The good ol’ boys have a plan to make it so…
By Chris Ingram
PoHo contributor
My prediction has now come true. Mel Martinez is resigning his senate seat. Give it a couple of days, and I expect you’ll be reading about our oh-so-tanned governor announcing he is appointing himself to Martinez’s seat because (sorry to John Morgan), he’s “for the people.”
Yes, this is legal. Read the rest of this entry »
The Republicans have gone back to their old ways when it comes to trying to regain power: rig the election process rather than appeal to the majority of voters.
This time it is a Senate bill (SB 956) that is the target of just about every voting rights and civil rights group in the state. The bill would make it harder for older voters to cast ballots (by outlawing two alternate forms of ID they often use to register and vote), make it harder to gather petition signatures for candidates and referenda, force people who move within 29 days of Election Day to cast provisional ballots and install other vote-blocking reforms in the name of voting security.
From the Times:
Gov. Charlie Crist on Monday strongly hinted that he would veto a proposed rewrite of Florida’s election laws as a broad array of grass-roots groups launched an all-out assault on the legislation.
“What is it we’re trying to cure?” Crist asked in a Times/Herald Tallahassee bureau interview. “The more opportunity you give people to vote, the better it is for democracy. So that aspect of it concerns me.”
“It always seems to me that when there may be legislation that attempts to sort of make it harder for people to do something — the people we work for — generally that’s not good,” Crist said. “I don’t look on that in a favorable light and that is true of this particular part of this legislation.” Asked if he would veto it, Crist said: “I don’t like to use the V word … but I’m not fond of that provision. It concerns me.”
“County Election,” by George Bingham
“Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual — or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.”
That quote is some pretty heady stuff from Mr. Samuel Adams (who, I believe, fought the British for the right to distribute Octoberfest beer here in America), and it may be a little over-the-top for such provincial matters as elections in Gulfport, Dunedin, Safety Harbor, Seminole and other Pinellas beachcombers, but elections have consequences, even small-town races for mayor or city commissioner. So I urge any gentle reader of this blog who lives in a city with an election today to not only head to the polls themselves, but to bring at least one friend with them so they may cast their own ballot.
Read the rest of this entry »
Holy crap, just when you thought the Buddy Johnson saga couldn’t get any worse, Jeff Testerman over at the Times’ Tampa office digs up a new low: Johnson hired an ex-con as special assistant to the woman who was responsible his office’s budget. A man convicted of arson, cocaine possession and violating his probation. A man who was a “person of interest” in a series of Brandon arsons that stopped after his arrest. A man who refused to talk with the St. Petersburg Times about what he did for his $21,000 salary over 3.5 months of work.
[William Gaskin] worked briefly as a telephone solicitor before [Johnson's chief of staff and general counsel Kathy] Harris hired him as her special assistant. He had been out of prison eight months.
Gaskin accompanied the elections general counsel to court, handled troubleshooting at early voting sites and acted as a gatekeeper for outsiders who wanted access to Harris, according to the elections staff.
“I knew nothing about his background, but I saw him during early voting at the College Hill voting site, and after early voting started, he was like a buffer between me and Kathy Harris whenever I wanted to reach her,” recalled Sharon Samek, a Tampa lawyer with the Florida Democratic Lawyers Council, a voting rights organization.
Gaskin’s employment ended Nov. 8, two days after a manual vote count determined that Johnson had lost the supervisor of elections job to Phyllis Busansky.
Neither Harris nor Gaskin would discuss his job duties, but the Times points out that Gaskin had been a CPA and had worked for Ernst & Young, the auditing firm that was checking on the office’s finances when Gaskin was hired.
This just in:
From: Buddy Johnson
Sent: Friday, December 19, 2008 3:41 PM
To: (HaganK@HillsboroughCounty.ORG); (NormanJ@HillsboroughCounty.ORG); (SharpeM@HillsboroughCounty.ORG); (FerlitaR@HillsboroughCounty.ORG); (WhiteK@HillsboroughCounty.ORG); (HigginbothamA@HillsboroughCounty.ORG); BecknerK@hillsboroughCounty.ORG
Cc: (BeanP@HillsboroughCounty.ORG); (LeeR@HillsboroughCounty.ORG); (JohnsonE@HillsboroughCounty.ORG); Daniel Klein; Kathy Harris; David Parks; Stacie Poppell; Mia McCormick
Subject: Withdrawal of SOE Budget AmendmentThe purpose of this letter is to formally withdraw the request for a budget amendment to the Supervisor of Elections FY 09 Budget.
As you know when we submitted the 2008 and 2009 budgets we could not predict the full impact of transitioning to a new voting system during a presidential election year. We trusted the County Budget director and staff when throughout the budget process we were assured they understood we were submitting our best estimate. We were told by your staff we could not add a contingency to our budget but would need to request a countywide fund budget amendment when we could define the actual expenses. As your staff is aware throughout the Election Cycle we used the required county process to adjust our 2008 and 2009 budgets several times to cover unforeseen election expenses. We were extremely transparent in all of our dealings with the budget office and with the Office of the Clerk regarding these budget adjustments during these difficult economic times.
