Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Krista Marx told PostOnPolitics this afternoon that she will not run for state attorney or seek the interim appointment to replace incumbent Michael McAuliffe.
Marx, a former assistant state attorney, was entertaining the idea after McAuliffe announced last month that he would not seek reelection this year. McAuliffe later announced he’s leaving office in March to take a job with West Palm Beach-based Oxbow Carbon, which means Gov. Rick Scott will appoint a replacement to serve the last nine months of McAuliffe’s term.
Former Democratic state Sen. Dave Aronberg is the only candidate to open a 2012 campaign for McAuliffe’s job.
Scott’s office says it has received one application for the state attorney appointment, from Wesley Forrest White, an assistant state attorney in Nassau County near Jacksonville. White said he would move to Palm Beach County if he got the appointment. He said he is not interested in running for a four-year term.
Former state Sen. Dave Aronberg — a Greenacres Democrat — looks poised to become the first candidate to jump into the race to succeed outgoing Palm Beach County State Attorney Michael McAuliffe.
Aronberg has scheduled a West Palm Beach news conference Thursday at the county’s historic courthouse, where he expected to announce his candidacy.
“It’s an exciting time,” Aronberg told the Post. “It shows you that even when you lose a race and it looks like a door has closed, it can be a new beginning.”
Aronberg has been working as an assistant statewide prosecutorl for Attorney General Pam Bondi, a Republican, since December 2010. Aronberg, who earns $92,000-a-year, is based in Palm Beach County and oversees efforts to combat prescription fraud and abuse.
Aronberg, who served eight years in the Senate, lost a 2010 bid for the Democratic nomination for attorney general. While in the Senate, he had pushed for creation of the prescription drug database that is now a central part of the state’s efforts to crack down on so-called pill mills, which have proliferated across South Florida.
“No matter what job I’m in, I’m not changing my focus,” said Aronberg. “It’s always going to be about public safety and fighting prescription fraud.”
McAuliffe surprised local officials Tuesday when he announced he would not seek re-election, instead taking a job with the energy company Oxbow Carbon. Aronberg had been mulling a Democratic primary challenge to McAuliffe, but now appears set to be the first candidate running for the open seat.
Aronberg, 40, has said he had considered running for state attorney several years ago, when longtime state attorney BarryKrischer announced he would not seek another term in 2008. But by then, Krischer had positioned McAuliffe to run as his successor.
Aronberg, who earned his undergraduate and law degrees at Harvard, grew up in South Florida. He formerly worked as a special assistant in the U.S. Treasury Department and as an assistant attorney general.
If former state Sen. Dave Aronberg challenges Palm Beach County State Attorney Michael McAuliffe in a Democratic primary next year, he can expect the McAuliffe camp to blast him for working as “pill mill” czar under Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi.
That was one of the potential lines of attack tested in a poll conducted by the McAuliffe campaign this month.
Aronberg is expected to announce in January whether he’s running.
Former state Sen. Dave Aronberg says he’s still doing some “due diligence” before deciding whether to challenge Palm Beach County State Attorney Michael McAuliffe in a 2012 Democratic primary.
McAuliffe’s consultant says he expects Aronberg to run, while many party bigs say they are hoping to avoid a primary that county Democratic Chairman Mark Alan Siegel says would be “heartbreaking.”
One of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s top priorities – a bill enhancing penalties for pill mill doctors and operators – received unanimous approval in its first Senate committee hearing this afternoon.
The measure (SB 818) would require the Board of Medicine to suspend a doctor’s license for six months and impose a minimum $10,000 fine for violating the state’s 72-hour dosage limit for pain management clinic docs.
Bondi said the harsher penalties – and more provisions in the yet-to-be-implemented prescription drug database included in the bill – will help her combat the state’s reputation as the nation’s illicit drug capital.
“We have become the destination for drug dealers,” Bondi said. “This is a horrible, horrible problem. Because the drug dealers are flying to Florida now to buy these drugs and take them back to other states. You are truly impacting lives today.”
