One of the state capital’s premiere lobbying shops, Smith & Ballard, is changing its nameplate — with founding partner Jim Smith walking away from the high-powered firm.

Smith, a former Florida attorney general as a Democrat and secretary of state as a Republican, is leaving at the end of this month. He and son-in-law Brian Ballard founded the company in 1998 and muscled it up to where state records show that Smith & Ballard took in more than $1 million in payments from clients during the first three months of this year, alone.

The firm, with offices in Tallahassee, Jacksonville and West Palm Beach, will be called Ballard Partners from hereon. Ballard is a brother of former Palm Beach County Commissioner Mary McCarty.

“Our new name is another step moving Ballard Partners forward,” Ballard said in a statement. “I want to personally thank Jim for the unparalleled professionalism and value he has brought to our firm as we’ve advanced into what we are today. Jim will be missed and we wish him well in the future.”

For his part, Smith, 71, plans to continue lobbying. “The last thirteen years as a partner at Smith & Ballard have been rewarding, both professionally and personally,” Smith said.

Smith & Ballard represented close to 100 business interests, governments and associations, including U.S. Sugar, the city of Boca Raton and Bethesda Hospital in Boynton Beach. Ballard also has led John McCain’s 2008 fund-raising effort in Florida, and was a big fundraiser for former Govs. Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist.

Ballard played middle-man on one of Crist’s most ambitious efforts — a bid to buy-out U.S. Sugar’s 187,000 acres in western Palm Beach and neighboring counties for use in Everglades restoration. The deal was later dramatically downsized and has been ridiculed by Crist’s successor, Gov. Rick Scott.

Ballard backed former Attorney General Bill McCollum in last year’s Republican primary for governor, but has since worked to build the firm’s influence with Scott.

Smith’s long political history includes serving as attorney general from 1979-87. He ran for governor as a Democrat in 1986, losing the primary to Jacksonville Rep. Steve Pajcic, following a bitter contest that saw him initially team as running mate to West Palm Beach Sen. Harry Johnston, only to drop out and wage his own campaign.

Smith soon after became a Republican and was appointed Secretary of State by Republican Gov. Bob Martinez, for whom Ballard was chief-of-staff.

Palm Beach County’s own expert on Internet sex scandals, former Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, is slated to appear on Fox News’ Hannity tonight at 9 p.m. in his first national television interview since he resigned in 2006 over sexually charged messages he sent to teenage males who had been in the congressional page program.

Foley is expected to discuss Democratic U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner’s lewd-photo scandal.

Foley declined comment on Weinergate in the first few days of the crotch-tweeting controversy.

Former Democratic U.S. Sen. and former Florida Gov. Bob Graham said on Fox News’ Hannity tonight that crotch-tweeting U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., should resign.

“I think that he needs to recognize reality and move on,” Graham said.

Weiner’s prospects for political survival appear to be diminishing with the emergence of a new lewd photo today and at least half a dozen Democratic House members calling for his resignation.

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman and Broward County U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who repeatedly called Weiner’s troubles a “personal matter” last week, has not commented since Weiner confessed Monday to sending a lewd picture to a 21-year-old college student. A spokesman said Wasserman Schultz supports an ethics investigation of Weiner.

The U.S. Justice Department was asked by Florida officials Wednesday to approve the state’s sweeping new elections law for five counties that need such preclearance under the federal Voting Rights Act.

Secretary of State Kurt Browning submitted documents detailing law changes under CS/HB 1355, which Gov. Rick Scott signed into law May 18 over opposition from legislative Democrats, the League of Women Voters, NAACP and other organizations.

Critics of the law said it is designed to blunt Democratic turnout and weaken voter registration efforts in advance of the 2012 elections.

 The ACLU of Florida, the national ACLU, and Project Vote, a Washington, D.C., voters’ rights organization, sued last week in Miami federal court to stop statewide implementation of the law until Justice Department approval is obtained.

Browning had said earlier that he would not seek to enforce the state’s new standards in Hendry, Collier, Hardee, Hillsborough and Monroe counties until receiving Justice Department approval.

But he has gone ahead and ordered the new law to take effect in Florida’s 62 other counties, a move which triggered the ACLU legal challenge.

State and federal law require the state to have uniform elections laws.

“It looks like Browning is now trying to speed-up the process in hopes of covering up the mistake he made by ordering the law to take effect,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida.

Browning has defended his action, saying the new measure was to take effect upon becoming law. He acknowledged that preclearance was needed before the measure could be enforced in the five counties.

The Justice Department has at least 60 days to review documents submitted Wednesday by Browning.

