We wrote this morning that the former head of the now defunct Florida Mainstream Democrats, Rick Kriseman, is upset that Dave Aronberg is using a 527 committee with the same name to help raise money for his attorney general primary campaign.
Well, an anonymous reader commented that Kriseman might not be as neutral as he let on. And that reader was correct: Kriseman recorded a robocall over the weekend on behalf of Aronberg’s primary rival, Dan Gelber. (For the record, we interviewed Kriseman before he recorded the call.)
The mailer is a bruising piece of campaign literature that takes aim at Gelber for working at Akerman Senterfitt, the state’s largest law firm that recently was retained by BP.
It follows a press release that Aronberg, an attorney at Greenspoon Marder, sent out calling for Gelber to quit the firm, although Gelber had toldThe Palm Beach Post editorial board several days earlier that he was resigning from the firm.
The mail piece implies that Gelber was “”defending BP” and that he earned $225,000 per year from “BP’s law firm.”
Dave Aronberg issued a late-night press release on Monday calling on Dan Gelber, his Democratic primary opponent in the attorney general race, to resign from Akerman Senterfitt law firm. The powerful law firm was retained by BP after its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and Florida’s next attorney general will likely have to defend the state in a lawsuit with the company.
But Gelber says Aronberg is trying to score political points: Gelber notified his boss of the resignation on Thursday, just hours before he told The Palm Beach Post editorial board that he was stepping down from the firm.
“This is obviously a political stunt. I was literally off the (firm’s) web site yesterday,” said Gelber, who was among the first to call for a special session to write a constitutional ban on offshore drilling in state waters. “He’s using a bona fide tragedy for his own personal ambition. I hope he regrets it.”
Aronberg doesn’t regret it. He’s actually pretty fired up.
“I expected Dan to resign weeks ago,” Aronberg said. “When that didn’t happen, I just thought it was important to speak up.”
Aronberg also says that Gelber’s resignation might not be enough. He said there are “real questions” about whether Gelber would have to recuse himself from a case involving BP because the company was represented by his former firm.
But Florida Bar rules are fairly clear that there is only a conflict of interest if Gelber was involved with his firm’s client. Gelber says he’s done no work on behalf of BP.
“This could be the biggest lawsuit in Florida’s history and the next AG needs to be an active part of it,” Aronberg said.
Florida’s largest labor union gave Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Kendrick Meek its full endorsement, The Palm Beach Post has learned.
The Florida AFL-CIO is in a private meeting this morning to consider endorsements for a slate of state and federal candidates.
Meek got a scare from independent candidate Charlie Crist, who has strong support among the state’s teachers unions. But Meek avoided a potential embarrassment with a rousing speech to the group on Saturday. (Today’s print story.)
The union avoided a fight in the competitive Democratic primary between state Sens. Dave Aronberg of Greenaces and Dan Gelber of Miami Beach. The group agreed to endorse the winner of that race.
Aronberg’s camp viewed the split as a victory, but Gelber’s team said the decision lets each campaign battle for local union endorsements.
Gelber did seek the full endorsement, but ran into a roadblock in Pat Emmert, president of the Palm Beach-Treasure Coast AFL-CIO, who led the change internally for Aronberg.
UPDATE: The Senate approved the abortion amendment by a 22-17 vote.
Florida GOP Senate leader Andy Gardiner tacked a controversial anti-abortion amendment onto a health care bill on the floor this morning, an identical measure that died on a 20-20 vote two years ago.
The proposal would require women seeking an abortion to have an ultrasound in the first trimester, already required for pregnant women in the second trimester. The women would also have to look at the ultrasound unless she has proof that she has been raped or is a domestic violence victim.
The decidedly more conservative Senate will likely approve the contentious amendment this time around.
Moderate Republican Jim King, who voted on the winning “no” side, passed away last summer and was replaced by conservative John Thrasher.
Ted Deutch, a Boca Raton Democrat who also helped kill the bill, is now in Congress.
