Gov. Charlie Crist and Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink want BP claims czar Ken Feinberg to appear before the Florida Cabinet and explain why his revamped claims process is in such a mess.
In a letter sent today, Sink, the Democratic nominee for governor, and Crist, the independent candidate in the three-way race for U.S. Senate, also asked Feinberg to immediately hire more people and spend more resources processing claims.
“Floridians continue to tell us that they cannot get their claims paid in a timely fashion,” Sink and Crist wrote. “Many Floridians who have been impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill need immediate relief just to make their next mortgage payment or make their next payroll.”
Feinberg met today with Attorney General Bill McCollum, who said afterward that he was “cautiously optimistic” that Feinberg would tweak his claims process to make it more Florida-friendly for folks trying to get tourism-related losses paid.
Claimants have complained that Feinberg, in charge of doling out much of the $20 billion Gulf Coast Claims Facility fund set up by BP, has reneged on his earlier promise to pay individuals 48 within hours and businesses within a week of receiving their claim.
At yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, Sink read an e-mail Pensacola business owner Jeff Elbert, also head of the Pensacola Beach Chamber of Commerce, who said that he doesn’t know of a single beach business that’s been paid since Feinberg took over BP’s botched claims process on Aug. 23.
Another politician has jumped on the anti-Kravis Center bandwagon.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink said today she won’t cross a picket line if labor troubles at the performing arts hall aren’t resolved by Oct. 15, when she is scheduled to speak to the Forum Club of the Palm Beaches.
“She is hopeful that either the situation will be worked out or the venue will be moved,” Sink, the state’s CFO, said through a campaign spokeswoman.
U.S. Sen. George Lemieux, who broke ranks with the GOP this week to support a Democratic small-business bill, appealed to Democrats today to break with President Obama and support extension of all the Bush tax cuts.
Gov. Charlie Crist should not drop a lawsuit that could result in a final decision about whether Florida’s 30-year-old ban on gay adoption is constitutional, Department of Children and Families Secretary George Sheldon said.
Sheldon, a Democrat appointed by then-Republican Crist in 2008, is head of the agency that challenged a Miami judge’s ruling that Florida’s law barring gay couples from adopting children is unconstitutional. Crist said yesterday he is reviewing whether to drop the lawsuit after releasing a gay-friendly platform in his quest as an independent candidate for U.S. Senate.
“Everyone, no matter what side of this issue they’re on, believes there ought to be some finality to a decision, whether that’s a legislative decision or a judicial decision,” said Sheldon, a former state lawmaker who voted against the ban on gay adoption.
Attorney General Bill McCollum said he is “cautiously optimistic” after an hour-and-a-half long meeting with BP claims czar Ken Feinberg in the Capitol this morning.
Claimants throughout the Gulf Coast have complained that little has changed since Feinberg, appointed by the White House and BP to dole out $20 billion the oil giant is putting into the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, took over BP’s much-maligned claims process more than three weeks ago.
McCollum has repeatedly criticized Feinberg’s system, still in development even after he has written more than $40 million in checks to Floridians for losses caused by BP’s April 20th Deepwater Horizon oil rig blast and ensuing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Feinberg’s paid an average of $7,195 in emergency payments to nearly 5,600 Floridians since taking over on Aug. 23.
One of the most contentious issues facing Florida thus far has been Feinberg’s emphasis on “proximity” to the oil spill in determining eligibility for claims and questions about whether perceptions about Florida’s beaches being oily (even when they were not) contributed to a drop in tourism that affected hotels, restaurants and state tax collections.
Republican Senate candidate Marco Rubio has opened up a double-digit lead over independent Charlie Crist and Democrat Kendrick Meek, a new Rasmussen poll says.
Rubio gets 41 percent, Crist 30 percent and Meek 23 percent in the poll of 750 likely voters taken Tuesday with a margin of error of 4 percent.
Eighty percent of Rubio’s supporters say they’re sure how they’ll vote, as do 69 percent of Meek supporters and only 45 percent of Crist backers. Crist has a 53 percent job approval rating and is viewed favorably by 55 percent of voters. Rubio is viewed favorably by 53 percent and Meek by 45 percent.
Fifty-four percent of Floridians favor repealing the health care law and 54 percent disapprove of how President Obama is handling his job.
U.S. Senate candidate Kendrick Meek said today he is disappointed that fellow Democrat and state representative Yolly Roberson, D-North Miami Beach, will be endorsing Gov. Charlie Crist in the state’s Senate race.
But he doesn’t think her constituents will follow her lead, Meek said during a visit to West Palm Beach’s Kravis Center for the Performing Arts to support an International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees rally.
