UPDATE: Here’s the response from Sansom: “The elections are over but the partisan political attacks never stop. Floridians want us to concentrate on recharging the state’s economy and balancing the budget. That’s where our focus is.”
Florida Democratic Party Chair Karen Thurman called on Speaker Ray Sansom to step down from his position with Northwest Florida State College or as Speaker of the Florida House.
“In response to our state’s economic crisis and ballooning deficits the Republican leaders in the legislature, including Speaker Ray Sansom, have said that Floridians need to ‘tighten their belts’ and make sacrifices to justify their massive cuts to education, healthcare, and public safety, as well as raising tuition rates on Florida’s college students by as much as 15 percent.
“With media outlets across Florida reporting that our state was forced to cut more than $4 billion from education, healthcare, and public safety programs, Sansom delivered more than $25 million in additional funds to Northwest Florida State College. Less than a year later, Northwest Florida State College hired Sansom for a $110,000 a year, part-time job,” said Thurman.
“The appearance of impropriety is too great for Ray Sansom to as remain Speaker and keep his job with the Northwest Florida State Colleage; therefore it is only appropriate for him to resign from one or both jobs. In doing so, Sansom can lead by example in these tough times.”

Andy Marlette/Pensacola News Journal
News about his job as a Raider, coupled with public records showing the budget goodies he helped secure for his new employer, has made for a tough week on the editorial pages for new Florida House Speaker Ray Sansom.
Palm Beach Post:

If Rep. Sansom doesn’t do the proper thing and quit the job that has harmed his credibility, the Legislature could name the institute for him.

Panama City News Herald:

Why hire a lobbyist when you can have a legislator on the payroll? To avoid conflicts of interest, the speaker should resign his position at the college and find another job that doesn’t have strings leading to Tallahassee.

Pensacola News Journal:

The problem is that Sansom has already sullied the speaker’s office. It’s time now to do what he can to repair the damage by giving up the new job.

Of course, he could always step down as speaker. We’re told Sansom’s position had nothing to do with his being hired, so it shouldn’t dampen the college’s ardor if he gives it up.

St. Petersburg Times:

As the Florida Legislature faces the highest state budget shortfall ever, Ray Sansom has the lowest personal credibility in memory for a new House speaker.

We reported last week that Sansom helped find Northwest Florida State College $200,000 for it’s “Leadership Institute” just months before he was hired as the school’s vice president of development and planning.
Turns out it’s a bit more.
According to public records made available today, the institute received $750,000 in “start up funds” from Florida taxpayers. State lawmakers also approved $7.5 million in the construction budget for a building for the institute.
Here’s a copy of the agenda for a meeting between Sansom and NWFSC President Bob Richburg.

On the day Ray Sansom, R-Destin, was officially sworn in to a $42,072-per-year job as state House speaker, Northwest Florida State College trustees hired him as VP of development and planning, a position worth $110,000 annually.
Sansom helped push through a bill to give the school its state college desgination this year, according to the Northwest Florida Daily Herald. He attended the school when it was known as Okaloosa-Walton Junior College.
The job was announced in a press release today from the college.
Sansom was most recently a vice president for the Alabama Electric Cooperative. He also previously worked as community affairs director for the Okaloosa County School Board and fundraising director for Covenant Hospice.

Senate President Jeff Atwater and House Speaker Ray Sansom punted on dealing with a corporate tax fix pushed by the business community.
The GOP leaders instead asked the Department of Revenue to tell corporate taxpayers to sit tight while they figure out how to fix a glitch inadvertently passed by lawmakers earlier this year in a bill designed to align the state tax code with a federal economic stimulus package.

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UPDATE: Here’s the letter from the chamber leaders.
House Speaker Ray Sansom told his Republican caucus this afternoon that, for the second year in a row, special budget requests for community projects would be denied. These so-called community budget issue requests were limited last year and about $40 million found in projects found their way into the budget.
Sansom said he and Senate President Jeff Atwater planned to send a letter to lawmakers notifying them of the decision.
“That will show the state we’re in when it comes to our finances,” Sansom said.
How big of a deal is this?
In 2007, the state budget included $475 million for projects in Palm Beach County. The haul for Okeechobee and the Treasure Coast that year was $312 million, according to a Palm Beach Post analysis of the budget.

On the biggest day of Speaker Ray Sansom’s political career, we thought we’d share a pop-culture questionnaire the Destin Republican filled out back in 2000 for the Pensacola News Journal.
Sansom lost his House race that year against an incumbent Republican by 54 votes, but we’re sure it had nothing to do with this survey, which reveals his admiration of the Winnie the Pooh show and other interesting tidbits.

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The Florida House today unanimously voted Ray Sansom of Destin as the chamber’s seventh consecutive Republican speaker, a powerful position that will set half of the state’s legislative agenda of the next two years.

“The answers are not found in the four walls of this chamber. The answers are found out throughout all of our districts. They’re found in the small businesses and around the board rooms. That’s where the answers are found.

“So I challenge all of us to stay grounded, stay connected, to avoid distractions, to stay focused. And my commitment to you is this: That when you leave for the last session in 2010 — and it will be here before you know it — and you get in your car to go home, when you drive home that you can look in the mirror and say, ‘Those two years were worth it. It was worth it. It was worth it toleave my family, and my job and my friends back home to serve the people in the Florida House.’ My commitment to you is to make it worth it.”

Listen to Sansom’s 12-minute acceptance speech below. Or download it here.