Another top aide to Gov. Rick Scott announced Wednesday that he is leaving the administration, as promised, after the chief executive’s first session.

Hayden Dempsey, the governor’s special counsel who formerly worked for ex-Gov. Jeb Bush, becomes the latest in a series of departures from Scott’s office, as the governor enters the latter half of his first year in office.

“You were elected by Florida residents on the promise to make Florida the leader in job creation and economic development, to reform education, and to reduce taxes and government spending,” Dempsey wrote in his resignation letter to Scott. “I am proud to have played a part in helping you fulfill those promises this past legislative session.”

Dempsey was one of the few state government veterans that Scott welcomed into his office. Instead, Scott burnished his ’outsider’ image by staffing the governor’s office with insiders from his campaign, most of whom had little connection to Tallahassee.

Some of that now seems to be changing, with adviser Mary Anne Carter and chief-of-staff Mike Prendergast, leaving in recent weeks and Capitol veteran Steve MacNamara brought in to run the office.

Dempsey, who helped direct the governor’s legislative lobbying effort, will be succeeded by Jon Costello, Scott’s legislative affairs director.

A Miami judge this morning ruled that Florida corrections officials can use a new drug as part of the lethal injection “cocktail,” setting the stage for a Supreme Court show-down later this month.

The Florida Supreme Court temporarily halted the execution of convicted cop killer Manuel Valle, originally slated for Monday, until a hearing was held on the use of the drug pentobarbital. Florida Department of Corrections officials switched to the drug in a new lethal injection protocol released in June after the manufacturer of the old drug, sodium thiopental. The Danish manufacturer of pentobarbital, also known as Nembutal, twice asked Gov. Rick Scott not to use the drug for lethal injections and has stopped selling it to distributors who resell it for that use.

Valle’s lawyers argued that the drug had not been tested and that its use may cause prisoners pain during executions in violation of the cruel or unusual punishment threshold set by a previous U.S. Supreme Court opinion known as “Baze.”

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jacqueline Hogan Scola agreed with three federal courts that already ruled the drug does not raise a substantial risk of harm.

The “usage of pentobarbital does not create an objectively unreasonable risk of suffering,” Scola wrote in her order.

Briefs from Attorney General Pam Bondi, who went to the U.S. Supreme Court to try to get the execution back on, and Valle’s lawyers are due to the Florida Supreme Court by Aug. 19, and the court has slated oral arguments for Aug. 24 if necessary.

Gov. Rick Scott signed a death warrant for Valle – his only since taking office in January – late in May. The Supreme Court rescheduled Valle’s execution for Sept. 2.

The debt ceiling showdown has ended, but the conservative group Americans For Prosperity sees no reason to stop running ads blasting President Obama for “reckless” spending and borrowing.

The group, founded by the Koch Brothers, is adding another week to its ad buys in Florida and Ohio. AFP Florida Director Slade O’Brien says the group is spending about $600,000 to $700,000 in the Sunshine State.

Obama and Congress this week wrapped up a debt deal that left some angry Democrats branding tea partyers as “terrorists” and “Satan sandwich” makers. But O’Brien said federal borrowing will continue to be an issue as a 12-member bipartisan committee tries to identify additional deficit reduction before the end of the year.

“This is not a done deal,” O’Brien said. “The volume really needs to be increased and the country needs to focus on the fact that we have a runaway spending problem.”

State Rep. Darren Soto, an Orlando Democrat,  kept the heat on Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday over her firing of a couple of high-ranking investigators probing foreclosure practices by banks and law firms.

Soto, joined by state Sen. Eleanor Sobel, D-Hollywood, asked the U.S. Justice Department to look into the May dismissals of June Clarkson and Theresa Edwards.  Bondi on Tuesday said she was confident the actions were warranted, but acknowledged she was asking an “outside inspector general” to examine the case to see if any missteps were made.

Soto, who sought documents last week related to the dismissals, said that was a good move by the first-year attorney general. But it didn’t go far enough, Soto and Sobel said.

“Public records indicate that these terminations occurred while Ms. Edwards and Ms. Clarkson were in the midst of successful mortgage fraud litigation and in spite of prior successful reviews,” Soto and Sobel wrote in their letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. 

