BP oil spill claims czar Ken Feinberg, hired by the oil giant and President Barack Obama to hand out $20 billion to individuals and businesses impacted by the massive oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, overpromised and underdelivered, state officials and others said today.

Feinberg took over BP’s maligned claims process on Aug. 23, pledging he would “bend over backwards” to help claimants get emergency six-month payments to help them cope with the financial woes many have encountered since the April 20 disaster.

Feinberg last appeared before Gov. Charlie Crist’s Oil Spill Economic Recovery Task Force last month and left even skeptical members of the panel, including Department of Children and Families Secretary George Sheldon, with high hopes that the Boston lawyer would fix BP’s botched claims system.

But Feinberg’s new process, called the “Gulf Coast Claims Facility,” is leaving a lot to be desired, many of the panelists discovered Tuesday.

“I never thought I’d say this but part of me would like BP back,” said Sheldon, who was one of the oil company’s harshest critics before Feinberg took over. “What he articulated to all of us was something totally different than what’s in this protocol.”

The panel is demanding that Feinberg appear before them again and plans to confront him with a transcript of what he said he would do, like allow a priest to verify that information in a claim was accurate, and what they hear is taking place.
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Univision will host the first debate with Florida’s top three U.S. Senate candidates on Friday, Sept. 17.

The debate with Republican Marco Rubio, Democrat Kendrick Meek and independent Charlie Crist will be taped at 1 p.m. and the hour-long meeting will air at 11 p.m. on the station’s Miami, Orlando, Tampa and Fort Myers/Naples affiliates.

The three have also agreed to an Oct. 24 debate in Tampa.

From Politico:

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist will get a late fundraising burst for his independent Senate bid from Penthouse CEO Marc Bell, according to an invitation obtained by POLITICO.

The evening event will be held at Bell’s Boca Raton home on Oct. 7, less than a month before Crist faces Republican Marco Rubio and Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek in one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country.

One tidbit to ad: Crist’s 2006 primary opponent, Tom Gallagher, was Bell’s candidate of choice. Crist’s campaign was critical of $3,000 Gallagher received from Bell and his other companies and Gallagher eventually returned the money. (Crist that year returned $1,000 he got from the owner of Peek-A-Boo, a Bradenton strip club.)

Bell told The Palm Beach Post at the time that the returned contributions were “disappointing, but understandable.”

Democratic operative Steve Schale predicts that independent Gov. Charlie Crist will not win the three-way race for U.S. Senate against Republican Marco Rubio and Democrat Kendrick Meek. From his blog:

In this political environment, absent some significant and unfortunate event that would thrust [Crist] back into the spotlight, the odds of him finding 15-20 points of political approval in the next nine weeks are slim, at best.

Therefore, for Crist, who after 20 years of being a GOP insider, his only path to victory is to find a way to be Democratic enough to win enough Democrats, Republican enough to win enough Republicans, and to do that in a way where he doesn’t anger Independents. Not exactly the easiest thing to do, when Democrats now have a plausible alternative in Meek and Republicans in Rubio. If Greene had won, it might be a different story.

Democrats who support Crist keep saying to me, “well, we just need Dems to vote for Crist,” but that just isn’t going to happen in the margins he needs to win.

Today, Rubio has the clearest path to victory, but once Democrats figure out that Meek is their only option, his path will get much more clear as well.

Just two weeks after publicly pumping up U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek in the U.S. Senate Democratic primary race against Jeff Greene, state senator-to-be Maria Sachs yesterday pulled a switch and endorsed Meek’s general election rival Gov. Charlie Crist.

Meek said Sachs, a Delray Beach lawyer, signed an endorsement pledge for him in December and called the switcheroo “strange” especially because Palm Beach County Democrats virtually anointed her to fill U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch’s seat when he left the state senate to go to Washington.

“She spoke very passionately two weeks ago of her support of my candidacy, felt that I should be the next U.S. Senator of Florida,” Meek said at a roundtable with reporters this morning.

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Lawmakers appear to have abandoned their earlier pledge to hold a special session on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in September and instead could possibly wait until the regular session in March.