And Republicans have easily shot down a number of amendments offered by Democrats trying to water down the Gardiner proposal, indicating the bill would pass.
But they may not take a full vote on the measure (HB 1143) today, and the House would have to approve the changes for it to pass and head to Gov. Charlie Crist.
Sen. Dan Gelber, who was in the House two years ago, objected that no committee had fully vetted the proposal before it arose today on the floor.
Gelber, who is running for attorney general, gave a heated argument against the amendment after offering several of his own that failed.
“You are go to put in Florida law a provision that requires a victim of a rape to actually tell someone she was raped, to get proof of the rape before she can be excused by the state of Florida from getting an ultrasound. How wrong is that,” said Gelber, D-Miami Beach. “Shame on the state of Florida.”
UPDATE: The Senate Ethics and Elections Committee unanimously approved (SB 902) a tougher measure than the House’s version.
The Florida House approved a measure that would allow counties and cities to go beyond current state law in fines and jail time for county officials and staff who violate local ethics ordinances or financial disclosure requirements.
Under the measure, counties like Palm Beach could double the current fine from $500 to $1,000 and extend jail time from 60 days to one year for corrupt officials.
The House approved the bill (HB 1301) – one of Palm Beach County’s top priorities this session – by a 111-1 vote today, but the Senate is taking a different approach.
Both anti-corruption proposals are being blended with a measure (SB 902) that would increase the legislature’s oversight over state agencies’ contracting, a priority for powerful Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander, chairman of the committee.
One of the harsher measures would make it a crime for any public official to knowingly withhold information about a financial interest in something on they vote or cause to take place. It would would also require disclosure of financial interests that could benefit a family member.
Another would enhance penalties for crimes, such as official misconduct, that public officials commit in their official capacity.
The two stricter measures are sponsored by Sen. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, a former federal prosecutor who specialized in corruption cases. The PBC-backed proposal is sponsored by Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres. The two colleagues are running against each other in a Democratic primary for attorney general.
McAuliffe said the changes in the law would make it possible for the state rather than federal officials to prosecute officials like the three former Palm Beach County commissioners and two city commissioners who went to prison on federal corruption charges.
Palm Beach County officials said those bills aren’t a priority and aren’t working to make sure those bills (SB 1076, 734) pass.
Gov. Charlie Crist waits to ask a state Senate panel to approve his appointees to the Public Service Commission. Michael C. Bender/The Palm Beach Post
Gov. Charlie Crist cooled his heels for more than an hour as the Senate Communications, Energy and Public Utilities Committee grilled his two Public Service Commission appointees, Steve Stevens and David Klement, but left before the committee took a final vote.
Crist left shortly before 11 a.m. (Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp took his place) to attend a bill signing after being kept on ice by committee chairman Alex Diaz de la Portilla who took up two other bills before getting to the appointment confirmations.
The full Senate must approve the appointments once the committee signs off on them, if they do.
“Both of these men are men of great integrity,” Crist told the committee before the interrogations began. “That’s why I chose to appoint them from the pool that was given to me from you. I believe the Public Service Commission is a great panel. It can do very good work., and I know that these two men are dedicated to doing this. That’s all I wanted to say.”
But that wasn’t enough for Sen. Chris Smith, a black Democrat from Ft. Lauderdale who has raised concern in the past about the lack of diversity on the panel.
The separation of church and state has been in Florida’s constitution for more than a century.
But that might this fall under a proposal approved by a Senate committee this morning that could go before voters on the November ballot.
The “Religious Freedom” amendment would delete the 125-year-old provision in the constitution prohibiting state money from being spent directly or indirectly to aid any church, sect or religious denomination. And it would open the door to former Gov. Jeb Bush’s school voucher program allowing public school students to use state money to pay for religious school tuition that the Florida Supreme Court struck down.
Also known as the “Blaine Amendment,” the separation of church and state restriction was an anti-Catholic, anti-immigration measure aimed at keeping Catholics from obtaining government funding for their schools.
Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed a campaign finance measure pushed by GOP lawmakers that would have given powerful legislative leaders the ability to open “leadership funds” to influence elections.
Crist said in his veto letter that the accounts, done away with by lawmakers more than two decades ago, “allowed legislative leaders to solicit and accept campaign contributions during the legislative session from lobbyists and interest groups outside of the public view.”
The bill (HB 1207) also would have shed light on electioneering communications organizations, or ECOs, that advertise against candidates or issues without having to identify who they are.
Crist, who is running for U.S. Senate, liked that part of the proposal and asked lawmakers to send him back a revised version.
Democrats praised Crist’s veto while his partisan colleagues blasted it.
“If Governor Crist was serious about giving the people of Florida real election reform and providing accountability for the campaign activity of leaders in the Legislature and at the state’s political parties, he would have made this the law of our great state,” Senate Majority Leader Alex Diaz de la Portilla said in a statement.
“Instead, the veto indicates he may be more interested in protecting the status quo and scoring points in his quest for higher office, than he is in providing the people of Florida real and meaningful election reforms,” Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, said.
But Sen. Dan Gelber lauded Crist’s action.
“It was the right thing to do. Floridians are tired of the shenanigans that are increasingly defining state government. The bill was a step in the wrong direction, and I think Gov. Crist recognized so. We need to put an end to cash register politics, not enable it,” Gelber, D-Miami Beach, said in a statement. Gelber is running statewide for attorney general.
Oil and gas rigs could drill 105 miles closer to Florida beaches under a plan President Obama said today would strengthen national security and boost the depressed economy.
“In order to sustain economic growth, produce jobs and keep our businesses competitive, we’re going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel even as we ramp up production of new sources of renewable, homegrown energy,” Obama said at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.
The news stunned environmentalists in Florida and emboldened some Republican lawmakers, who pushed a measure last year to let the governor and state Cabinet approve oil and gas leases as close as three miles from Florida’s beaches.
Sen. Dan Gelber, a Democrat running for attorney general, sparked a mini-debate on the national health care package after he accused Attorney General Bill McCollum of political gamesmanship by filing a federal lawsuit over the reforms.
Gelber filed an amendment on an attorney general-related bill that would bar the AG from hiring private lawyers to challenge the constitutionality of the federal health reform act.
In what sounded a lot like a campaign speech of his own, Gelber accused McCollum, a Republican running for governor, of using his office to launch a headline-grabbing “ideological escapade” and “political frolic” to boost his popularity.
“This is nothing other than a political fraud,” Gelber, D-Miami Beach, said. “Yes, the the attorney general may have been the first one (to file the lawsuit). But he had a press conference every single day on this. It was nothing but a political issue…
The question we should ask ourselves is why is the attorney general…on this political frolic whose only purpose is to simply get headlines? It is wrong.”
McCollum is simply trying to “defend us from a mandate that has never before in the history of our country been done wherein we have to purchase insurance and if we don’t we have some kind of statutory violation,” said Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, the bill (SB 712) sponsor.
Thrasher said that if the attorney general stops defending the rights of Floridians, “then we ought to get a new one.”
“I share your view that we ought to get rid of the current attorney general if that’s what you just said,” Gelber quipped.
Gelber’s amendment failed, but the state senator-attorney general candidate debate didn’t stop there. (more…)
With Palm Beach “Corruption” County in mind, lawmakers are moving toward stiffening local ordinances combating ethics violations.
Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, is backing a bill that allow counties to increase the current penalties for violations of county ordinances imposing ethical standards and financial disclosure requirements from 60 days in jail to one year in jail and double the fine from $500 to $1,000 per occurance.
The Senate Community Affairs Committee signed off on Aronberg’s proposal (SB 1980) this afternoon with a 9-1 vote.
Aronberg sponsored the bill at the behest of the scandal-plagued Palm Beach County Commission, which recently established an ethics panel in the wake of a federal corruption probe that landed three former county commissioners in prison. Palm Beach County Rep. Kevin Rader, D-Boynton Beach, is the House bill (HB 1301) sponsor.
