Democrat Lori Berman, who out-raised Hager in 2009, dropped out of the District 87 race last week and switched to more Democrat-friendly District 86. District 86 is where Rep. Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach, plans to leave to run for state Senate as part of a massive shuffle being guided by the former Robert Wexler political machine.
Sachs is banking on state Sen. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, winning a Feb. 2 primary and April 13 special election to replace Wexler, who retired this month to head a Middle East think tank. Deutch, Sachs and Berman have all been endorsed by Wexler and helped by his former consultant, Eric Johnson.
With Berman leaving the District 87 race, insurance agency owner Len Turesky, a Democrat, is considering running against Hager. Turesky plans to meet with Johnson and others to discuss the race.
At tonight’s Republican Jewish Coalition forum with the three GOP candidates running in a special Feb. 2 congressional primary, the most interesting question was the last, and it was only three words:
Crist or Rubio?
Joe Budd, Ed Lynch and Curt Price all declined to state a preference in the Senate primary.
Budd mentioned he’s “intrigued” by another candidate in the primary, former New Hampshire Sen. Bob Smith. But both Budd and Lynch criticized Smith for briefly endorsing Democrat John Kerry in 2004 to spite George W. Bush.
The winner of next month’s Republican congressional primary will face the winner of the Ted Deutch-Ben Graber Democratic primary and no-party candidate Jim McCormick in an April 13 general election to replace Democrat Robert Wexler.
Republican congressional hopeful Ed Lynch, one of three candidates in a special Feb. 2 GOP primary, has more than $1.3 million in federal tax liens against him and his contracting business has been socked with $143,618 in court judgments since 2008.
The liens are the result of a long-running dispute in which Lynch contested the IRS’ valuation of a business he sold, says Lynch, who says he has prevailed in the matter and won’t owe any back taxes.
“It looks like we settled it. I’m just waiting for them to send me the paperwork,” he said last week.
He blamed the court judgments on a separate dispute with the federal bureaucracy.
Republican congressional hopeful Joe Budd moved to Florida after a business failure left him $600,000 in debt. That information comes not from an opponent’s attack ad but from Budd himself in his first 30-second spot before the Feb. 2 special GOP primary.
Budd, who often brings up the the business setback on the campaign trail, says he does so to highlight character issues and to let voters know he understands tough economic times.
“Instead of filing bankruptcy, I worked hard and sacrificed to pay it off,” he says in the ad. “…I understand your fears and concerns, having lived through them myself.”
Former President Bill Clinton will appear at a fund-raiser for Democratic state Sen. Ted Deutch’s congressional campaign on Jan. 19 in Boca Raton, Deutch’s campaign said.
The late-afternoon event will be at St. Andrew’s Country Club. Clinton is scheduled to speak that evening in Palm Beach at a dinner for major Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County donors at The Breakers.
Deutch was a prominent supporter of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2008 Democratic presidential bid. He and former Broward County mayor Ben Graber are running in a special Feb. 2 primary for the seat of former U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, who resigned to head a Middle East think tank. Three Republicans are also running. The general election is April 13.
Today is the final day in office for “fire-breathing liberal” U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler. On Monday he begins his job as head of the nonprofit Center For Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation, a post in which Wexler says he’ll try to convince wary Israelis to support President Obama’s policies in the region.
Full-body imaging might have detected that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had stuffed his underwear with explosives before he boarded a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas day.
But a considerable bipartisan majority of U.S. House members are on record opposing the widespread use of such scans in a vote that saw privacy concerns trump security measures. In June, the House voted 310-to-118 for an amendment by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, that would have prohibited whole-body imaging as a “primary screening” method at airports. The amendment died in the Senate.
Chaffetz’s amendment would have allowed such scans as a “secondary” screening method, but passengers would be given the option of a pat-down search in lieu of whole-body imaging and the Transportation Security Administration would have been banned from “storing, transferring, or copying any images” from the scans.
Local U.S. Reps. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar; Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta; and Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, supported the ban on whole-body imaging. U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, voted against the Chaffetz amendment.
Seven candidates are running to replace U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, in an early-2010 special election. The field of candidates was set at noon today with three Republicans, two Democrats and one no-party candidate qualifying for ballot spots and frequent filer Josue Larose making a write-in bid.
State Sen. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, praised President Obama’s Afghanistan strategy as “thoughtful” during a Voters Coalition debate Thursday while his rival in a special Democratic congressional primary, Ben Graber, declared himself “against the escalation in Afghanistan” and opposed to “militarism” in general.
It was the most significant policy difference between the Dems vying to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton. Both voiced support for a government-run public option as part of health care reform.
Three Republicans running in the special election were supportive of Obama’s call for 30,000 more troops. GOP candidates Ed Lynch, Joe Budd and Curt Price also took similar positions against tax hikes, gun control and a public option.
It looks like only one of the three Republicans who want to replace Democratic U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler in a special election turned in enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot without paying a $9,912 filing fee.
According to unofficial totals from the Palm Beach County elections office and official Broward County numbers, financial planner Joe Budd met the goal of 1,163 signatures from voters who live in Wexler’s congressional District 19 while retired police officer Curt Price and contractor Ed Lynch did not.
