in future projects.
But Commissioner Nathan Skop said this morning that the company already has other methods to recoup costs for construction and investment in power generation.
The commission has already slashed the staff’s recommended $357 million-a-year rate hike by more than half, cutting to nearly a tenth of what FPL had originally sought.
Commissioner Nathan Skop said the company could earn more than the 10 percent allowed if it “tightened its belt” elsewhere. The company also has very little risk because it is a geographic monopoly. And FPL also has a favorable debt-to-equity ratio, Skop said.
Finally, the bulk of what FPL charges its customers – more than 60 percent – come from other sources than the base rate, Skop said.
“Looking at that and looking at the current economic situation…utilities are just going to have to make due in these difficult economic times,” Skop said.
FPL says it needs the higher profit rate in part because the economy is continuing to deteriorate and it is getting more difficult to borrow money.
“In the midst of our rate proceeding, our ROE was 10.7% (May 2009) and since that time our ability to earn a fair rate of return on equity has continued to deteriorate. Our position is that the Commission should authorize 12.5% as the return on common equity. Granting FPL’s requested return on equity will appropriately take into account overall utility industry risks, as well as FPL’s need to invest $16 billion (investments) to provide service over the next five years. Granting FPL’s common ROE is critical to maintaining FPL’s financial strength and flexibility and will help FPL attract the large amounts of capital that are needed to service its customers,” FPL spokesman Mayco Villafana said in an e-mail this morning.
Utility regulators just chopped off another $150 million from Florida Power & Light’s $1.2 billion rate hike request. So far, they’ve cut the staff’s recommendation on the utility’s rate request – $357 million – by more than half, leaving less than $160 million on the table.
The Public Service Commission split on the latest vote – how much customers should pay to let FPL save money in the event of a storm. They’ve already got $215 million in reserve in case of a catastrophic storm. And they’re collecting almost $2.60 a month from customers to pay for past storm damages.
FPL had asked for $150 million a year for five years for a total of about $650 million. PSC staff said they should get $50 million a year.
Commissioner David Klement, newly appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist, made a motion to reduce that to $25 million a year. That motion failed. Chairman Nancy Argenziano and Commissioners Nathan Skop and Benjamin “Steve” Stevens (also new to the panel) voted to grant the utility nothing.
“I’ve heard the voices of the consumers saying right now’s not the time to charge us for an unknown storm in the future. We can’t handle it right now. Current customers are still paying for the past storms. At a time when people can hardly pay their mortgages, I don’t think they can handle anymore. At this moment, my main concern…is that we alleviate what we can,” Argenziano said. “To say that we’re going to charge today for storms we don’t know are going to come to me is one I can take off the table right now and not have on the ratepayer.”
Democrat Lori Berman, who out-raised Hager in 2009, dropped out of the District 87 race last week and switched to more Democrat-friendly District 86. District 86 is where Rep. Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach, plans to leave to run for state Senate as part of a massive shuffle being guided by the former Robert Wexler political machine.
Sachs is banking on state Sen. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, winning a Feb. 2 primary and April 13 special election to replace Wexler, who retired this month to head a Middle East think tank. Deutch, Sachs and Berman have all been endorsed by Wexler and helped by his former consultant, Eric Johnson.
With Berman leaving the District 87 race, insurance agency owner Len Turesky, a Democrat, is considering running against Hager. Turesky plans to meet with Johnson and others to discuss the race.
Public Service Commissioner Nathan Skop took a swipe at Florida Power & Light for requesting a $1.2 billion-a-year rate hike before the utility regulators broke for lunch.
“This rate case seems to be more about improving cash flow from operations and discretionary expenditures than substance,” Skop said.
“That’s clearly indicated by the substantial adjustments” PSC staff made to FPL’s request, Skop said. PSC staff suggested the Juno Beach-based utility be granted just $357 million of the $1 billion it asked for this year.
And things aren’t going so well for FPL so far this morning. The panel turned down its request for a second year rate hike of about $300 million and discontinued its ability to make adjustments in the base rate without the PSC’s approval, taking about another $180 million off the table.
The most contentious part of FPL’s request is up for discussion after the panel, headed by consumer-friendly Chairman Nancy Argenziano, returns in about an hour.
That’s its return on equity – how much profit the state’s largest utility should be allowed to earn – and how much of that its customers should pay for.
FPL wants a 12.5 percent ROE, almost a 2 percent jump from what it’s currently earning.
FPL contends it needs the higher profits to be able to borrow more cheaply in the future and to invest in future projects.
“In the midst of our rate proceeding, our ROE was 10.7% (May 2009) and since that time our ability to earn a fair rate of return on equity has continued to deteriorate. Our position is that the Commission should authorize 12.5% as the return on common equity. Granting FPL’s requested return on equity will appropriately take into account overall utility industry risks, as well as FPL’s need to invest $16 billion (investments) to provide service over the next five years. Granting FPL’s common ROE is critical to maintaining FPL’s financial strength and flexibility and will help FPL attract the large amounts of capital that are needed to service its customers,” FPL spokesman Mayco Villafana said in an e-mail this morning.
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 by Michael C. Bender
UPDATE:From Rep. Adam Hasner’s House Majority Office via Twitter: Unbelievable. Incomprehensible tragedy and FL Dem Ron Saunders plays politics with Haiti earthquake. Zero class.
Saunders
If Republicans support a corporate income tax cut, they should be able to find some cash to help disaster victims in Haiti, said Florida Rep. Ron Saunders, D-Key West.
“They know where all the secret stashes are,” Saunders said. “I used to know where they were when I was budget chairman.”
Saunders, who hopes he can lead House Democrats to overcome a 76-44 disadvantage to Republicans this year, said he wasn’t playing politics with the tragedy unfolding in Haiti. “If I wanted to play politics, I’d say we should use the $6 million Republicans misspent on an airplane hanger,” Saunders said. “But I’m not going to bring that up.”
House budget chairman David Rivera, R-Miami, responded: “The speaker is looking at options to assist the victims of the disaster in Haiti.”
The earthquake in Haiti has hit home for a number of South Florida state lawmakers, including Rep. Mack Bernard, D-West Palm Beach, who was born in Port-au-Prince and lived there until he was 10 and moved to Delray Beach.
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