Former Republican U.S. Rep. Allen West has ruled out running for office in 2014. But through a PAC he formed to support other conservatives, West is raising and spending more money than a typical congressional candidate.
A Federal Election Commission report filed Monday night shows that his PAC, the Allen West Guardian Fund, raised $479,370 during the first quarter of 2013 — most of it in contributions smaller than $200.
West’s PAC also spent $267,887 during the quarter, primarily on direct mail. The PAC began April with $220,169 in cash on hand.
The man who unseated West in November, Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Jupiter, raised $557,912 in the first quarter and spent $157,524. Including money carried over from 2012, Murphy’s 2014 campaign has $672,013 in cash on hand.
Rep. Lois Frankel, D-West Palm Beach, raised $302,061 and spent $97,433 during the quarter and has $332,119 cash on hand.
Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, raised $98,623 and spent $103,493 but still has a cash-on-hand balance of $466,395 from previous contributions.
Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, raised $37,307, spent $58,653 and has $234,760 in cash on hand.
Freshman U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Jupiter, joined a unanimous House Democratic caucus today in voting against House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan‘s budget plan.
But Murphy split with most of his party — including fellow Palm Beach County Democratic Reps. Ted Deutch, Alcee Hastings and Lois Frankel — by also voting against a House Democratic budget plan and against the budget put forward by Senate Democrats.
Murphy was narrowly elected in November in a Palm Beach-Treasure Coast swing district where Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney got 51.5 percent. Murphy has called for more bipartisan cooperation and a “grand bargain” between Republicans and Democrats on the budget.
The Senate Democratic budget plan, which includes $1 trillion in new taxes over 10 years, failed on a 261-to-154 House vote on Wednesday. All 154 votes for it came from Democrats — including Deutch, Frankel and Hastings. Murphy was one of 35 Democrats who joined 226 Republicans in opposition.
Later on Wednesday, Murphy was one of only 28 House Democrats to vote against a budget plan by Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee. Van Hollen’s budget includes $1.2 trillion in new taxes and $200 billion in new stimulus spending. Murphy joined 225 Republicans in opposition.
Freshman U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Jupiter, broke with most of the Democratic caucus today and voted for a largely symbolic Republican measure requiring President Barack Obama to either submit a budget that balances by 2023 or identify a year when a balanced budget will be achieved.
The measure, which the Democrat-controlled Senate is not expected to consider, passed on a 253-167 vote with Murphy and 25 other Democrats joining 227 Republicans in support. One Republican and 166 Democrats were opposed.
The three other members of Palm Beach County’s congressional delegation — Democratic Reps. Ted Deutch of Boca Raton, Lois Frankel of West Palm Beach and Alcee Hastings of Miramar — all voted no.
Many Democrats derided the measure, with Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., quoted in Roll Call as calling it “a gimmick wrapped in talking points inside a press release.”
Murphy represents a Palm Beach-Treasure Coast district where Republicans slightly outnumber Democrats and Mitt Romney got 51.5 percent of the vote in November. Murphy’s office sent out a press release headlined “Murphy votes with Republicans to demand balanced budget.”
Said Murphy: “Our country is at a tipping point and it is high time that we get serious about addressing our nation’s fiscal issues, which requires a bipartisan, balanced approach. I joined my Republican colleagues today in voting for this bill and demanding that we put a plan in place that leads to a balanced budget. Although I wish the bill had been amending to ensure a balanced approach is taken to reach a balanced budget, this is still an important step in getting our fiscal house in order.”
Before the final vote, Murphy joined Democrats in supporting a failed amendment specifying that efforts to balance the budget “take a balanced, bipartisan approach to deficit reduction that protects the middle class and seniors.”
Freshman U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Jupiter, made his first speech on the floor of the House and offered an amendment that was voted down today during the debate over extending the federal government’s debt limit.
The Republican-led House voted 285-to-144 to extend the government’s borrowing authority until mid-May. Republicans retreated, at least temporarily, on demands that spending cuts be tied to any increase in borrowing authority. But the GOP succeeded in including language that says members of Congress won’t get paid if their chamber fails to pass a budget by April 15. The Democrat-controlled Senate hasn’t passed a budget for three years.
Before the final vote, the House rejected a Murphy amendment that would have shielded seniors, veterans and active members of the military from any spending cuts. The Murphy amendment failed 277-to-151 vote. All four members of Palm Beach County’s congressional delegation — Democratic Reps. Murphy, Ted Deutch of Boca Raton, Lois Frankel of West Palm Beach and Alcee Hastings of Miramar — voted for the failed amendment.