The bill also enhances provisions in current laws related to the prescription drug database although the system has yet to get up and running two years after lawmakers created it.
The database is under fire from the Florida House where a committee last week passed a measure doing away with all regulation of pain clinics and replacing it with a ban on dispensing practitioners, who are responsible for only 16 percent of the oxycodone. The rest – 84 percent – comes from pharmacies.
Gov. Rick Scott said he scrapped Florida’s much-anticipated computer system aimed at curbing the sale of prescription drugs by pill mills because he doesn’t believe it’s something the state should do.
Scott said he’s backing instead Attorney General Pam Bondi’s announcement that she’s going to step up prosecutions of the pain clinics with a team led by former state Sen. Dave Aronberg, a Greenacres Democrat.
“What I’m focused on is the stuff Attorney General Bondi’s focused on -focus on the people that are doing the wrong things rather than just trying to create a database of everybody in the state,” Scott, a former health care executive, said this morning. “I’m focused on the things she’s working on.”
But Bondi, who ramped up her efforts after Scott axed his office of drug control and policy, said recently that the prescription drug database is one of the tolls that law enforcement officials – and doctors – need to stanch the flow of the highly addictive drugs from Florida, which she called the “epicenter” of the nation’s illicit drug activity.
Scott said the database hasn’t worked (it’s not up and running yet because of a bid dispute).
“And I don’t’ believe we ought to be doing it,” he said.
Scott’s decision to do away with the database, created by lawmakers two years ago, alarmed officials in Kentucky and other states who’ve seen an influx of prescription drugs from Florida. And it created shockwaves in the law enforcement community and among lawmakers who backed the program.
The database would crack down on “doctor-shopping” by allowing doctors to look up patients’ prescription records.
“Without this important program Florida will take a step back ten years or more into the past,” Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, said of Scott’s decision.
Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, filed a bill that would continue the crackdown on “pill mills,” pain management clinics dealing prescription drugs that law enforcement officials say are worse than crack cocaine.
Fasano’s bill would enhance penalties for pill mill operators that don’t comply with state laws and require the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) to conform with national standards.
The drug database has been on hold because of a lack of funding and a bid dispute.
Attorney General Pam Bondi is launching a new assault on the pill mills with a team led by state drug czar Dave Aronberg. Bondi called Florida “the epicenter of the country” for prescription drug abuse because busloads of drugsters travel to the state from Kentucky, Ohio and other places to get prescriptions from the rogue clinics.
Seven Floridians each day die from overdoses of prescription drugs.
Attorney General-elect Pam Bondi enlisted two losing attorney general primary candidates to her transition team, which will be chaired by former St. Petersburg mayor Rick Baker,her predecessor Attorney General Bill McCollum and former House Speaker Larry Cretul.
Bondi tapped former state Sen. Dave Aronberg, a Greenacres Democrat who lost his AG bid in the primary to former state Sen. Dan Gelber who lost to Bondi, to serve on her pill mills and prescription drug team.
And Bondi recruited former state Rep. Holly Benson, her one-time opponent in the GOP primary, as one of her Medicaid fraud advisers. Benson formerly served as secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration and the Department of Business and Professional Regulation.
The former Tampa prosecutor also asked her transition team members to sign an ethics pledge that includes a one-year ban on lobbying her office.
Bondi’s full list of transition team appointees follows.
With two of the three GOP Florida Cabinet candidates refusing to participate in a debate next month, organizers had no choice but to cancel the event.
Attorney general candidate Pam Bondi and Senate President Jeff Atwater, the Republican nominee for chief financial officer, would not agree to debate their Democratic opponents, Florida Press Association president Dean Ridings said today. The press association and Leadership Florida had planned to host the Oct. 5 event at the University of Florida.
GOP agriculture commissioner candidate Adam Putnam was the only Republican who signed up for the debate, Ridings said.
“Pam Bondi and Jeff Atwater would not confirm. We are pretty much at the deadline. And every indication was that they would not participate,” Ridings said. “It didn’t make sense just to do the one” debate, Ridings said.