Aronberg said the measure, which would apply to all counties if it becomes law, puts teeth into local ordinances.
“Living in Palm Beach County, I’m well aware this has become a priority for the voters in my district,” Aronberg, who is running in a statewide Democratic primary for attorney general against Senate colleague Dan Gelber. “Hopefully, this will help remove our reputation as ‘Corruption County.’”
Attorney General Bill McCollum said today that the state will not join a federal whistleblower lawsuit against a PVC pipe manufacturer accused of selling millions of dollars of faulty water and sewer lines to local governments on projects around the country.
McCollum said his office agreed with the U.S. Justice Department that the case is without merit.
“After we looked at it, we concluded the same thing. So we chose not to join in this one,” McCollum, who is running in a GOP primary against Sen. Paula Dockery for governor, said.
McCollum has a team of lawyers looking into about 150 whistleblower – or qui tam – lawsuits at any given time, he said.
McCollum said his office will announce its involvement in a similar case within a few days “but not this one.”
Gelber bristled at McCollum’s reason for not joining the suit.
“That’s perplexing to me. Is the AG’s position that Florida won’t initiate an action unless the federal government does? I can’t believe that that is their position because that defeats the purpose of having your own attorney general who can vindicate the rights of your citizens,” Gelber said. “You must have got his quote wrong because no attorney general would cede the right of their citizens in that manner.”
A former employee of the company alleges that the pipes, used for sewer and water lines and supposed to last up to 50 years, leak and break as quickly as the first year of use and can rupture and explode.
Court documents show that Florida was among the governments initially involved in the lawsuit in 2006.
The allegedly faulty pipe was used in a Ft. Pierce project in 2003.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs claim that it will cost millions of dollars for local governments to dig up and replace the faulty sewer and water lines at a time when they can least afford it.
After more than four years, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum remains on the fence about whether to go after potentially millions of dollars from the manufacturers of faulty water and sewer pipes, a state senator who wants McCollum’s job charges.
Sen. Dan Gelber, a Democrat running for attorney general in a primary against Sen. Dave Aronberg of Greenacres, asked McCollum to join other state attorneys general in a whistleblower lawsuit that Florida was initially involved in.
But McCollum, a Republican running for governor, has not officially joined at least four other states and numerous towns, cities and counties that are moving forward with the lawsuit against Los Angeles-based JM Eagle and its former parent company, makers of the PVC pipe.
A former employee of the company alleges that the pipes, used for sewer and water lines and supposed to last up to 50 years, leak and break as quickly as the first year of use and can rupture and explode.
Delaware, Nevada, Tennessee, Virginia and at least 40 California water districts have joined the whistleblower lawsuit filed in federal court in California seeking millions of dollars in damages. Court documents show that Florida was among the governments initially involved in the lawsuit in 2006.
“These are not allegations that should be sat on,” Gelber, D-Miami Beach, said. “If something improper happened, people have a right to know and seek a remedy and it’s the attorney general’s obligation to make a decision ASAP. If there is a righteous cause of action for consumers, the last thing we want to be is late to the battle.”
State Sen. Dan Gelber and attorney general candidate nailed down another big-name Democratic endorsement, this time from Buddy McKay, who served as lieutenant governor under the late Gov. Lawton Chiles and briefly served as governor after Chiles’ death.
Gelber, a Miami Beach Democrat and former House member, is trying to trade up for the Cabinet post just a year after he won election to the Senate.
He and colleague Dave Aronberg, a Democratic senator from Greenacres, are in a battle-of-the-endorsements.
Post On Politics had erroneously reported that the sheriffs were split on the candidates.
They are not.
Aronberg has the support of 10 Democratic sheriffs, including Palm Beach County’s own law enforcement rock star Ric Bradshaw.
Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, former state education commissioner Betty Castor and former U.S. Rep. Jim Davis have all thrown their support behind Gelber.