 ”As legislators representing areas ravaged by foreclosure fraud and in the interest of our constituents, we believe these terminations present an overwhelming public concern.”

The Democrats also asked Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson to push for a probe of Bondi’s actions by ”an  investigatory agency not directly associated with the State of Florida in an effort to get the most neutral review.”

Some major Republican money-raisers are joining GOP Senate hopeful Adam Hasner‘s South Florida leadership team.

They include auto magnate and former Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman, who led the recent successful effort to recall Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez. Also coming aboard is national GOP money-raiser and former Marco Rubio finance chairman Al Hoffman of North Palm Beach. Boca Raton developer and Republican Jewish Coalition big wheel Ned Siegel is part of Team Hasner, as is businessman/arts patron/thoroughbred horse breeder Earle Mack.

Hoffman was U.S. ambassador to Portugal, Siegel was ambassador to the Bahamas and Mack was ambassador to Finland under former President George W. Bush.

“I can say without question that Adam Hasner is far and away the best candidate we can send to Washington to stand shoulder to shoulder with Marco Rubio,” said Hoffman, who in addition to raising money for Rubio was a key financier for the presidential campaigns of Bush and John McCain.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said Tuesday she is asking for an independent probe of her own office’s abrupt firing of two foreclosure fraud investigators, who had been examining possible corruption by law firms and banks.

The departures in May prompted questions about whether the move was politically motivated, a charge Bondi denied in outlining plans to have an inspector general from another agency review actions by the attorney general’s office.

“This decision was made by, as it should be, three of my top staff members,” Bondi said. “I trust their judgment.”

She added, “This decision was made on job performance, not politics…If there’s any allegation that I knew about this or was involved in this, I’m asking for an outside I.G. to look at this and report back to me if there should have been more documentation.”

 Former Assistant Attorney General Theresa Edwards and colleague June Clarkson had been investigating the state’s so-called “foreclosure mills,” uncovering evidence of legal malpractice that also implicated banks and loan serv­icers.

Despite positive performance evaluations, Edwards told the Palm Beach Post in July that the two were told during a meeting with their supervisor in late May to give up their jobs voluntarily or be let go. Edwards said no reason was given for the move.

“It all happened very abruptly,” said Edwards, who had worked in the attorney general’s office for about three years.

The foreclosure investigations were launched under former Attorney General Bill McCollum, but Edwards said she sensed changes were coming under Gov. Rick Scott and Bondi, who both took office in January.

“I think they wanted to put people in there that were more in line with their thinking,” Edwards told the Post last month.

Rep. Darren Soto, D-Orlando, who last week urged the U.S. Justice Department to look into the firings, praised Bondi’s move Tuesday — but said it didn’t go far enough.

Soto called it a “slow-coming acknowledgement and a step in the right direction.

“ But I believe a truly independent investigation is warranted, which may require a review by authorities outside Florida,” he added.

After shunning the state’s editorial boards during his run for governor last fall, Rick Scott’s chill toward the media was palpable at his first news conference in January.

But Tuesday — a day after he invited reporters for coffee and donuts in his office — the suddenly snuggly chief executive said he was looking to go even further.  Scott said he’s looking to spend a “workday” as a reporter, apparently accepting an invite from Miami Herald Bureau Chief Mary Ellen Klas to shadow her on duty.

“I like newspapers,” said Scott, adding that he once thought about buying a newspaper company. “I like reading the paper newspaper.”

Scott’s metamorphosis is remarkable, but also perhaps explainable. New chief-of-staff Steve MacNamara has been suggesting a fresh direction for the governor, whose first seven months in office have seen his popularity ratings plummet among Floridians.

Scott’s first “workday,” is slated for tomorrow in Tampa, when he will work at a donut shop similar to one he and his mother opened years ago in Kansas City.

Borrowing the schtick from former Democratic governor and later U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, Scott announced the move Monday night, saying he would work cleaning phone booths, delivering newspapers, and selling groceries in coming months — jobs that he formerly held on his Horatio Alger climb uphill.

But Scott set a mean deadline for doing some newspaper reporting. He said Tuesday it could become his second workday.

With the Senate expected to pass a bipartisan debt ceiling compromise soon and send it to President Obama, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson made their closing arguments.