Critics of the new law say it is designed to make registering to vote and casting ballots more difficult for minorities and low-income voters, who typically vote Democratic. Scott and Republican legislative leaders said the new standards

The law imposes strict regulation of third-party registration groups, including requiring that they turn in registration forms within 48 hours after they are signed. It also reduces the number of days available for early voting in Florida, although county election supervisors are required to maintain the same, 98 hours made available before Election Day.

Gov. Rick Scott turned back the clock a few months to claim a victory on his trade mission to Canada, joining with Garda Worldwide Security CEO Stephan Cretier to announce the company is moving its U.S. headquarters to Boca Raton.

Groundwork for the move began last year — well before Scott was elected — and took shape in January when Palm Beach County, Boca Raton and state officials offered the company a $1 million package of incentives. The company  will bring about 100 jobs from Pasadena, Cal., to Boca Raton, with salaries paying in the $65,000 range.

Although the $69.1 billion state budget signed by Scott last month is poised to cut thousands of jobs in state agencies, school districts and in the health and social services fields, the governor said he was eager to count Garda’s 100 positions toward his goal of creating 700,000 jobs in Florida over seven years.

In making the announcement from Montreal, Cretier said Scott called him on the governor’s fifth day on the job in January to say, the CEO recalled, “Hey, we want Garda in Florida.”

“I have been very impressed,” Cretier said, of Scott and the state’s courtship.

Scott, who said he plans to meet with 120 companies while in Canada, called Garda’s move a “win-win, for both Quebec and Florida.”

“I’m extremely pleased we were able to close the deal,” Scott said on Wednesday’s conference call with Cretier.

The incentives would be paid over six years, the county said. Garda has 45,000 employees around the world and sells a variety of security services, including armored vehicles to transport cash and background checks of potential employees.

Garda expects to have its 100 jobs filled by the end of 2013, and will receive its incentive dollars over six years, according to terms of the deal worked with the county. It chose Boca Raton over Wilmington, Del., and Broadview, Ill., which also had negotiated to land Garda’s American headquarters.

Cretier, a former baseball umpire, said he started the company 15 years ago with a $25,000 mortgage on his house. Last year, Garda reported $1.2 billion in revenue, Cretier said Wednesday. 

Garda’s interest in Palm Beach County coincided with a drop in the cost of doing business in the area. A report released earlier this year by The Boyd Co. of Princeton, N.J., says it’s cheaper to operate a corporate headquarters here than in most U.S. cities. Palm Beach County ranks 40th of 55 metro areas.

As of late Tuesday, Broward County U.S. Rep. and Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz had not made a public statement about the Twitter sexcapades of U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y.

But her congressional spokesman, Jonathan Beeton, told a Miami TV station that Wasserman Schultz supports House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi‘s call for an ethics investigation of the crotch-tweeting congressman.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus pooh-poohed the investigation idea on NBC’s Today show this morning and said Wasserman Schultz and Pelosi should press Weiner to resign.

Before Weiner’s admission Monday that he sent a sexually suggestive photo to a 21-year-old college student and had engaged in “inappropriate” Internet communications with about half a dozen women, Wasserman Schultz repeatedly dismissed the controversy as a “personal matter” for Weiner to deal with.

Wasserman Schultz was similarly evasive Tuesday night when she entered the White House dinner for German Chancellor Angela Merkel. A pool report credited Wasserman Schultz with the “best non-answer/ biggest dodge of the night” after she was asked “Who are you wearing tonight?”

Her reply? “Thank you very much.”

 Gov. Rick Scott’s trade mission to Canada is lined up to tout its first big score Wednesday, but the announcement from French-speaking Montreal will sound like deja vu to many Palm Beach County residents.

Scott is expected to unveil that Montreal-based Garda Worldwide Security is moving its U.S. headquarters from California to Boca Raton, bringing with it about 100 jobs  by the end of 2013. The jobs will pay in the $65,000-salary range, county officials said.

Scott repeatedly says he’s all about “jobs, jobs, jobs.” But is the Garda announcement really “news, news, news?”

After all, Palm Beach County commissioners in January approved the county’s $210,000 share of an incentive package for Garda World Security Services. Boca Raton late last year approved its $210,000 portion of the package, while the state of Florida later OK’d $580,000 to bring the firm.

The County Commission’s action came a week after Scott took office, powered by his campaign promise to create 700,000 jobs in seven years. But county officials said talks with Garda began last summer, well before Scott was sworn in.

“There were a number of things the company had to do in preparation,” for Wednesday’s announcement, said Gary Hines of the Palm Beach County Business Development Board.