The Democratic candidates for attorney general spent the day in opposite parts of the state waving signs and knocking on doors in a last-ditch effort to win votes in Tuesday’s primary election.
State Sen. Dave Aronberg is spending the day in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties. His opponent, Dan Gelber, is stumping in North Florida with stops in Tallahassee and Pensacola.
Gelber topped all of the attorney general candidates – including the three Republicans in a tight primary – in campaign contributions. He edged out opponent Aronberg, who led the raise in fundraising until this month, by just $11,000.
Like the Republican primary, the Aronberg and Gelber race is too close to call.
“With 43 percent undecided this is anyone’s game right now,” Aronberg said while going door-to-door in South Florida.
State Sen. Dan Gelber gets defensive in his first television ad in the race against fellow senator Dave Aronberg in the Democratic attorney general primary.
With absentee voting already underway, Gelber, a Miami Beach lawyer and former federal prosecutor, highlights his years in the courtroom and accuses Aronberg of “political games” and “dishonest attacks” in a series of mailers in which Aronberg accuses Gelber of a potential conflict of interest. Aronberg’s made a big issue out of Gelber’s former law firm going to work for BP to defend the oil giant in any Florida lawsuits.
State Sen. Dave Aronberg agreed to his colleague Sen. Dan Gelber’s request for debates before the primary election…sort of.
Aronberg and Gelber are in a heated Democratic primary for attorney general, and Aronberg’s taken off the gloves and attacked his opponent for Gelber’s former law firm’s representation of BP.
Gelber says he resigned from Akerman Senterfitt, the state’s largest law firm that recently was retained by BP, days before Aronberg demanded it.
Gelber then sent Aronberg a letter asking for 11 debates before the Aug. 24 primary.
Aronberg responded today calling a request for that many debates – nearly three a week – a “political stunt” and dragging BP into the debate arena.
“The next Attorney General will probably spend the better part of this decade involved in litigation of the state versus BP, Halliburton and other parties who might share liability for this disaster. Therefore, as we work together to agree on our debate schedule, I want to insist that at least one of the debates be held there so the citizens of that region can hear our plans for fighting for them as their Attorney General,” Aronberg wrote in a letter to Gelber.
Aronberg also agreed to a debate outside of South Florida, home to both Democrats, in Tampa Bay or Orlando.
With a stroke of his pen, Gov. Charlie Crist just accomplished what lawmakers refused to do earlier this year – give long-time jobless Floridians the ability to get extended unemployment compensation benefits approved by Congress yesterday.
Democratic lawmakers, including Palm Beach County’s Sen. Dave Aronberg of Greenacres and Rep. Kevin Rader of Boyton Beach, were among those who pushed their colleagues to extend the June 5 deadline for the benefits during the regular session that ended in May. That didn’t happen.
Sen. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, worked behind-the-scenes with Crist on the executive order granting the benefits to about 100,000 Floridians whose unemployment benefits have run out and others whose benefits will dry up before Congress’ reauthorization ends.
“Unemployed Floridians are struggling in this challenging economic climate, trying to figure out how to pay their bills and support their families. We simply cannot desert the 250,000 Floridians who qualify for the extended federal assistance signed into law yesterday. I am committed to exercising my Constitutional duty to authorize the use of available federal funds to help out-of-work Floridians who qualify for this help,” Crist wrote in a release this afternoon.
Congress initially established the extended benefits program in 2008 to provide federal funds for jobless workers who exhausted their state unemployment benefits. Congress has since reauthorized the program several times.
HOLLYWOOD — U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, is endorsing state Sen. Dave Aronberg in the competitive Democratic primary for attorney general.
Deutch served in the Florida Senate with both Aronberg and his Democratic primary rival, state Sen. Dan Gelber of Miami Beach. Deutch cited Aronberg’s work on consumer issues and called him “a fighter for people who need it. Right now, the citizens of the state of Florida need someone who is going to fight for them.”