“I cannot support this plan because it fails to actually solve our debt problem, fails to diminish the risk of a credit rating downgrade and is not a long-term solution to avert a debt crisis. This plan still adds at least $7 trillion to our debt over 10 years,” Rubio said in a statement just released by his office.

Said Nelson in wrapping up a floor speech this morning: “All of us agree that government spending must be cut, that the public debt must be reduced – otherwise, our economy will not recover and America will no longer be in good standing around the world.

“So, let us all come and reason together, as the Good Book says.

“Let us pass this plan – so we can turn our attention back to creating jobs.”

Read their complete statements after the jump….

(more…)

Americans For Tax Reform founder Grover Norquist, whose no-tax-hike pledge was signed by Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and most other GOP members of Congress, says the debt ceiling deal approved by the House Monday and headed for Senate approval today is “a victory for Reagan Republicans.”

Find out where Rubio and Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, as well as Palm Beach County legislators, stand on the debt compromise by clicking here.

It worked for a Democratic millionaire chief executive in Florida more than 40 years ago.

But Republican Gov. Rick Scott appears to be hoping that launching his own series of ‘workdays,’ patterned after former Florida governor and later U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, will help raise his poor approval ratings from voters.

Scott plans to perform at least one workday each month. The first workday is slated for Wednesday, with Scott heading to a Tampa donut shop. Scott and his mother ran a donut shop in Kansas City, starting him on a path toward his millions.

Scott prepped a bit for his donut duty Monday. In an equally uncharacteristic move, the governor seemed intent on improving his generally icy relations with capital reporters, inviting them to his office for coffee and donuts. He even explained some of the finer points of donut-making to a rapt audience brandishing digital recorders.

Graham, scion to a family fortune spawned in the dairy and development industry, also boosted his popularity with workdays, completing almost 400 of them over his decades in elected office, which ended after an unsuccessful 2004 presidential run.

“I commend Gov. Scott on his commitment to understanding the hopes and concerns of Floridians by working with them,” Graham said. “I found the workdays to give me an unusual insight not only into how people earn their living, but how they live their lives, pursue their dreams and confront their challenges.”

 

 

Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater said Monday he will sign off on a $5,000 payment to cover funeral expenses for Eric Perez, an 18-year-old who died in state custody in West Palm Beach on July 10.

The Palm Beach Post and The Miami Herald reported this weekend that Atwater blocked the payment. His office told Department of Juvenile Justice officials they lacked statutory authority for the payment although the agency has had a policy for two years to pay up to $5,000 for funeral costs of children who die while in their custody and has issued the payments twice before.

On Monday, Atwater blamed Department of Juvenile Justice officials for what he called “a tragic delay” in a press release Monday afternoon. Atwater promised to send a check to the Perez family’s attorney within 48 hours.

“Regrettably, this tragic delay would not have occurred if the Department of Juvenile Justice had not blatantly ignored guidance from my office,” Atwater said in the release. “In the future, I would hope that DJJ would be more transparent in its dealings with the public and with taxpayer monies.”

Nancy Argenziano, a former chairwoman of the Public Service Commission and lifelong Republican, is running against incumbent freshman U.S. Rep. Steve Southerland – as a Democrat. Southerland, a Panama City Republican, ousted Congressional veteran Allen Boyd, a Democrat, from his North Florida District 2 seat in November.

Argenziano, who earned a reputation as a maverick during her tenure in both the state House and Senate, will formally enter the race for the North Florida Congressional seat within two weeks, Argenziano said.

Argenziano sent a letter to supporters declaring her intention to run as a Democrat, saying she needs at least $200,000 to be taken seriously as a candidate and to get the Democratic National Congressional Committee to throw some money her way.

Argenziano has been an outspoken critic of GOP leaders as a legislator and as a utility regulator, appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist, and unleashed her sharp tongue in her message to supporters, explaining why she is switching parties. Crist also abandoned the GOP in a failing bid as an independent against now-U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio.