The incentives would be paid over six years, the county has said. Garda has 45,000 employees around the world and sells a variety of security services, including armored vehicles to transport cash and background checks of potential employees.

Garda’s interest in Palm Beach County follows a drop in the cost of doing business here. A report released earlier this year by a nationwide financial firm found the county’s costs ranked 40th of 55 metro areas.

Florida House Democrats urged a pair of Republican Cabinet members Tuesday to push for more answers and an apology from Republican Gov. Rick Scott for his office’s role in bullying a couple dozen Democratic protesters at last month’s budget-signing ceremony.

A Scott spokesman, Brian Burgess, last week acknowledged the governor’s office was wrong when a staffer apparently urged Sumter County Sheriff’s deputies to rein-in the protesters because the budget-signing was a private event.

Deputies confronted the protesters, keeping them out of the governor’s view and ordering them to discard their signs during the signing ceremony at The Villages in Central Florida.

Rep. Mark Pafford, D-West Palm Beach, last week asked Scott to explain the actions. Scott later told reporters he’d look into it, and Burgess released his statement Friday evening, blaming the action on “confusion among event staff, including an employee of the governor’s office.”

House Democrats, however, want to learn more. They want Atwater and Bondi whether civil liberties were violated and whether the governor’s office should reimburse any public funds used to hold the signing ceremony, which was live webstreamed on the Florida Republican Party website.

The Democrats concluded by asking Scott’s fellow Republicans, “What recommendations can you provide to ensure all Floridians that such a ”mistake,’ will not happen again?”

Jennifer Meale, a Bondi spokeswoman, said the attorney general was traveling to Atlanta in advance of Wednesday’s court hearing on the lawsuit by Florida and a dozen other states challenging the federal health care law.  

Conservative RedState blogger Erick Erickson, an early endorser of Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Adam Hasner‘s campaign, says he had no knowledge of a marketing ploy by RedState’s parent company that offers to “put Erick’s influence to work for your organization.”

“Just to start it off, no, my endorsements are not for sale. I don’t know who the guy is who sent the email, but he certainly did RedState no favors,” Erickson says on his blog today.

Erickson says a “sales guy” at Eagle Publishing sent out the e-mail offer. Says Erickson: “The focus of these ad campaigns are for conservative organizations I support and am glad to help, never for candidates or groups I don’t much care for.”

The story was first reported by Politico.com.

U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, will be featured in a Man-Eating Super Snake episode on the Animal Planet channel on Wednesday at 8 p.m. to talk about the Everglades python menace.

On the show, the congressman discusses his proposed legislation to protect the Everglades and surrounding communities by restricting the importation of Burmese pythons, African rock pythons and the like. The snakes threaten people, pets and farm animals and can also cause extensive damage to Florida’s ecosystem.

“Banning the importation of these dangerous snakes is critical to the survival of the Everglades and the surrounding ecosystems,” said Rooney. “These invasive predators are causing severe damage to our native wildlife, and they need to be eradicated.”

House Speaker Dean Cannon went more public Tuesday with his endorsement of Senate President Mike Haridopolos, who is among three Republican contenders looking to knock of Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson.

Cannon met with the Senate chief Tuesday in Orlando, calling him a “trusted friend, a valued legislative partner, and a much needed voice for conservative principles in Washington, DC.”

Cannon, R-Winter Park, and Haridopolos, R-Melbourne, were close allies during most of this spring’s legislative session, their first as leaders. The wheels came off toward the end, with Haridopolos later saying he was “embarrassed,” by the standoff between the two sides over legislation.

Among the bills that failed to win approval was one sought by Haridopolos, giving wrongly convicted William Dillon of the Senate boss’ home Brevard County $1 million in compensation for serving three decades behind bars.

On Tuesday, though, any hard feelings between the two chamber leaders seemed forgotten. Cannon said of Haridopolos, “ I am confident that he is the candidate that can finally retire Bill Nelson.”

Haridopolos heard similar comments in February. At a kick-off fundraiser, billed as a “private strategy session,” Haridopolos raised $1 million from lobbyists just before the session dawned.

Cannon was among those attending, drawing some notice for pledging his support for Haridopolos. Former state House Majority Leader Adam Hasner of Delray Beach and former U.S. Sen. George Lemieux of Fort Lauderdale have since joined the race.

Politico reported Tuesday that former Ruth’s Chris steak house CEO Craig Miller, who lost a congressional run last year, is also considering running for the Republican Senate nomination.

“I couldn’t ask for a better partner in the Florida Legislature and I look forward to having the speaker join me on the campaign trail,” Haridopolos said.