Rep. Gary Aubuchon, the coordinator of the House’s five Deepwater Horizon oil spill work groups, has until Aug. 31 to give House Speaker Larry Cretul a report on possible legislation to help revive the Florida Panhandle economy or provide tax breaks to residents there. Aubuchon said Tuesday those suggestions probably won’t go to Cretul until sometime during the first week of September.

And although some Panhandle business owners have already shuttered operations and others are on the brink of doing the same because of plummeting revenues during their peak summer tourist season that coincided with the April 20 oil disaster, Aubuchon said early reports from his leaders show there’s no need to rush.

“We are continuing to ask the questions, attend the meetings, gather the data and looking for a productive role the state could play. Whether we begin to play that role in September, or November, or during the regular session is a question yet to be answered,” Aubuchon, R-Cape Coral, said after meeting with Ken Feinberg, the claims czar who will take over BP’s problematic claims system on Monday at 12:01 a.m.

“One of the questions I’m asking each work group coordinator to answer is does anything you are working on now or anticipate working on necessitate the need for a special session? The early feedback I’m getting is no it does not,” Aubuchon said. “But the final conclusion has not been reached. And of course that is a decision that will be made by our presiding officers in the House and Senate.”

Even the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, whose members would probably benefit the most, is ok with holding off on a special session until after November.

Sen. Don Gaetz wants to pass a bill that would allow the FRLA to access up to $5 million of a trust fund comprised of fees paid by restaurant and hotel owners. There’s about $9 million in the trust fund, which is supposed to be earmarked for promotions.

FRLA President Carol Dover said she met with GOP legislative leaders last week.
“Coming into September with the group that are going to be gone or waiting until the organizational session with the group that are going to be bound by what they have passed could be a better way,” Dover said.

Lawmakers met in an aborted special session late in June after being ordered bv Gov. Charlie Crist to take up a constitutional amendment banning offshore drilling. They left in less than two hours without passing anything.

But before the special session even began, Senate President Jeff Atwater asked Cretul, R-Ocala, to consider a special session late in August or in September.

Atwater reiterated that hope yesterday.

The North Palm Beach Republican who is running statewide for chief financial officer believes lawmakers should meet within a month “to provide Floridians the assistance and relief that they need in the wake of this crisis,” Emhof said.

President Barack Obama sought to clarify his support for a controversial mosque planned to be built three blocks from the site of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“In this country we treat everybody equally and in accordance with the law, regardless of race, regardless of religion. I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding. That’s what our country is about,” Obama, in Panama City Beach for an overnight family vacation, told reporters this afternoon. “And I think it’s very important as difficult as some of these issues are that we stay focused on who we are as a people and what our values are all about.”

Obama drew fire last night for remarks he made at the White House Ramadan dinner where he said he supported the building of the mosque, which New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg also approves.

Prior to meeting with Obama this morning, Gov. Charlie Crist said he agrees with Obama.

“I think he’s right. I mean, you know we’re a country that in my view stands for freedom of religion and respect for others. I know there are sensitivities and I understand them,” Crist, who abandoned the Republican Party late this spring to run as an independent in the race for U.S. Senate.

“This is a place where you’re supposed to be able to practice your religion without the government telling you you can’t,” Crist said.

Gov. Charlie Crist praised President Barack Obama for bringing the First Family to Florida’s Gulf Coast for a brief vacation.

“It’s the biggest single commercial you could imagine. God bless him,” Crist said before meeting with Obama, his wife Michelle and a handful of Panama City business owners at a waterfront Coast Guard station.

Republicans have blasted Obama for what they called a “27-hour guilt trip” to the region where the economy suffered as tourism plummeted during BP’s massive oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Crist brushed off the criticism.

“On behalf of Florida and as Florida’s sitting governor, I couldn’t be more grateful that the president and the First Lady of the United States are taking the time to come to our Gulf Coast and highlight Florida and promote tourism and jobs for our people. There’s no other way to look at this,” he said.

Crist broke with the Republican Party earlier this year to run as an independent in the U.S. Senate race after polling showed he was trailing in a potential primary against former House Speaker Marco Rubio.

Crist, who gained notoriety for the now infamous hug with Obama, sidestepped questions about whether Saturday’s visit with Obama would help Crist’s effort to draw support from Democrats to his campaign.

“I don’t know. I have no idea. But I think what’s important is that I’ll stand with anybody who’s going to help promote Florida tourism and our economy. It would be ridiculous not to,” Crist said. “I’m very, very grateful that the President and the First Lady…put such a spotlight on Florida tourism.”