“Current Republican leaders have neither patience with nor allowance for honest elected officials, and they demand that members of the various legislatures – who, after all, have sworn to uphold the Constitution – instead just follow the hijacked party line and shut up,” Argenziano wrote. “While I am of the opinion that Americans are not ready to vote in a third party, greater parity of the two parties in state legislatures would allow for far better public policy. When one party – or one intransigent, ideological arm of a party – controls governmental and political policy, as in Florida, it breeds a dangerous hubris and promotes the worst kind of extremism and acceptance of those whose public service is merely a well paid hobby.”

The South Florida congressional delegation’s most prominent ideological warriors — conservative U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, and liberal U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston — appear to both be lining up behind the debt-ceiling compromise hammered out Sunday and expected to come to House and Senate votes tonight.

West indicated Sunday night that he’s leaning toward supporting the deal and moved to preempt sniping from the right, telling conservatives that before they criticize they should “consider what would have happened if Pelosi, Reid and Obama were still in control.”

Wasserman Schultz, who’s also chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said via Twitter this morning: “I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this debt compromise…Bottom line: Dems protected Medicare, Medicaid & SS, secured balance w/defense cuts, set stage for more balanced plan. Won day w/compromise.”

More than half a year into his administration, Gov. Rick Scott hosted his first coffee-and-doughnuts session with Capitol reporters and, in a reversal of his previous policy, will start making the rounds of the state’s newspaper editorial boards.

Scott, who never ran for public office before last year, refused to meet with the editorial writers during his campaign for governor.

Scott’s new strategy comes after a recent shake-up in his inner office in which Tallahassee political veteran Steve MacNamara replaced Mary Anne Carter, a relative unknown in Florida, as Scott’s chief of staff.

Since MacNamara came on board late last month, Scott appeared at an annual meeting of newspaper executives and had an off-the-record chat with The Miami Herald ed board.

In another signal of détente with the media, Scott hosted a coffee-and-doughnuts session with Capitol reporters this morning, his first since taking office in January.

MacNamara explained the new approach.

“His mother and my mother do the same thing every morning,” MacNamara said. “Go outside and get the newspaper.”

Tea party icon Scott spends a slice of nearly every morning appearing on predominantly conservative radio talk shows, speaking to his base.

But MacNamara said the governor has realized he’s got to spread his message around.

“He’s either going to be defined by newspapers or he’s going to define himself,” MacNamara said.

His first sit-down with an editorial board will be with The Tallahassee Democrat, the governor’s new hometown paper, MacNamara said.

Gov. Rick Scott is a huge fan of Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

He also envies the Lone Star State’s low unemployment rate and overall economy.

But as Perry mulls whether to jump into the Republican presidential field — a likelihood, Scott says — his Florida counterpart doesn’t plan  to offer an endorsement.

“I think he’s going to run,” Scott said, adding, “I can’t imagine he’s not going to run. It’s sort of lined up for him to run, right now, because there’s not that many nationally known governors running. And governors have historically won these. He’s in a nice position.”

But if Perry gets in, Scott said he doesn’t plan to endorse him, or probably any of those in the GOP hunt for the White House.

“I went through this last year,” Scott said, recalling his own upstart challenge of party favorite Bill McCollum. “I like primaries.

“I think everybody had already endorsed someone else by the time I got in the race. So I’m OK with real primaries.”

 

 

Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson announced via Twitter late this morning that he’ll support the debt-ceiling compromise, tweeting: “This is going to cut almost $3 trillion from the deficit. It’s not a perfect plan, but it’s something we need to have right now.”

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio will vote against the deal, his spokesman just said.

The two leading Republicans vying to take on Nelson in 2012 were critical of the bipartisan compromise.

Former appointed Sen. George LeMieux: “This deal is no time for celebration; it offers no significant debt reduction for our children and grandchildren and no fundamental reforms that will solve Washington’s spending addiction.”

Former state House Majority Leader Adam Hasner of Boca Raton: “The only thing Washington is better at than out of control spending is declaring false victory.”

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Adam Hasner says he’s unimpressed with the debt-ceiling compromise hammered out by President Obama and congressional leaders Sunday night.

On his Twitter account, Hasner said: “The only thing Washington is better at than out of control spending is declaring false victory.”

According to an e-mail from Hasner campaign communications director Douglass Mayer, “Given that the deal does not come close to meeting the conditions set by the credit rating agencies to avoid downgrade, it’s hard to see how anyone will win, let alone the American public.”

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