Fresh from the elections last month, a brand-new crop of lawmakers and their more experienced colleagues swarmed the Capitol this week for their first round of committee meetings, some popcorn and, for some, a little campaign swag.
As usual, committee weeks offer an opportunity for candidates – however recently elected to their current posts – to raise money for future campaigns.
Rep. Dorothy Hukill, reelected to her final two-years in the House last month, is holding a fundraiser for her 2012 state Senate run at the Governor’s Club tomorrow evening. Hukill, a Port Orange lawyer, is chairwoman of the Economic Affairs Committee, where she’ll likely be taking up much of the House’s pro-business proposals.
Later today, the GOP-dominated legislature will head to a local movie theater for a viewing of “Waiting for Superman,” a documentary that sings the praises of charter schools.
Florida Crystals executive José “Pepe” Fanjul and his wife, Emilia, will host the event at their Palm Beach home on Sept. 14. For a $10,000 check made payable to the Republican Party of Florida, you can get into the VIP reception.
Now referring to the political establishment as “statesmen,” Scott held a fundraiser at the Associated Industries of Florida office in Tallahassee this morning with some of the state’s top lobbyists. He has another money event this afternoon at the Johnson Blanton firm, which lobbies for Bank of America, Florida Power & Light, Florida Crystals and a host of health care companies.
Pam Bondi nailed down about $50,000 at a last-minute fundraiser in Jacksonville this evening hosted by business biggies Steve Halverson, president of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, and Ericka Alba, head of Associated Industries of Florida. Both business groups are backing Bondi in the primary.
Bondi, in a tight GOP primary for attorney general against Holly Benson and Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp, made her last in-person pitch for campaign funds before the midnight deadline tonight after which candidates are barred from collecting cash until after the primary election on Tuesday.
The event took place at Halverson’s posh home overlooking the St. John’s River, a far cry from the tiny store front in downtown Lake City where she shook hands with about a dozen locals eager to meet the political neophyte in person.
At both events on Bondi’s four-day sweep of the state before Tuesday, Bondi spoke about comments she made during a radio call-in program this weekend that fired up Kottkamp’s campaign.
“With the unions, I am totally against the secret ballot. We cannot have the secret ballot. Everything has to be public. The votes have to be public. We have to have transparency to make sure that everything is on the up and up. We have to protect our businesses in this economy more than ever,” she said on Tico Perez’ WDBO radio show this weekend.
What she said meant she supports the union-backed card check included in the Employee Free Choice Act that would allow unions to organize if 50 percent of workers check a card in public. Under existing law, workers can vote for or against unionization in federally supervised, private-ballot elections.
“By forcing workers to sign a card in public–instead of vote in private–Card Check opens the door to intimidation and coercion,” the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which opposes the Employee Free Choice Act, says on its website.
Kottkamp’s camp immediately jumped on Bondi, who since said she misunderstood the question and repeatedly insisted she opposes the unions’ card check program.
Here Bondi talks about her FOXNews pals Sean Hannity and Greta Van Susteren and her endorsement from conservative darling Sarah Palin before clarifying her position on card check.
Halverson, who said Bondi collected about $50,000 in donations at his soiree, also backed up Bondi on where she stands on the issue that he said is ‘virtually a litmus test” for candidates.
“Obviously, card check is virtually a litmus test. I can absolutely assure you that what Pam said – that’s she’s been opposed to card check from the very beginning. If anybody heard that or heard comments from her desperate opponent to the contrary, rest assured that isn’t the case,” Halverson said.
U.S. Sen. George LeMieux, R-Fla., and Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Marco Rubio held a press conference this afternoon to offer their critiques of President Obama, who will be in Miami tomorrow for a fundraiser to help his fellow Democrats.
“He’s been frolicking around the country fund-raising,” LeMieux said.
Gov. Charlie Crist laughs before signing a bill with officials from the Seminole Tribe of Florida at the Seminole Casino in Hollywood on Wednesday. (AP)
UPDATE:We missed one donor. A $2,400 donation from Thomas Petway doesn’t show up in a search of the FEC’s electronic files. But the paper records clearly show his contribution. So of the 20 Republicans who signed the letter, nine donated to Crist and eight still have money in his campaign. The blog has been updated to correct the error.
Twenty Republican fund-raisers signed a letter today calling on newly independent Gov. Charlie Crist to return campaign contributions he received from GOP donors.
“As part of your transition into this new phase of your political career, we respectfully request that you return every penny of donor money from every donor who asks for a refund. For those of us who have donated to your Senate campaign, you can start by refunding in full the contributions we have made,” the letter reads.
But just eight of the 20 have any money sitting in Crist’s campaign coffers, records show.
One of the 20 who signed the letter, Gay Gaines of Palm Beach, hasn’t given to Crist in at least 15 years. She donated $2,400 this year to Crist’s GOP rival, Marco Rubio, whose campaign circulated the letter. .
