Gov. Rick Scott’s campaign manager Susie Wiles has gone to work for Brian Ballard’s lobbying firm and is opening a new office for Smith & Ballard in her Jacksonville hometown.

Ballard, one of Gov. Charlie Crist’s chief advisors, was the top fundraiser for Scott’s inaugural campaign and has long ties with GOP governors beginning with Bob Martinez, for whom he served as chief of staff. Ballard’s partner is his father-in-law Jim Smith, a former state attorney general who also served as secretary of state.

Wiles’s husband Lannie Wiles, who was an integral part of Scott’s crackerjack advance team during his campaign for governor, recently went to work for former Republican Party of Florida Al Cardenas’ lobbying firm.

UPDATE: A spokesman for Gov. Rick Scott responded to his withdrawal of redistricting amendments for federal approval.

“Consistent with Governor Scott’s effort to assess the rules, regulations and contracts of the previous administration, he has withdrawn the letter requesting a DOJ review of Amendments 5 and 6. Census data has not been transmitted to the state yet and the Legislature will not undertake redistricting for months, so this withdrawal in no way impedes the process of redrawing Florida’s legislative and congressional districts,” Scott spokesman Brian Hughes said in an e-mail.

In his first few days on the job, Gov.Rick Scott quietly withdrew the state’s request for a federal go-ahead to move forward with two redistricting amendments overwhelmingly approved by voters in November.

Scott sent the request to the U.S. Department of Justice, which has to sign off on any changes to Florida elections laws affecting voters’ rights, on Jan. 7, just two days after he announced the reappointment of Department of State Secretary Kurt Browning. After Browning left Gov. Charlie Crist’s administration last year, he headed up a political committee that fought Amendments 5 and 6, aka the “Fair Districts” amendments. Crist’s temporary secretary of the state department submitted the application for “preclearance” to DOJ officials on Dec. 10

Scott’s move, offered with no explanation to the feds and no public announcement, left Democrats and supporters of the amendments hopping mad, and the state’s top Democrat is demanding Scott resubmit the preclearance application.

(more…)

Florida Department of Health chief of staff Rob Siedlecki, Jr., is headed to Kansas to head that state’s Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican elected as governor in November, appointed Siedlecki to head the agency, the Kansas equivalent of Florida’s Department of Children and Families, subject to the state Senate’s confirmation.

“As SRS Secretary, Rob Siedlecki brings a unique combination of working with the same federal programs that SRS implements in our state and supervising a large staff and budget,” Brownback said in a press release. “He understands the severe budget challenges Kansas faces. He will work to improve the delivery of our health services programs to our state’s most vulnerable in a cost effective way.”

Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Rick Scott has yet to name his chiefs of either the Department of Health or DCF. Surgeon General Ana Viamonte Ros, head of the state Department of Health, quit last month – two weeks before Scott was sworn in – after a scathing attack on her department by Scott’s transition team.

DCF Secretary George Sheldon, appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist, remains on the job as one of dozens of Crist holdovers Scott asked to remain in place until as late as March while he gets his administration together.

Senate President Mike Haridopolos started organizing his U.S. Senate bid with a campaign committee to raise money for the 2012 race.

Haridopolos’ committee – “Friends of Mike H” – launched a Website to accept contributions for the Merritt Island Republican.

Haridopolos is inviting big Republican donors to a “private strategy meeting” in Orlando next month and asking them to bring $10,000 checks, according to an e-mail a GOP fundraiser sent out yesterday.

Haridopolos and what is expected to be a host of others have targeted U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, the state’s statewide-elected Democratic holdout. Others who’ve expressed an interest in running against Nelson include former U.S. Sen. George LeMieux, an attorney with the West Palm Beach-based Gunster law firm and former aide to Gov. Charlie Crist.

Republicans swept the governor’s seat and the Florida Cabinet and nailed down veto-proof majorities in the state House and Senate in the November elections.

Former Gov. Charlie Crist has joined the Morgan & Morgan law firm as expected.

Crist was in talks with longtime political supporter and friend John Morgan before officially leaving office this week.

Crist also said he may take a part-time job as a visiting professor at Stetson Law School in his St. Petersburg hometown.

Crist passed the Florida Bar exam on his third attempt after receiving his law degree from Cumberland School of Law in Alabama.

It’s been 18 years since Crist punched the clock at a private job.

He was first elected to the state Senate in 1992 and has been a public servant ever since.

Gov. Rick Scott has appointed St. Joe Co. executive Billy Buzzett as secretary of the Department of Community Affairs, the agency that oversees growth management.

Buzzett is a lawyer, developer and engineer who helped smooth the way for St. Joe’s massive expansion in the Panhandle.

Buzzett served on Scott’s transition team, which recommended doing away with the agency, something Scott has said he would consider.

Buzzett’s role would be to “better align Department of Community Affairs functions with other functions across state government,” Scott said in a press release.

Scott also reinstated former Secretary of State Kurt Browning, who quit after Gov. Charlie Crist jumped the GOP and became an independent.