“It’s not going to move the needle at all for the governor,” Meek said. “I don’t think the people she represents are going to follow her decision.”
Roberson announced Tuesday she is backing Crist, who is running for the Senate seat without party affiliation. The Haitian-American representative lives in U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek’s congressional district, and lost in the August primary after trying to occupy Meek’s vacated seat.
The Democratic Governors Association gave Florida Democrats a $2 million cash infusion to aid Alex Sink in her race against Rick Scott, Politico is reporting this morning.
According to Politico, the DGA wired the cash into the Florida Democratic Party’s account and will be spent on television ads.
Democrats nationally are eying the Florida race with the hope that Chief Financial Officer Sink can score a coup for Democrats, who’ve been out of the governor’s mansion since former Lt. Gov. Buddy McKay lost to Jeb Bush in 1998. Sink’s husband Bill McBride made a losing against Bush four years later.
Scott spent more than $50 million of his own money – much of it on advertising – to defeat Attorney General Bill McCollum in the GOP primary last month.
Eleventh-hour displays of union solidarity by independent Gov. Charlie Crist and Democrat Kendrick Meek won’t stop the Forum Club of the Palm Beaches from going ahead with today’s luncheon program at the Kravis Center.
Check out our Jane Musgrave’s account of how Wednesday’s planned Forum Club of the Palm Beaches Senate candidate debate between independent Gov. Charlie Crist and Democrat Kendrick Meek came unglued late this afternoon.
The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving Picture Technicians and Allied Crafts had announced plans to picket the event because of a long-running dispute with the Kravis Center. But the union, which has endorsed Meek, apparently didn’t want to deny its favored candidate a key opportunity to face off against Crist, the former Republican who now threatens to take away significant Democratic support from the Democratic nominee.
Gov. Charlie Crist says he won’t attend a Forum Club of the Palm Beaches debate with Democratic Senate rival Kendrick Meek Wednesday because the stagehands’ union plans to picket the event over a long-running labor dispute with the Kravis Center, where the event is scheduled.
Meek was planning to walk with the picketers outside the Kravis Center, then attend the debate.
Here’s the statement Crist sent to our Jane Musgrave moments ago:
“I deeply regret being unable to attend tomorrow’s Forum Club meeting – a meeting I have attended on numerous occasions in the past, and truly enjoy. An extensive labor dispute has been brought to my attention, and given these difficult economic times, I call on Congressman Meek to join me in standing up for Florida’s working families by not crossing the picket line. The Forum Club is an esteemed organization, and I look forward to addressing them in the near future.”
U.S. Senate candidate Kendrick Meek joined about a dozen veterans in Delray Beach this afternoon to launch “Veterans for Meek,” a statewide coalition of more than 220 veterans that support Meek’s candidacy.
The group, which has members in Palm Beach County and across the state, will help Meek during the campaign trail, and also serve as his advisors if he is elected senator, Meek said after the press conference at the Palm Beach County Democratic Party’s Southern Operations Campaign Office.
“I’ve been one of the toughest supporters of not only VA funding, but also assuring that veterans who are just over 2 million in Florida get the attention they deserve,” Meek added.
Meek said that if elected, he would focus on funding for a “new crop of veterans,” referring to those men and women currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan who face illnesses like post traumatic stress disorder, as well as issues finding jobs and counseling.
“If we fail them, we fail their families,” Meek said.
Allen Robbins, a veteran and a member of “Veterans for Meek,” said he supports Meek and his efforts to help those in service “because I feel, as a Democrat, that his our voice in the Senate.”
Tuesday, September 14th, 2010 by Michael C. Bender
Democratic candidate for state CFO Loranne Ausley today seized on the Florida Republican Party’s on-going scandal over alleged misspending of campaign contributions in an attempt to link it to her Republican opponent, Jeff Atwater. Her statement:
“It’s imperative that Senate President Jeff Atwater and the Republican Party of Florida come clean with Floridians by releasing the audit before the election,” said Ausley. “The entire credit card scandal sheds light on the perks Republican leaders like Jeff Atwater enjoyed during some of the toughest budget years our state has ever faced. Besides raising our taxes, what exactly were Jeff Atwater and his Republican aides doing in Tallahassee? Floridians need someone to clean up the mess in Tallahassee, not cover it up.”
The party has refused to release an audit of its finances. Republicans say they are weighing a lawsuit against former leaders, including Gov. Charlie Crist. Crist has dismissed the threat as political gamesmanship.
Gov. Charlie Crist said he has had an “appropriate evolution” regarding gay rights and is considering dropping the state’s lawsuit challenging a gay couple’s adoption of two foster children.