Gaines
“I’ve never thought he was very dependable,” Gaines said of Crist. “I guess my instincts were right.”
Former U.S. Ambassador Al Hoffman helped write the letter, but he asked for — and received — his cash back in February, just weeks after Hoffman helped push former state GOP chairman Jim Greer out the door.
“When I discovered, in my view, that Charlie was complicit in the Jim Greer debacle, I couldn’t swallow it,” Hoffman said.
Hoffman said he believes Crist was aware that Greer and Delmar Johnson, then the party’s executive director, were diverting 10 percent of all party donations their LLC known as Victory Strategies.
“How could he not have been aware of that?,” Hoffman said. “If he wasn’t aware of it it means he was totally incompetent. If he was aware of it, he was complicit. Either way it’s pretty damning.”
After a U.S. Senate fundraiser last night in Palm Beach Gardens, Republican Gov. Charlie Crist is in the Treasure Coast today for a mix of official events and campaigning. (Crist flew commercial on Wednesday and did not travel on a state plane for this trip, a state official said.) His schedule today:
Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum is bringing buddy Rudy Giuliani back to Florida for a breakfast fundraiser in West Palm Beach on March 12.
McCollum, who endorsed Giuliani in the ’08 Republican presidential primary in Florida, is holding his $40/person fundraiser at Howley’s Restaurant on South Dixie Highway at 7:30 a.m.
“It is always nice to enjoy a good meal with friends prior to a day on the campaign trail,” McCollum writes in the invitation.
The host committee for the event includes Palm Beach County Commissioner Steve Abrams, Teresa Bailey, Marie Davis, Palm Beach Councilman Bill Diamond, Sid Dinerstein, Peter Feaman, Jay Goldfarb, Fran Hancock, Mark Hoch, Beth Kigel, Greg Langowski, Cheryl Mullings, Property Appraiser Gary Nikolits, Joe Penkala, Jonathan Satter, Tom Sliney, Ben Starling, Joy Stone and Palm Beach Shores Mayor John Workman
On Saturday, Republicans will be able to live the lyrics in the morning and party to them at night.
Florida Republican brass have a special meeting in the morning to replace ousted Chairman Jim Greer. Greer was forced out over concerns about party spending and what many felt was his inappropriate influence in primary races.
Of course, the story doesn’t end there with Republican struggles: They have a contested race to replace Greer, hand-wringing over a secret contract that paid the party’s executive director $400,000 and new questions over whether Senate President Jeff Atwater, former House Speaker Marco Rubio and others should release their party credit card statements.
Sounds like a party, right?
Actually, the party is later in the day when the GOP state Senate caucus host the “Universal Orlando Mardi Gras Celebration” to raise money for the party. The tentative schedule calls for an afternoon tour of Disney, a dinner reception and an 8:30 p.m. “VIP viewing” of Blondie in concert.
While former House Speaker Ray Sansom gets grilled on Monday over accusations that he wielded his influence in many improper ways, current House Republican leaders will be strolling the Bermuda grass of the Palmer Legends Country Club in The Villages.
House Speaker Larry Cretul and designated future speakers Dean Cannon and Will Weatherford are hosting a Republican fundraiser at the Arnold Palmer-designed course on Monday and Tuesday.
No word on whether the Republican Senator-elect will come to Florida and campaign for either Rubio or Gov. Charlie Crist in Florida’s GOP U.S. Senate primary. But Rubio supporters are hoping to tap into the momentum from the Massachusetts phenomenon.
Citing Brown’s historic victory on Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint sent a fund-raising letter to supporters today asking to help raise $100k for Rubio by Feb. 10. (The date is an anniversary of sorts.)
“Conservatives across the country recently supported a moneybomb for Senator-elect Scott Brown, which raised $1.3 million for his campaign in just 24 hours. If we can raise just a fraction of that amount for Marco Rubio’s campaign, it will give him the momentum and resources he needs to win,” wrote DeMint, R-S.C.
Republicans aren’t the only one trying to raise money in Brown’s wake. Democratic U.S. House candidate Ted Deutch of Boca Raton penned a similar plea on Wednesday.
Thursday, December 31st, 2009 by Michael C. Bender
Jim Greer speaking at a press conference in October 2008
A dozen of Florida’s top Republican fund-raisers called for the resignation of their state party chairman in a letter late Tuesday, saying without his removal Republicans had a “diminished” chance for success in a crucial election next year.
“There must be a change in leadership to successfully execute the strategic plan for victory in 2010 election cycle for Republicans,” according to the letter.
Jim Greer has resisted several resignation calls this year from party activists. “He intends to serve the remainder of his term,” Greer’s spokeswoman said Wednesday.