Gov. Charlie Crist, running for U.S. Senate with no party affiliation, said today that there’s a chance he would not caucus with either party if he was elected.

In an argument laid out by Roll Call this morning, some say Crist’s power to legislate would be determined largely by which party he chooses to caucus.

The St. Pete Times in June also foreshadowed Crist future by referencing the roller coaster ride of Oregon’s former U.S. Sen. Wayne Morse, an independent who opted to not caucus with either party.

A McLaughlin & Associates poll sponsored by the Associated Industries of Florida:

A telephone survey of likely general election voters only slightly favors independent U.S. Senate candidate Gov. Crist over Republican candidate Rubio by 2 percentage points (38 percent versus 36 percent) when U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek is the Democratic challenger (16 percent of respondents indicated they would vote for Meek). If Jeff Greene was the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, those numbers shift slightly with Gov. Crist and Rubio both earning 37 percent of the vote, and Greene earning 16 percent. In both scenarios, 10 percent of voters were undecided.

The poll was conducted between July 31 and August 1, 2010, the poll surveyed by telephone 600 randomly-selected, likely general election voters throughout Florida. It has a margin of error of +/- 4 percent and a 95 percent confidence interval. The live telephone interviews were conducted by professional interviewers.

Two of Gov. Charlie Crist’s deputy chiefs of staff, David Foy and Kathy Mears (who also worked as legisaltive affairs director) are stepping down.

Crist’s office announced budget director Jerry McDaniel will work in a dual role as deputy chief of staff. Crist also appointed Ken Granger, his policy director, to serve in an expanded role as a deputy chief of staff.

Mears said she had no immediate plans, but preferred to continue working in the public sector. Foy is heading to Reed Elsevier in Austin, Texas to work as the company’s central region director of state government affairs.

“It depends on what you emphasize,” Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio said in an interview this afternoon.

Rubio, who does not support an Arizona-type law for Florida, said the Republican Party should be the party of “pro-legal immigration.”

“We don’t need 49 other states to pass that law,” Rubio said. “What we need is for the federal government to do its job. That ruling is a reminder of why we’re even here to begin with. The federal government has refused to enforce our existing immigration laws. There’s no one out there more pro-legal immigration law than I am, but America cannot be the only country in the world that does not enforce its immigration laws.”

One of Rubio’s opponents, independent Gov. Charlie Crist, said he had “no reaction” to the judge’s ruling on Wednesday to temporarily suspend the most severe parts of the law.

“I’m a guy who believes in respecting the courts and I respect the decision of the judge,” Crist said.

Florida made the final cut in the U.S. Department of Education’s Race to the Top grant, now competing with 18 other states for $3.4 billion in federal funds for education reforms.

Florida failed to get any of the money in the first round of competition in which Delaware and Tennessee received a total of about $600 million.

Part of the reason for that was that Florida’s plan lacked support from the teachers’ unions and the state’s 67 school boards, who this time around have contributed to the state’s plan.

Governor Charlie Crist will lead a delegation to Washington, D.C., in August to present Florida’s Race to the Top proposal. He’ll be accompanied by Education Commissioner Eric Smith and Andy Ford, president of the Florida Education Association.

Florida schools is now in the running for up to $700 million in federal funds for education reforms.

“Florida has worked diligently to bring together diverse support from superintendents, school board members, teachers and teacher associations for our Race to the Top application,” Crist said in a press release. “I am confident our team will clearly communicate why Florida’s past and present success will ensure bold education reforms that are critical to Florida’s future.”

The final winners are expected to be named by the end of September.

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.

From Rasmussen Reports today:

The race to become the next U.S. senator from Florida remains a very close one between Republican Marco Rubio and Independent Charlie Crist as both potential Democratic candidates struggle to gain traction.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Florida finds Rubio earning 35% support and Crist capturing 33% of the vote. Prospective Democratic candidate Kendrick Meek remains a distant third at 20%. However, for Meek, that reflects a five-point gain from earlier in the month. 

With Meek as the Democratic nominee, three percent (3%) say they’d vote for “some other candidate,” and eight percent (4%) remain undecided.