“This is the most difficult budget year the county has ever faced.”
– Palm Beach County Administrator Bob Weisman, June 6, 2011
– also June 8, 2010
–also May 28, 2009

Crafting a budget for the Palm Beach County government keeps getting more difficult.

Palm Beach County Administrator Bob Weisman unveiled a spending plan for 2011-12 on Monday and called the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 “the most difficult budget year the county has ever faced.”

Weisman used the exact same language a year ago when he proposed a 2010-11 budget.

And he used the exact same sentence two years ago to describe the 2009-10 budget year.

With President Obama set to order a “real drawdown” of U.S. troops in Afghanistan next month, U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, will visit the country June 24-29 as part of a House Armed Services Committee delegation.

It will be the retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel’s first trip to Afghanistan since he finished a two-year stint there in 2007 as a military contractor training Afghan soldiers.

West’s trip comes at a time when congressional pressure for a speedier pullout of the approximately 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan has increased. West voted against an amendment last month that called for an accelerated withdrawal timetable and an exit strategy that involved turning over authority to the Afghans. The measure narrowly failed on a 215-204 vote.

Despite differences of opinion, U.S. Senate candidate George LeMieux managed to stay on the air with conservative talk-show host Ray Junior this evening, unlike one of LeMieux’ GOP primary opponents, Senate President Mike Haridopolos.

Junior tossed Haridopolos off his show last week for refusing to answer whether he’s vote for or against U.S. House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan‘s spending plan.

After a long back-and-forth about commuter rail and SunRail, Junior asked LeMieux the same question.

“Should I give you a five minute answer?” quipped LeMieux, who served 16 months as U.S. senator after being appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist to fill a vacancy created by Mel Martinez. “I would have voted for it.”

LeMieux gave a somewhat more rambling response to query about whether or not he supports the Fair Tax proposal that would replace federal income taxes with a national sales tax.

“I think there’s a lot of good things about it,” LeMieux began.

Junior credited LeMieux with knowing enough about Fair Tax to talk about it, and gave him a high grade at the end of the show, but not before putting him on the spot about Charlie Crist, who called LeMieux “the maestro.” The pair’s careers were closely linked until Crist left the Republican party for a losing independent bid for the U.S. Senate last year.

“When did you discover Charlie Crist was a dirtbag?” Junior, who has dubbed himself “America’s loose cannon,” asked.

LeMieux didn’t bite.

“I would not say Charlie Crist is a dirt bag. I would not say anything negative about him,” LeMieux insisted, despite repeated goading by Junior. “Charlie Crist is my friend. I have taken a pledge not to say anything negative about him. I don’t think it’s productive.”

Despite refusing to engage in Crist-bashing, Junior, who also bragged about throwing now-U.S. Rep. Daniel Webster off his show during the 2010 campaign season, gave LeMieux an overall thumbs-up.

“I thought I was going to have to kick him off. He did good. ‘Cause he answered the damn questions,” he said.

U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., is in the midst of a news conference admitting the infamous Twitter crotch shot was of him and that he sent it to a 21-year-old female college student.

Weiner — keynote speaker at last fall’s Palm Beach County Democratic Party fund-raising dinner — says he’s not resigning. He didn’t immediately address whether he’ll run for mayor of New York in 2013.

Sexually charged Internet messages to former congressional pages led to former Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Foley‘s 2006 resignation. And a shirtless picture similar to one that surfaced of Weiner today led Republican New York U.S. Rep. Christopher Lee to resign this year. But Weiner says he did not violate any congressional rules or his oath of office and is not stepping down.

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and four other Democratic Senators who are up for reelection next year have sent a letter to Vice President Joe Biden urging that the House GOP’s plan for overhauling Medicare not be included in any budget deal hammered out by Biden and congressional leaders.

Nelson was part of a 57-40 Senate vote rejecting House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan‘s spending plan, which includes a provision changing Medicare for those now 54 and younger from a defined-benefit program to one in which the government subsidizes the purchase of private insurance plans on a regulated exchange.

So while the Ryan plan can’t pass the Democrat-controlled Senate on its own, Nelson and his co-signers (Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Ben Cardin of Maryland, Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Jon Tester of Montana) say it should not be reincarnated as part of any “larger deal,” as some Republicans have suggested.

The Ryan plan’s backers say the change will prevent Medicare from insolvency beginning in 2024. Nelson and his colleagues say they “share the goal of ensuring the long-term health of Medicare. We hope to identify delivery system reforms and other sources of savings that can extend the life of Medicare in its current form. But we will never allow any effort to dismantle the program and force benefit cuts upon seniors under the guise of deficit reduction.”