Both Price and Lynch said they plan to contact the elections offices to inquire about rejected petitions. They can still get on the ballot by paying the filing fee by noon Friday. Democrats Ted Deutch and Ben Graber plan to qualify by paying the fee. Nonpartisan candidates can qualify by paying a $6,608 fee.
Gov. Charlie Crist moved the special election to replace U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler ahead a week after Jewish voters complained the original election would have taken place during Passover.
The Jewish holiday ends on April 6, the date Crist originally picked for the special election.
“Originally, the special general election was inadvertently scheduled during Passover, and out of respect to the Jewish community, the special general election has been rescheduled to Tuesday, April 13, 2010,” Crist’s office wrote in a memo announcing the new election date.
The special primary election in the heavily Jewish Congressional District 19 will still take place on Feb. 2.
State Sen. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, is considered the favorite to replace Wexler, who resigned to head the nonprofit Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation.
Deutch secured not only Wexler’s support but practically the entire South Florida Democratic delegation. He’s been endorsed by U.S. Reps. Ron Klein, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Alcee Hastings.
WEST PALM BEACH — After weeks of considering a run in a special congressional election, Mayor Lois Frankel made a big announcement at tonight’s Palm Beach County Democratic Party dinner.
“Where’s Ted Deutch?” Frankel asked the crowd of about 350, calling out the frontrunner in the special race to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton.
“I want you to know I’m running,” Frankel said, pausing for dramatic effect, “in the….Palm Beach Marathon in two weeks.”
Actually, Frankel said in an interview a few minutes later, she has decided not to run in the congressional race.
The measure passed on a 345-75 vote with local U.S. Reps. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, and Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, in favor, Wexler opposed and U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, answering “present.”
Former state Rep. Irving Slosberg of Boca Raton, who lost a bitter and costly 2006 Democratic state Senate primary to Ted Deutch, told the Kings Point Democratic Club today that he’s endorsing Deutch in the special election to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton.
That ends speculation that Slosberg might run for the congressional seat himself.
The Democratic primary is Feb. 2 and the general election is April 6.
“Ted and I have become pretty good friends,” Slosberg said afterward. “He represents the things I represent. So send him to Congress. He’s going to do a great job.”
While out of the special congressional race, Slosberg remains a potential candidate for his old state House seat or the state Senate next year.
State Rep. Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach, has lined up an all-star cast of Democratic endorsements if she runs for the state Senate seat of Ted Deutch sometime next year.
Deutch, D-Boca Raton, is running in the not-yet-scheduled special election to replace U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, who’s leaving office in January to head a Middle East think tank. If Deutch wins, his Palm Beach-Broward Senate seat will be open. Depending on the timing of the congressional election, it’s not clear if a state Senate vacancy would be filled by another special election or if the seat would remain open until the fall 2010 elections.
While those scenarios unfold, Sachs has secured big-name backing for her potential Senate bid, including Wexler and U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton; Democratic County Commissioners Burt Aaronson, Shelley Vana, Jess Santamaria, Priscilla Taylor and Jeff Koons; state Rep. Kelly Skidmore, D-Boca Raton; and two dozen Democratic club presidents and activists.
Under one scenario laid out by Florida’s Division of Elections, a special election to replace U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, wouldn’t be until May 5. There are also scenarios that envision March 9 or April 6 elections to replace Wexler, who’s resigning Jan. 3 to head the nonprofit Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation.
Scheduling is tricky because of the holidays and federal overseas ballot requirements. If Wexler’s chosen successor — Democratic state Sen. Ted Deutch of Boca Raton — wins the congressional seat, Deutch’s constituents might be without a Senator in Tallahassee for much of the 2010 legislative session.
U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, has set his resignation for Jan. 3 at 11:59 p.m. in a letter this week to Gov. Charlie Crist, who will set a special election to fill the last year of Wexler’s term.
Wexler is leaving in the middle of his seventh term to head the nonprofit Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation.
Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher and Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes want the special election to fill Wexler’s Palm Beach-Broward seat to be on March 9, which would coincide with municipal election dates in both counties.
No word yet from Crist’s office on the dates for the special primary and general election dates.
Read the text of Wexler’s letter after the jump…..
As he pursues a congressional bid without the blessing of Democratic U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler and other party bigs, Ben Graber claims he’s the victim of “censorship” at some of southern Palm Beach County’s influential Democratic clubs.
County Dem Chairman Mark Alan Siegel says club presidents have complained to him that Graber is “being a bully” in his requests for speaking time. Wexler and the party establishment are backing state Sen. Ted Deutch in the special election to replace Wexler, who’s leaving in January to head a Middle East-focused think tank.
While Graber’s is finding it tough to get speaking time in clubland, Deutch generally has an easier time getting the microphone because he’s a sitting legislator.
South Florida Democratic U.S. Reps. Robert Wexler, Ron Klein, Alcee Hastings and Debbie Wasserman Schultz today endorsed state Sen. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, to succeed Wexler in a special congressional election.
In addition to the display of endorsement firepower, Deutch’s campaign said it has already raised more than $200,000 in its first 10 days. And Deutch has about a dozen fund-raisers scheduled for the next six weeks, including one in Washington hosted by his congressional endorsers and events in New York and Cleveland.
Wexler is resigning in January to head the nonprofit Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation. A special election is expected in early 2010.
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