On the final vote to raise the debt ceiling, Murphy and Deutch joined 84 other Democrats and 199 Republicans in the majority. Frankel and Hastings were opposed. Hastings told Politico.com the measure is unconstitutional because Congress cannot change its pay until the start of a new session.
Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio issued a statement marking the “tragic anniversary” of the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision while freshman Rep. Lois Frankel, D-West Palm Beach, hailed the landmark ruling in her maiden House floor speech.
Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, also issued a statement affirming the ruling that struck down most restrictions on abortion in the U.S.
The two announced candidates for Florida Democratic Party chairman — Hillsborough County Committeeman Alan Clendenin and Leon County Committeewoman Allison Tant — are rolling out big-name endorsements as the Jan. 26 election approaches.
Clendenin and Tant both announced key labor endorsements Tuesday, with Florida AFL-CIO President Mike Williams announcing his support for Clendenin while the Service Employees International Union declared its backing of Tant.
Today, Tant announced the endorsement of U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and nine U.S. House Democrats, including Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and all four members of Palm Beach County’s House delegation — Reps. Ted Deutch, Alcee Hastings, Lois Frankel and Patrick Murphy.
Clendenin this afternoon unveiled the endorsement of Alex Sink, the party’s 2010 nominee for governor and a potential 2014 candidate. He also has the support of U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa.
Tant and Clendenin are vying to replace Rod Smith, who isn’t seeking reelection as party chairman.
U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, crossed the $10 million mark in fundraising during the last quarter while his likely Democratic challenger, Patrick Murphy, topped $2 million.
The latest batch of Federal Election Commission reports filed Sunday show West snagged $2.2 million during the quarter that ended June 30, including more than $1 million from people who gave less than $200. West has $3.7 million in cash on hand for what is expected to be a close race for Palm Beach-Treasure Coast District 18. Murphy, one of the nation’s top Democratic money-raisers, has nearly $1.3 million in cash on hand. Both West and Murphy face Aug. 14 primary challenges from meagerly financed rivals.
In the open race for West’s old Palm Beach-Broward District 22 seat, Republican Adam Hasner raised $558,936 between April 1 and June 30 — slightly more than the combined contribution total of Democratic candidates Lois Frankel and Kristin Jacobs during the quarter.
Former West Palm Beach mayor Frankel raised $359,887 in contributions for the quarter and supplemented her total with a $50,000 loan. Broward County Commissioner Jacobs raised $152,820. She and Frankel square off in an Aug. 14 primary.
Hasner, who does not face a primary opponent, has more than $1 million in cash on hand for November. Frankel has more than $1.3 million in her account while Jacobs has only $75,590 in the bank.
As he seeks reelection this year, Republican U.S. Rep. Allen West will get to do something he’s never done before: vote for himself.
West recently transferred his registration from Plantation in Broward County to an address in Palm Beach Gardens, which is within the new Palm Beach-Treasure Coast congressional District 18 where West is running for a second term.
West switched his registration on May 23, listing a residence in PGA National, according to the county elections office. West’s office and campaign have not divulged details, but it does not appear that West owns the Gardens property.
West owns a house in Plantation in the district of liberal Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who is also Democratic National Committee chairwoman. While living in Wasserman Schultz’s District 20, West ran unsuccessfully in 2008 and successfully in 2010 for the neighboring District 22 congressional seat.
The U.S. Constitution does not require members of the House to live in the districts they represent, only to be “an inhabitant of that state in which he shall be chosen.”
Former West Palm Beach mayor Lois Frankel, for example, is running in the newly drawn District 22 while living just outside its boundaries in the new District 20, where U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, is seeking reelection.
West’s house in Plantation is in the new District 22. But West opted not to run in that district after it was redrawn to give Democrats a 9-point registration edge.
Randall Terry, the longtime anti-abortion protest leader who became involved in Florida politics during the 2005 Terri Schiavo controversy, has qualified for the ballot as a no-party congressional candidate against longtime U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar.
Terry founded Operation Rescue in the 1980s and boasted that the group racked up more than 70,000 arrests demonstrating at abortion clinics.
Hastings
He moved to the St. Augustine area around 2004 and was in the national spotlight in 2005 as spokesman for Schiavo’s parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, in their losing fight to have their brain-damaged daughter’s feeding tube reattached against the wishes of Schiavo’s husband.