“I think we need to review that. My comments really reflect that it’s better to have more of the judicial branch involved in this process. I think that most who follow the judiciary recognize that what’s in the ‘best interest of the child’ is what should be paramount in these kinds of decisions. That’s what I believe and I think that’s what will be the best for them,” Crist, the independent candidate in the three-way race for U.S. Senate, told reporters.
Crist’s campaign this week released a position paper backing a swath of gay rights – including the right to adopt. Florida has one of the country’s most strident anti-gay adoption laws.
The Department of Children and Families, one of Crist’s agencies, is challenging a judge’s ruling that the law is unconstitutional. DCF appealed the adoption of his two foster children granted to Martin Gill. An appeals court decision in the lawsuit, fought by Attorney General Bill McCollum’s office on behalf of DCF, could come any time.
Why not just drop the case? One reporter pushed.
“I’m going to review it before I would make that call,” he insisted.
Crist the candidate has considerably softened his stance towards gay rights in the four years since he ran for governor, when he opposed gay marriage.
Why the change, he was asked.
“Not a whole lot has changed to be candid. I also said (back in 2006) that I’m a live-and-let-live kind of guy. And I am. As I said this morning, I think that the older you get, the less judgmental you become,” Crist said. “Maybe I was more rigid earlier. But I don’t feel that way. And I know who’s supposed to be judging people and it’s not me.”
Tuesday, September 14th, 2010 by Michael C. Bender
As Republican Rick Scott airs a TV campaign hoping to link Democrat Alex Sink to President Obama, we thought we’d post this video from the 2008 campaign trail that shows Obama’s own success using the “Let’s Get to Work” slogan.
After hearing that not a single business on Pensacola Beach has received a dime from BP claims czar Ken Feinberg in nearly a month, Chief Financial Officer proposed sending (another) letter to Feinberg urging him to get on it.
“This is just not right,” Sink, the Democrat running for governor against Republican Rick Scott, said before the Cabinet heard an update on the oil spill at this morning’s Cabinet meeting.
Sink suggested ordering Feinberg to show up at the next Cabinet meeting to explain why he hasn’t followed through on his earlier pledge to quickly process claims to help out Panhandle residents whose businesses have floundered since the April 20th Deepwater Horizon disaster. Or, she said, the Cabinet could write a letter to Feinberg urging him to take action. Sink has made repeated requests in writing to Feinberg, BP officials and others demanding they speed up payments to floundering businesses in the Panhandle threatening to shut down because of the spill.
Gov. Charlie Crist agreed to sign on to Sink’s letter to try to get some help to Floridians, especially those in the Panhandle.
“It’s become increasingly difficult for them to be able to hang on,” Crist, the independent candidate in the three-way race for U.S. Senate said.
Attorney General Bill McCollum, whose office has been out front dealing with Feinberg and BP throughout response to the disaster, is supposed to meet with Feinberg this week. McCollum was in Pensacola attending the federal hearing on his lawsuit against President Barack Obama’s administration over health care reforms.
“Rick Scott seems to think running for governor is all about President Obama,” Democrat Alex Sink said of her Republican rival in an ad last week.
Yep. Scott’s newest ad features an October 2008 clip of Sink on MSNBC touting then-candidate Obama as the best choice for “turning our economy around right here in Florida.” Scott’s ad hits Sink for supporting Obama on the Democratic health care overhaul and the stimulus bill, saying Sink offers the “wrong solutions” for the state.
Remember Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer’s denunciation last year of President Obama’s national address to school children? Greer said he was “appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology.”
Since then, Greer’s been ousted as party chairman and indicted on six felony counts.
Monday, as Obama prepared another address to students, Greer said he’s learned that “many within the GOP have racist views.” He blamed his heated 2009 statement on an attempt “to placate the extremists who dominate our Party today.”
Greer declined to name any of the racists he was trying to placate.
“No names, but committee consists of people who fought me on outreach and I had to discipline state members who promoted racists (sic) comments which I was also fought on too,” Greer said via text message.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Klein’s third TV ad is also his third slam on Republican challenger Allen West, calling him “too extreme for South Florida.”
The ad features a clip of West at a tea party rally saying “I’m just honored to be here today with all of my fellow right-wing extremists.”
Asked if West’s remarks might be considered tongue-in-cheek, a Klein spokeswoman said “as always, Allen West’s own words speak for themselves.”
Klein’s ad also claims West favors “destroying” Social Security and believes Medicare “can be cut” — although the Klein campaign doesn’t cite direct quotes of West saying either.
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