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and three groups of Florida doctors have filed a federal lawsuit over a new state law restricting health care practitioners’ ability to ask patients about firearms in the home.

Attorneys filed the lawsuit against Gov. Rick Scott, who signed the bill into law last week, and his administration in Miami today, saying what they call the “Physician Gag Law” infringes on their First Amendment constitutional right to free speech.

“By severely restricting such speech and the ability of physicians to practice such preventative medicine, the Florida statute could result in grievous harm to children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly. The First Amendment does not permit
such a gross and content-based intrusion on speech and, accordingly, the Court should declare the Physician Gag Law unconstitutional and enjoin its enforcement,” the lawsuit reads.

Under the law, doctors and other health care professionals will face sanctions including fines and losing their licenses if they ask patients about guns in the home without a direct belief that the inquiry is relevant to the patient’s safety or health. Pediatricians say the law keeps them from doing their jobs.

Florida is the only state in the nation to have such a law, NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer told The Palm Beach Post last week.

Hammer, a former president of the national gun-rights organization, said some health care professionals are pushing anti-gun messages to their patients under the guise of home safety questionnaires.

She said doctors need to stick to practicing medicine and keep the politics of gun ownership out of the exam room.

“Doctors should not be spending the time that patients are paying for to talk to them about matters they’re not there for. They come to doctors for medical care and medical treatment, not to have politics in the examining room and not to be lectured on firearms. They are medical doctors; they are not firearms instructors,” Hammer said.

The Boca Raton Republican Club, where former state House Majority Leader and 2012 Senate hopeful Adam Hasner is a member, appears to be up for grabs in the Florida’s three-way GOP Senate primary.

Former Boca Raton Republican Club President Yvonne Boice was announced today as a member of the finance committee for former appointed Sen. George LeMieux‘s 2012 Senate bid.

Boice’s predecessor as Boca GOP prez, conservative activist Jack Furnari, is backing state Senate President Mike Haridopolos.

Current Boca GOP President Margi Helschien is neutral in the race and says all three candidates have strong support among the approximately 300 members of her club.

“I would say right now our club is kind of looking at everybody. They really are all three great candidates,” said Helschien. Asked to guess how support breaks down in the Boca club, Helschien said, “It’s pretty much distributed evenly.”

Look for the shouters to return this week when U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, holds his monthly town hall meetings in Davie and Boca Raton.

At a Palm Beach County Democratic Executive Committee meeting last week, Craig Borkon of the liberal group Organize Now coached partisans to show up at West’s meetings and get loud. When an audience member mentioned getting tossed out, Borkon said: “Let them throw you out. Finally maybe the media will put something in the paper saying he’s throwing everybody out that disagrees with him.”

Also at last week’s strategy session, county Democratic Chairman Mark Alan Siegel said that liberal radio talker Nicole Sandler, who got arrested at a West town hall in April, “was trying to help us make news that day by getting herself arrested. And she did.”

Read about it in this week’s Politics column.

A Rick Scott spokesman Friday acknowledged that the governor’s office staff was wrong to keep a handful of sign-carrying Democratic protesters away from his budget-signing last week at The Villages, the Central Florida retirement community.

Brian Burgess, Scott’s communications director, said there was “confusion among event staff, including an employee of the governor’s office,” about whether the signing of the $69.1 billion state budget was a “public or private” event.

“Although it was held on private property that was reserved for the event, the public was invited to attend,” Burgess said. “ The field staffer should not have participated in decisions related to event attendance or admission to the venue.”

Sumter County Sheriff’s deputies chased off a couple dozen protesters wearing blue, ‘Vote Democratic’ T-shirts and carrying signs at the budget-signing last week, that was organized by the Florida Republican Party and web-streamed on the party’s site.

Deputies, however, apparently acted on the orders of Russ Abrams, a Scott assistant, who told one reporter the budget-signing was a private event. Scott press secretary Lane Wright last week said the governor had nothing to do with stiff-arming the protesters.

For his part, Scott on Thursday said that he would look into the week-old controversy. That came after West Palm Beach Democratic Rep. Mark Pafford wrote the governor earlier this week, demanding an explanation.

“It’s interesting an apology didn’t occur,” Pafford said Friday evening, when told of Burgess’ statement. “It appears that the governor is acknowledging that mistakes were made. But I would think part of the message would be, ‘I apologize.’”

Here’s the video of last week’s exchange between deputies and protesters:  http://bit.ly/lCydCl