If real estate billionaire Jeff Greene wins the Democratic nomination, the numbers are Crist 36%, Rubio 34% and Greene 19%.

Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink wants Ken Feinberg, appointed by President Barack Obama to administer the BP oil spill claims process, to clarify whether individuals and businesses seeking payment from the oil giant must promise not to sue BP in the future.

Sink’s letter comes on the heels of a scathing analysis of Feinberg’s claims process – revamped nine times since he started the take-over late last month – by a Florida legal dream team tapped by Gov. Charlie Crist and Attorney General Bill McCollum.

One of the legal eagles’ chief worries is Feinberg’s requirement that anyone seeking a lump-sum settlement from BP waive their right to sue – long before the full impact from the devastating oil leak are known.

“With millions of gallons of oil discharged in the Gulf of Mexico, the people who live and work along the Gulf Coast cannot know with any certainty today what the full extent of their damages may be in the future. In order to ensure that the claims process is fair, the payment of any Floridian’s claim, including a final claim, should not be conditioned on the waiver of the claimant’s rights under state or federal law,” Sink, a Democrat running for governor, wrote to Feinberg today.

Former attorneys general Jim Smith and Bob Butterworth sent a letter to Crist and McCollum this week outlining their concerns with Feinberg’s process, chief among them his aim to give BP “total peace” regarding payouts.

“While the current BP claims process has been fraught with delays and has failed to adequately compensate the many victims of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, we are concerned that the process that is about to replace it has the potential to harm the citizens of the Gulf Region as profoundly and deeply as the spill itself,” Smith and Butterworth wrote.
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U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid told Washington D.C. reporters yesterday that he hasn’t talked to Gov. Charlie Crist in months. The statement refuted a Wall Street Journal story on the same day in which Crist said he recently talked to the Nevada Democrat.

Today, Crist told Tallahassee reporters that he phoned Reid and was non-committal on who he would caucus with if elected to the U.S. Senate.

If you’re still reading this blog post, the conversation is relevant because Crist if were to win the U.S. Senate seat with no party affiliation he would be free to caucus with either the Democrats or Republicans. After his defection/expulsion from GOP, many expect he would sit in on the Democratic meetings.

Gov. Charlie Crist issued the executive order today, which calls for BP to foot the bill for any lost tax revenue the new assessments cost cities, counties and schools. The order tackles at least one issue lawmakers were considering for their special session in the fall. (Read the executive order here.)

“I have not asked BP’s permission to this this. We got it from the Constitution,” Crist said.

The constitution gives Crist the power to issue executive orders. But we’re checking now to find out what allows him to use an order to seemingly change state tax policy. Even so, would anyone in Florida have the political will to oppose Crist on this move?

Crist said he was contacted by appraisers in the Panhandle who wanted to do this.

But we’re not sure the Property Appraisers Association of Florida will be too thrilled. The statewide group gave legislative leaders a list of reasons why they don’t want to make mid-year assessments, saying mid-year assessments are arbitrary and could lead to tax increases for the few properties that were not built when the initial assessments were completed.

Read their letter here.

House Majority Leader Adam Hasner’s staff director e-mailed reporters saying Gov. Charlie Crist’s press conference today should win “the Oscar for best performance of planned faux indignation.”

Some will argue that, politically, it might be better for Crist, a U.S. Senate candidate, that lawmakers refused to vote. After all, anger does seem to be it’s own political ideology these days.

That said, Crist seemed as fired up as anyone has ever seen him after House and Senate Republicans refused to vote on whether or not Florida voters should decide to amend the state constitution to ban oil drilling. The only votes the two chambers took today were to adjourn.

Gov. Charlie Crist could grant long-term out-of-work Floridians relief with the stroke of his pen, according Sen. Dan Gelber, a Miami Beach Democrat running for attorney general.

Lawmakers ended the special session on oil drilling early, making it impossible for them to pass a bill that would have allowed jobless Floridians to take advantage of an unemployment benefits extension Congress is expected to authorize as early as tomorrow.

But Crist could do by executive order what GOP lawmakers refused to do earlier this year, Gelber said.

“On behalf of the voiceless, the hard working people of this state who are about to be cut off from benefits which they have rightfully earned and to which they are rightfully entitled, I urge the Governor to act in all due haste,” Gelber wrote in a letter to Crist.