Terry lost a 2006 Republican primary for state Senate in a northeast Florida district. The check he wrote to qualify for office this week lists a Purgitsville, West Virgnia address. Terry did not return a phone call requesting comment.
Hastings, first elected in 1992, is running in a Palm Beach-Broward district where Democrats outnumber Republicans more than 4-to-1 and Barack Obama got 80 percent of the vote in 2008. No Republicans are running. The candidate qualifying deadline is noon Friday.
Florida’s Democratic U.S. House delegation signed a letter to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi today expressing “grave concern” about the handling of the Trayvon Martin case more than a month after the unarmed black teenager was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford.
“We remain troubled that this incident occurred on February 26, 2012, and yet Mr. George Zimmerman has not been arrested,” says the letter signed by the six Florida Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Congressional rules generally disallow hiring spouses and family members, but don’t address significant others.
The CREW report says Hastings Deputy District Director Patricia Williams is an example of a congressional “family” member drawing a salary or fees. Hastings disputes the “family” characterization. Asked directly if Williams is his girlfriend, Hastings said, via e-mail:
“No family members work in any of the Congressional offices that I am privileged to serve. Furthermore, my personal business is just that, personal.”
Democratic congressional primary rivals Lois Frankel and Kristin Jacobs found common ground at the Kings Point Shopping Center in West Delray this afternoon. They were part of a star-studded crowd of Dems paying tribute to U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, at his 2012 campaign kickoff.
U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, County Commissioner Burt Aaronson and Sheriff Ric Bradshaw were also there to show support for Deutch. County Democratic Chairman Mark Alan Siegel and Wellington Mayor-elect Bob Margolis were also part of a crowd of about 100 that overflowed a county Democratic Party storefront office.
While the event was for Deutch, the star of the show might have been Sam Oser, the Century Village of West Palm Beach Democratic activist who is celebrating his 86th birthday today. After the crowd sang Happy Birthday, Oser used the opportunity to give an impassioned speech, augmented by hand gestures, on the need to protect Israel from the threat of a nuclear Iran.
He’s a national tea party favorite whose outspoken conservatism inspires considerable sound and fury from the left and right. But U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, is less conservative on fiscal and economic issues than the average House Republican, according to vote ratings released this week by the supply-side advocates at the Club For Growth.
According to new ratings released today by the American Conservative Union, West gets an overall conservative score of 88 percent, compared to 81.5 percent for the average House Republican. West’s 88 percent ACU score is identical to that of less-polarizing U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, for votes cast in 2011.
The Club For Growth gave West a 64 percent score and Rooney a 59 percent score for 2011. The average House Republican agreed with the group 70 percent of the time on the votes it evaluated last year.
Freshman Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio lives up to his conservative billing, according to the new ratings. Rubio gets a 100 percent ACU score and a 97 percent score from Club For Growth.
Florida Democrats, not surprisingly, got low marks from the conservative groups. U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson got a 14 percent Club For Growth rating and 15 percent ACU score for 2011.
U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch got a 0 rating from the ACU and 1 percent from Club For Growth. U.S Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, got a 5 percent ACU score and 13 percent Club For Growth rating.
U.S. Rep. Connie Mack, R-Cape Coral, who’s running for Senate, got a 92 percent ACU score and 98 percent Club for Growth rating for 2011 votes.
Former Democratic state Sen. Dave Aronberg — still the only announced candidate for Palm Beach County state attorney — will get fundraising help next month from U.S. Reps. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, and Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, and former Democratic Reps. Robert Wexler, Ron Klein and Harry Johnston.
The congressional quintet and former Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth are on the host committee for the March 15 event at the Delray Beach home of Aronberg’s parents. Democratic Palm Beach County Commissioners Burt Aaronson, Shelley Vana and Priscilla Taylor and several Democratic club presidents and municipal officials are among the co-hosts.
With an April 20 candidate qualifying deadline approaching, Aronberg is the only candidate who has opened a campaign to replace State Attorney Michael McAuliffe, who is stepping down March 16 for a private sector job. Gov. Rick Scott will appoint a replacement to fill the remainder of McAuliffe’s term, which ends in January. Scott last week said he hasn’t decided whether he wants an appointee who will also run for the job in the fall.
Mikel D. Jones, a longtime Palm Beach County aide to U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, was found guilty today by a federal jury of scheming to defraud a New York venture capital fund that helped finance Jones’ private law firm.