Aronberg
In a tight race between two South Florida Democrats with similar stands on issues and a similar lack of statewide name recognition, Aronberg called the Deutch endorsement “a big moment in the campaign.”
Deutch announced the endorsement at the Florida Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner gathering.
The dinner itself is this evening, but the Westin Diplomat hotel has been a Democratic Who’s Who all day with a variety of meetings and receptions that will continue Sunday morning.
In District 25, state Reps. Ellyn Bogdanoff of Fort Lauderdale and Carl Domino of Jupiter are running for the GOP nomination to succeed Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, who is running for chief financial officer. The Republican winner will face Democratic state Rep. Kelly Skidmore and no-party candidate Miranda Rosenberg in November.
The District 27 GOP race features former Wellington councilwoman Lizbeth Benacquisto, retired pilot Michael Lameyer and former state Rep. Sharon Merchant. The seat is now held by state Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, who is running for attorney general. Democrats Pete Burkert and Kevin Rader are also running.
The PBA also endorsed Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp in the Republican primary for attorney general.
In addition to its attorney general primary endorsements, the PBA issued three endorsements for the general election: Democrats Alex Sink for governor and Loranne Ausley for chief financial officer and Republican Adam Putnam for commissioner of agriculture.
Attorney General Bill McCollum is asking BP to put $2.5 billion into an interest-earning escrow account to cover the state’s losses from the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
McCollum’s requests is the latest in Florida candidates’ string of demands for cash from the oil giant.
McCollum and the other Florida Cabinet members were less than pleased with some of British Petroleum Vice President Robert Fryar’s Tuesday appearance before the panel.
Fryar told McCollum he did not know if BP has earmarks any funds to pay claims to Florida government, citizens or businesses resulting from the April 20 disaster.
Democratic state Sen. and attorney general candidate Dave Aronberg called Florida’s statutory ban on adoptions by gays and lesbians “immoral” and said he would not defend the law if he were Florida’s AG.
Aronberg also told The Palm Beach Post editorial board he’d discontinue Attorney General Bill McCollum’s “frivolous” lawsuit challenging the federal health care overhaul.
Gelber
A Miami-Dade circuit judge in 2008 declared the state’s ban on gay adoptions unconstitutional and the state is now pursuing an appeal with the 3rd District Court of Appeal. The next step for whichever side loses is the Florida Supreme Court.
“If the 3rd DCA rules against the state, then the state would have to decide to appeal. And I would not appeal,” Aronberg said.
Aronberg’s rival in the Democratic attorney general primary, state Sen. Dan Gelber of Miami Beach, is also a vocal critic of the gay adoption ban and the health care lawsuit. Gelber said he, too, would not pursue an appeal of the adoption ban and would drop the health care challenge.
State Sen. Dave Aronberg is demanding that BP and two other corporations involved in the April 22 oil rig blast threatening the Gulf Coast shoreline set up a $1 billion escrow account for the state’s recovery costs.
Aronberg, a Greenacres Democrat who is running for attorney general, is chairman of the Senate Military Affairs and Domestic Security Committee that deals with emergency preparedness.
He said the state’s focus on BP for recovery costs needs to be expanded to include Deepwater Horizon rig owner and operator Transocean Ltd. and Halliburton.
The $25 million BP gave Florida to cover immediate clean-up costs “is by no means sufficient,” Aronberg wrote in a letter to Crist asking for the escrow account.
“We are looking at financial consequences of devastating proportions, to say nothing of the potential costs to our wildlife and environmental damages.
While we ready our shoreline as best we can, I urge you to call upon each of these companies to take greater financial responsibility and commit more dollars than the initial pledge by BP,” Aronberg wrote.
Halliburton was performing cement work on the well less than a day before the blast.
“This is especially alarming since Halliburton was also the cementer on the well that suffered a huge blowout last August off the coast of Australia. Tens of thousands of barrels of oil leaked from that well over 10 weeks before it was finally capped. Although the investigation continues, the suspicion is that either the cementing process or the cement itself may have been at fault,” Aronberg wrote.
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