And Scott said former Washington DC public schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, who served on his transition team, would remain as his education advisor. He and Rhee will visit a charter school in Opalocka Thursday morning.

Gov. Charlie Crist is seeking a federal emergency disaster declaration for nearly three dozen Florida counties, including Palm Beach, Martin and St. Lucie, impacted by severe cold weather and frost.

The disaster would allow farmers and other agricultural business owners to access federal disaster funds to cover the losses from damaged crops.

State officials estimate the cold snap caused at least $270 million in economic losses.

Public relations doyenne Vivian Myrtetus, Gov. Charlie Crist‘s former spokeswoman, is setting up her own communications shop after leaving U.S. Sen. George LeMieux‘s office in Washington.

Myrtetus worked on Crist’s campaign for governor and served in a variety of other PR posts in Florida government before going to work for LeMieux after Crist appointed him to fill in for U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, who retired early.

Myrtetus’ Beacon Communications Group in Tallahassee will go up against a cadre of other former governors’ press secretaries PR firms, including Ron Sachs and April Herrle, who both served under the late Gov. Lawton Chiles.

The statewide grand jury looking into public corruption issued its preliminary report today and called on the legislature to beef up Florida’s ethics laws.

The 127-page preliminary report suggests that lawmakers take a page from Palm Beach County’s anti-corruption measures enacted after three county commissioners wound up behind bars for misusing their office.

The statewide grand jury, at work for nearly a year and set to expire in February, report recommended requiring employees at private businesses that have government contracts to be subject to the same ethics laws as public employees.

Other recommendations include:
- Tougher sentences for officials who use their public office to commit crimes;
- Creating an independent Inspector General to oversee agency inspectors general;
- Expanding bid-tampering laws to include bid-rigging schemes;
- Giving the Ethics Commission the power to initiate investigations.

Pat Gleason, the veritable font of all government in the sunshine knowledge, is going back to work at the attorney general’s’ office, this time for AG-elect Pam Bondi.

Gleason is currently serving as Gov. Charlie Crist’s special counsel in the Office of Open Government and has for years been the go-to lawyer on matters regarding Florida’s broad Sunshine laws.

“Pat is a leading authority in our state on open government and public records, and I am honored to have her join my administration,” Bondi said in a press release. “We have worked together for over a decade, and I have the highest respect for her work ethic, integrity and the transparency she brings to the government process.”

Agriculture and Consumer Services Commissioner-elect Adam Putnam has his new team ready to go with less than two weeks until he takes office on Jan. 4.

Putnam has hired Sterling Ivey, who’s been Gov. Charlie Crist’s spokesman since Crist took office, as his press secretary. Ivey also served as spokesman for the Department of State under Gov. Jeb Bush.

Putnam’s tapped more than a dozen long-serving government workers such as his chief of staff Mike Joyner, who spent more than 25 years working for the state including a stint as chief of staff at the Department of Environmental Protection.

And Putnam’s hanging on to several of current Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson’s employees, many of whom have worked in the department for years.

See who’s on Putnam’s administrative team after the jump. (more…)

Gov. Charlie Crist appeared on MSNBC’s Hardball this evening after attending the startup “No Labels” nonpartisan political group meeting in D.C. today.

Crist responded to Republican House Speaker John Boehner’s flat-out rejection of compromise (“I reject the word”) on 60 Minutes.

“It’s unbelievable,” Crist, an independent, told Hardball host Chris Matthews.

“To have common sense means that you have to compromise, trying to do what’s right for the people instead of the party. I think what you see is evidence of the fact that there are certain segments of both parties that view compromise as a dirty word. And if you say you’re willing to compromise, in other words use common sense, try to do what’s right for the people instead of the party, then you may get shunned by your political party,” said Crist, who was indeed shunned by Florida Republican leaders after dumping the party and running as an independent for U.S. Senate. Crist lost to Republican Marco Rubio.

Matthews called Crist an Eisenhower Republican, prompting Crist to identify himself with other moderate Republicans, including Ronald Reagan.

Matthews interrupted him.

“No, no you’re not a Reagan Republican. No you’re not,” Matthews insisted.

Crist pointed out that Reagan and then-U.S. House Speaker Tip O’Neill, a Democrat, worked together despite their ideological and political differences.

“They had the common sense and the civility to be able to get together after hours, a couple of Irishmen, and have a cold one,” Crist said. “We have to get back to that point where there can be personal relationships where some people in one party and those in another party are really treated as traitors if they dare to break bread with somebody else. Especially in this season, that’s just not the right thing to do. We need to come together for the country and put the country ahead of the party in order for the people to be victorious in the end.”
(more…)

Two top-tier Florida candidates – Gov. Charlie Crist and Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink – won the dubious distinction of making MSNBC’s “Worst Candidate of 2010″ list this morning.