But the letter from the fund-raisers, who have combined to personally donate more than $2.1 million to the state party in the past decade, is the biggest hurdle yet for Greer, Palm Beach County Republican Chairman Sid Dinerstein said. The letter includes names of Republicans with national fund-raising reputations, including Ned Siegel of Boca Raton and Al Hoffman of Fort Myers.
Gov. Charlie Crist has canceled his second fundraiser in Palm Beach County in four days due to a state emergency.
After the deadly shootings in Orlando on Friday, Crist's U.S. Senate campaign canceled a $500/head reception at the Jupiter home of Lorenza amp; Larry Parmet, the CEO and president, respectively, of Sundance Products, a recycling company that in February shutdown its three Georgia plants that employed about 330 workers. Other hosts for that reception were trial attorney Brian LaBovick and his wife, Ester; and Allbury Bros. Boats President Jeff Lichterman.
On Monday, Tropical Storm Ida forced the campaign to scratch a $4,800/person reception at the corporate offices of The Falcone Group in Boca Raton. The hosts include the co-owner of Life Insurance Concepts Inc. Ted Bernstein as well as Art Falcone and Marc Roberts, two South Florida developers who have sunk $1.2 million into the Committee on Critical Challenges.
Careful readers of Post On Politics will remember that political action committee as the one created to push a constitutional amendment allowing casinos in Miami. The petition drive stalled, but as of April the group was still paying its Fort Lauderdale-based advisers.
Speaking about the economy this afternoon at a Boca Raton fundraiser, Vice President Biden said Florida’s economiy is “still in trouble.”
Florida, Arizona and California, Biden said, “got killed when this bubble burst, and you’re still getting killed.”
But nationally, Biden said the economy was improving, according to a pool report of the fundraiser.
“We’re getting to the end of this toboggan run,” Biden said. “We’re no longer talking about a depression. We’re talking about the shape of a recovery.”
“We inherited a God-awful mess,” he said
Biden spoke for about 30 minutes and then took questions behind closed doors for another half-hour
Among the crowd of about 60 people — who paid between $1,000 and $30,000 to attend — were state Sens. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, and Jeremy Ring, D-Parkland; Fort Lauderdale attorney Mitchell Berger; and Palm Beach County Democratic Chairman Mark Alan Siegel.
The fundraiser, for the Democratic National Committee and Organizing for America, was held at the home of Mark Gilbert.
Supporters cheer as President Barack Obama speaks at a Democratic fundraiser in Miami on Monday. (AP)
From President Obama’s speech last night at the Democratic fundraiser in Miami Beach:
“Here’s the thing about the Recovery Act people don’t seem to remember. It wasn’t just the most progressive tax cut policy in American history. It wasn’t just emergency relief for states and individuals. It was also — people don’t realize this — the single largest federal investment in education in our history.
“It was the largest investment in clean energy in our history. It was the largest boost to medical research and basic research in our history. It was the single largest investment in infrastructure since Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System back in the 1950s. And that’s putting people back to work all across Florida and all across America.”
The Hillreports this morning that Republican Gov. Charlie Crist will be in Las Vegas on Oct. 29 for a fundraiser with “perhaps the Republican Party’s wealthiest donor.”
Crist will benefit from a fundraiser at the Palazzo Hotel and Casino, one of the newest casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, on Oct. 29. His host, Las Vegas Sands Corp. CEO Sheldon Adelson, is the 26th-richest man in America, according to Forbes magazine.
Adelson funded the conservative group Freedom’s Watch during the 2008 campaign, spending millions of dollars to attack then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Democratic candidates up and down the ballot.
But the economic downturn hit Las Vegas and the tourism industry hard, and Adelson lost $24 billion — reportedly more than any other single American. He has since quit politics, and Freedom’s Watch folded.
Also hosting the event is Sig Rogich, the prominent Nevada Republican political consultant who worked in the White House for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and is co-chairman of the Republican Governors Association’s finance committee.
Rogich, who ordinarily makes news by pumping up Republican candidates, last hit headlines with an unusual endorsement of Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), whom he said had the seniority to help the Silver State through an unusually difficult economic period.
Saturday, September 12th, 2009 by Michael C. Bender
Palm Beach Town Councilman Bill Diamond will open his island home Wednesday for a $500-per-plate luncheon and photo op with Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum. Invite here.
McCollum, the state’s attorney general, is expected to face Democratic state CFO Alex Sink in the 2010 election. Sink was leading McCollum, $2.4 million to $1 million after the most recent campaign finance reports through June 30.
Diamond
Diamond would not say how much he’s hoping to raise, but acknowledged that “we’re doing very well.”
“I’m proud to call Bill McCollum my friend,” Diamond said.
Diamond and McCollum were both supporters of Republican Rudy Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign.
Along with Diamond and his wife, Regine Traulsen, the host committee for the fundraiser includes:
Where's the money? Use The Post's interactive database of who wants and who's getting federal dollars.
Use these interactive graphics to find and contact Palm Beach County and Treasure Coast legislators.