Republicans have lined up Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp and Holly Benson, a former House member who also served as secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration, in a GOP primary race that’s been virtually silent compared to the Aronberg/Gelber contest.
They’re all vying to replace Attorney General Bill McCollum, a Republican who is running for governor in a primary against another senator – Paula Dockery.
Gelber’s latest political aspiration has opened up the door for yet another former senator, Gwen Margolis, to return to the chamber.
Margolis, a former Senate President, left office before being termed out to make room for Gelber. If she wins, it would be the Miami Beach-area Democrat’s second return trip to the Senate. After serving in the state House, she switched to the Senate from 1981-1992 before making a losing bid for Congress. Margolis was reelected to the Senate in 2002.
The Senate Judiciary Committee narrowly passed a rail bill that the House easily approved yesterday but for the third time faces a serious challenge in the Senate.
As in its first committee yesterday, the bill passed by a 5-4 vote.
Contentious testimony this morning centered on the controversial “SunRail” Central Florida commuter rail deal in which the state will pay Jacksonville-based CSX Inc. $641 million for 61 miles of track from Deland to Poinciana. The transportation giant would be able to continue to operate its freight on the line in exchange for a $1 a year payment to the state.
Who would pay for accidents on the line was the heart of the debate in the committee this morning.
The proposal would cap liability for CSX – even if freight operator is at fault – at $10 million. The state would be on the hook for the rest of the damages, which have run into hundreds of millions of dollars in other states.
Why wouldn’t Florida do the same as some other states that make freight operators liable for criminal negligence, Sen. Dan Gelber, a lawyer, asked committee Chairman Joe Negron.
“It’s because of pleading requirements and other issues that arise in indemnification agreements we’ve made the choice that we’ve made,” Negron, R-Stuart, said.
Gelber wasn’t satisfied.
“What we’re really doing in this is we’re allowing a private company to insure itself for criminal misconduct, for wanton misconduct, for gross negligence, for gross recklessness which nowhere else in Florida have we ever done. We’ve never done that by statute. So this is a major move,” said Gelber, D-Miami Beach, who was on the losing side of the vote.
The measure is now being heard in the Senate Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations Committee, where it is also expected to pass.
The Senate will debate the bill on the floor this afternoon.
MIAMI — Air Force One just landed here as President Obama prepares to attend a fund-raiser in Miami Beach for Democratic Senate and House candidates.
Obama stepped off the plane about 5:30 p.m. with Sen. Bill Nelson and greeted a passel of Democratic elected officials on the tarmac at Miami International Airport: Chief Financial Officer and gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink; U.S. Rep. and Democratic Senate frontrunner Kendrick Meek of Miami; U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Weston; Miami Mayor Manny Diaz and state Sen. Dan Gelber of Miami Beach.
Obama is to attend a fund-raiser at the Fountainebleu Hotel, then go to a solar energy plant in DeSoto County on Tuesday.
The state Fraternal Order of Police is endorsing state Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, in the 2010 Democratic primary for attorney general.
Aronberg is running against state Sen. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, for the Democratic nomination to succeed Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum, who’s running for governor. GOP candidates for AG include Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp.
Says FOP Florida President James Preston: “Dave Aronberg’s history of commitment to public service, and his legislative record of giving special attention to the area of public safety has earned this valuable endorsement. His experience as an assistant attorney general and his leadership in the Legislature as an advocate for public safety and on behalf of law enforcement make him a perfect fit to serve as Florida’s next chief law enforcement official…We are confident in the leadership that Dave Aronberg will bring to the office of Attorney General.”
Equality Florida threw its support to Sen. Dan Gelber in the Democratic attorney general primary — Florida’s largest LGBT was the first statewide group to weigh in the race. Their press release is here.
Meanwhile, Sen. Dave Aronberg of Greenacres added Baker County Sheriff Joey Dobson to the list of law enforcement officials back him. The Dobson’s presser is here.
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