Crist – an independent who jumped the GOP ship when it looked like he couldn’t win a primary against Marco Rubio in the U.S. Senate race – and Sink – a Democrat who lost her bid for governor to Republican Rick Scott – were named as two of the three “worst candidates” by MSNBC hosts Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie.

But the worst of the worst, according to MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown” hosts?

Sink.

“You lost to a guy who defrauded Medicare,” Todd said when announcing the “winner, pausing for effect. “In Florida! Okay? More people on Medicare in Florida than maybe any other state.”

Scott started up and was CEO of the Columbia/HCA hospital chain that wound up paying an historic fine to the federal government – $1.7 billion – for Medicare and Medicaid fraud.

Whether or not the “Lizard King” unzipped his pants and exposed himself to a crowd of thousands more than 40 years ago remains a mystery.

Jim Morrison’s alleged antics will remain forever a part of the late rocker’s legacy.

But the charges against him for indecent exposure and public intoxication won’t.

Gov. Charlie Crist, Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink and Attorney General Bill McCollum, acting as the state Clemency Board, granted Morrison, the lead singer of “The Doors,” a pardon Thursday afternoon as one of their final acts as a panel before leaving office.

 Loading ...

(more…)

An angry former Miami cop showed up at the Capitol today to protest Gov. Charlie Crist and the state Clemency Board’s expected pardon of the late “Lizard King” rocker Jim Morrison.

Angel Lago said he served on the police force with the Theodore Seaman, the officer who charged Morrison with indecent exposure and public profanity, and that the pardon is an insult to Seaman’s reputation because it implies that Seaman lied in his arrest report.

Lago, who said he retired from the police force because he is disabled, said that Morrison, who was found dead in a Paris bathtub from an apparent overdose, does not deserve to be exonerated.

“What example are we giving our children? Party hearty and die young?” an angry Lago said. “All Mr. Morrison ever did was do drugs and sing songs.”

Alan Mendelsohn, an influential South Florida eye doctor and prominent GOP fundraiser, admitted in court this morning that he steered $82,000 to former state Sen. Mandy Dawson while she was in office.

Mendelsohn, who pleaded guilty in a federal corruption case, also admitted he skimmed more than $300,000 from political committees he oversaw and failed to report more than $600,000 in taxable income from his lobbying and medical work.

Mendelsohn, a member of Gov. Charlie Crist’s 2006 transition team, said in court today he paid $82,000 to a close friend of Dawson’s and that the money was funneled to the Ft. Lauderdale Democrat whose district included part of Palm Beach County.

Read the full story here.

Nearly 50 years after civil rights struggles rocked St. Augustine, Gov. Charlie Crist and the rest of the state Clemency Board issued an apology to hundreds of black activists – some of them schoolchildren -as their first action at their final meeting this morning.

Crist, Attorney General Bill McCollum, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink and Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson approved the resolution expressing “profound regret” and clearing the way for hundreds of civil rights activists arrested in 1963 and 1964 to have their records expunged.

“I think it makes a great statement about where Florida is today versus where part of Florida was back then,” Crist said this morning.

Sen. Tony Hill, a black Democrat from Jacksonville, asked Crist to sponsor the resolution after he failed to convince lawmakers to pass a bill clearing the civil rights activists’ records.

(more…)

Carole Pollack was inducted as a Palm Beach County Democratic precinct captain Thursday night. Less than two hours later, after listening to party members shout each other down and seeing several walk out in protest, Pollack herself was storming out of a Democratic Executive Committee meeting in West Delray saying she might never return.

Pollack witnessed an intramural Democratic bloodbath over whether the party should take action against Democratic County Commissioners Burt Aaronson and Shelley Vana and state Sen. Maria Sachs for bucking the party and endorsing Republican-turned-independent Charlie Crist in the Nov. 2 U.S. Senate race.

Committee members who stayed to the bitter end rejected a motion to censure the elected officials but voted to authorize a committee to send a “brisk” letter telling them of their disapproval.

Pollack didn’t stick around for the final vote.

“This is the first time I’ve been here. I’m not sure that it won’t be the last. I’m very upset by what I’m seeing here,” she told the party activists who met at Temple Emeth.

(more…)

We’re sorry – this post has moved.

You can read the entire story & watch the video here: Jeb Bush: Obama can win in 2012; Crist ‘not welcome back’

In a typical move as he prepares to leave office, Gov. Charlie Crist today asked for the resignations of his agency heads, their senior staff and Crist’s own workers.

“In an effort to ensure a smooth and seamless transition for Governor-elect Rick Scott’s executive and management team, I requested today letters of resignation from my senior executive staff, agency heads and their management teams, as well as all staff within the Executive Office of the Governor,” Crist said in a statement.

“There is no greater calling than to serve others, and I thank each of the dedicated public servants of my administration for their service to the people of Florida. The efficient transition from one leader to another is a testament to our nation’s democracy, and my administration stands ready and willing to assist as needed,” he wrote.

Scott’s amassed a transition team of more than a hundred individuals from Florida and throughout the country as he prepares to take office on Jan. 4.