Jones, 55, who lives in Boynton Beach, received a $78,578 salary in 2010 as a top local aide to Hastings while also running a personal injury law firm in Philadelphia.
Jones was convicted of conspiracy, money laundering, 14 counts of wire fraud and 14 counts of mail fraud. His wife, Dona Nichols Jones, 54, was convicted of conspiracy, money laundering, and 14 counts of wire fraud.
Mikel Jones was acquitted of several similar charges involving money his law firm obtained from the city of Philadelphia. His wife was not charged in those counts. Jones’ law firm received a $150,000 loan from the city and a “multimillion-dollar line of credit” from the private New York fund, according to the FBI.
Sentencing has been set for Feb. 7.
Jones attorney David Garvin said this afternoon that “I’m sure that he’s going to appeal because in my opinion there was a lack of evidence that he did anything wrong.”
While not going to the lengths of U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., and comparing domestic political opponents to terrorists, the two Democrats in Palm Beach County’s congressional delegation — U.S. Reps. Ted Deutch of Boca Raton and Alcee Hastings of Miramar — likened Republicans and tea partyers to hostage-takers in the recent debt-ceiling showdown.
Democratic congressional hopefuls Lois Frankel and Patrick Murphy, vying for the right to challenge U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, both used the H-word to describe Republican tactics in interviews about the debt deal this week.
As the conservative Daily Caller enumerates (with more than a dozen examples from the last few days), the hostage metaphor has become the new talking point for liberal commentators from Al Sharpton to Chris Matthews.
And with debt debate dudgeon depleted, Democrats are now using the hostage-taking charge to slam Republicans over Federal Aviation Administration funding.
U.S. Reps. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, and Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, today urged U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis to intervene in a long-running dispute between the Kravis Center and a stagehands union.
The union and the West Palm Beach performing arts venue have been at odds since 2000, when center officials broke off contract talks and stopped using union stagehands. A federal appeals court in 2008 upheld two lower court rulings that the center had engaged in unfair labor practices and ordered it to return to the bargaining table. Talks broke down in January.
“As this conflict dates back over a decade, we therefore request that you please take a stand to compel the Kravis Center to change their course of conduct once and for all,” Hastings and Deutch say in a letter to Solis.
Kravis Center officials didn’t immediately respond.
Union members have not gone on strike, but have conducted “informational pickets” outside the Kravis Center from time to time. During last year’s U.S. Senate campaign, former Gov. Charlie Crist and Democratic candidate Kendrick Meek refused to cross the picket line.
Hastings has vehemently denied the claims by Winsome Packer, a staffer on the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Hastings is a member of the commission and a former chairman. Packer is being represented by attorneys from the conservative group Judicial Watch.
The Wall Street Journal report says the independent Office of Congressional Ethics has launched a “preliminary” investigation of the allegations. The office has 90 days to recommend whether the House Ethics Committee should look into the matter.
U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, has sent a $1,000 refund to a woman who contributed to his campaign in 2009 and filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against him last month.
In a March 30 letter accompanying the refund to Winsome Packer, Hastings points to House ethics rules prohibiting contributions from an employee “to one’s employing member.” Hastings says in the letter he wasn’t aware of the prohibition when he accepted the contribution.
Packer did not request the refund, a Hastings spokeswoman said.
Packer is a policy adviser on the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Hastings was chairman of the panel, also known as the Helsinki Commission, from 2007 to 2009 and co-chairman from 2009 until January. He remains a commission member.
Packer, represented by attorneys from the conservative group Judicial Watch, filed a lawsuit last month claiming Hastings subjected her to “unwelcome sexual advances,” crude comments and unwanted hugging over a two-year period and retaliated against her when she complained.
Hastings has denied Packer’s claims, calling them “ludicrous allegations.” He has suggested Packer is trying to promote a self-published novel called A Personal Agenda that deals with sexual harassment and other issues on Capitol Hill.
U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, says it’s “more than likely” he’ll vote against the budget deal cobbled together late Friday night by President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.
“Obama and Harry Reid ought to be ashamed of themselves and John Boehner ought to be doubly ashamed,” Hastings said today of the agreement to cut about $39 billion over the next six months. Details are still being worked out, but Hastings said it’s already apparent that “you’re getting ready to hurt poor people. I can tell you that without knowing where the cuts are coming from.”
“I thought Obama should have been in much earlier. Quite frankly I think Obama is (concerned) about his 2012 election and couldn’t care less,” Hastings said.