Our goal in submitting the budget request was to finalize the election cycle before leaving office so that the incoming Supervisor could focus on the future. I feel it is best to withdraw the request so that Mrs. Busansky can review the budget and make her own decision about the amendment. Any delay in making the request is attributed to carrying out the 2008 yearend audit and finalizing all expenditures related to the election cycle. There is a very short period of time between Election Day and the end of the year.
Also, unbeknownst to me, without the knowledge of my general counsel or Sr. Chief Deputy Supervisor of Elections, I found out today that Mrs. Busansky and the County Attorney have initiated an investigation into the current voting system provider. This matter needs to be completely transparent and reviewed by the Board of County Commissioners. I have not been made privy to these discussions but have complete confidence in the current provider’s willingness and the current CIO and general counsel’s ability to respond to any technical or legal questions raised during this surreptitious investigation.
Finally, I want to express my appreciation to the Board for the elections partnership we shared these past years. It was my pleasure to serve this community.
Respectfully submitted Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Buddy Johnson
Happy Thanksgiving! Keeping it short today, gotta run off and make some buttered toast and popcorn …
Nothing funnier than watching a bunch of down-ballot candidates flub their video promos. Actually, this is a pretty funny-effective video (disclosure: one of the Vote Local consultants, Larry Biddle, is the partner of Creative Loafing editor David Warner.)
I got a call this afternoon from an old buddy from my consulting days, Neil Brickfield, a Republican party vice chairman who is running for County Commission in Pinellas. He won a very tough primary race and now faces an unknown Democrat who couldn’t even manage to get the liberal St. Petersburg TImes‘ editorial recommendation. Brickfield has raised nearly $90,000 to his opponent Paul Matton’s $10,000.
So you would think that in a GOP-dominated county like Pinellas, Brickfield wouldn’t have a worry.
You’d be wrong.
Today is your last shot at registering to vote in the Nov. 4 election. Florida, being backwards and all that, is like about half the country in its prohibitively long lead time in closing the voter registration books in advance of an election.
To register, you just need a picture ID and a completed voter registration form — and then pray that your spelling and name match those in a government database or you could fall victim to the “No Match, No Vote” law.
Here’s info on how to register in Pinellas or Hillsborough today. Here’s detailed instructions and the voter registration form.
The entry into the Congressional 10 race by Dunedin Mayor Bob Hackworth has drawn an audio response from his Democratic primary opponent, Samm Simpson, in which she calls him “yet another Republican masquerading as a Democrat:”
On the day that C.W. Bill Young was pictured on 1A supporting a family as their 23-year-old Marine arrived home in a casket from Iraq, Dunedin Mayor Bob Hackworth, a Democrat, says he’ll run for Young’s Republican-held seat this year.
From Young’s PR-happy announcement:
The Mayor of Dunedin, Bob Hackworth, is joining the race for U.S. Congress. Earth Day, April 22nd, Hackworth will formally announce that he is a candidate for the Congressional seat currently held by 19-term incumbent U.S. Rep C.W. “Bill” Young. Hackworth looks forward to representing Florida’s 10th District, which covers most of Pinellas County.
“Dunedin is the poster child of a well-governed city,†says Bob Hackworth (D-FL). “I couldn’t run for Congress as the mayor of a better community.
Dunedin is acclaimed for having a sense of community. Its safe neighborhoods are enriched with arts, culture, libraries, parks and recreation. It is also one of the first cities in the state to go “greenâ€.
Under Hackworth’s leadership, Dunedin began cutting its tax rate long before state-mandated property tax relief efforts hit last year. As a result, Dunedin weathered the budget-reduction storm better than most cities.
“We didn’t have to cut services like many cities did,†says Hackworth. “Instead, we made government more efficient in order to provide the same level of service for fewer dollars. That’s what our citizens wanted and that’s what people deserve from every branch of government.â€
Samm Simpson, a fave of Pinellas progressives, is also running. She lost to him two years ago and is not widely seen as a major competitor. Even some strongly pro-Democratic bloggers have questioned some of her actions since then.
Bonus cut: an anti-Young blog here.
This week, Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas will introduce H.R. 5699, which has been hailed as the “Blogger Protection Act of 2008†(CL blogophiles can breathe a sigh of relief).
Right now, “uncompensated Internet activity†is protected by a Federal Election Commission regulation that allows linking to campaign websites and writing about the views of federal candidates—which, without the regulation, could potentially be considered a campaign contribution or expenditure on the candidate’s behalf. Basically, blogs currently share the same protection from campaign finance restrictions as other media outlets.
The problem is that since this protection is regulatory, it can be changed without congressional action. Rep. Hensarling will introduce legislation that will create statutory blogger protections in the hopes of creating a more permanent solution for our online “pajama journalists.†Forge on, brave bloggers!
The Times reports that unsuccessful 2006 Republican legislative candidate Angelo Cappelli is off the Hotel Graybar for a 21-month stay:
Judge Joseph Bulone sentenced Cappelli to 21 months behind bars on Friday after Cappelli pleaded guilty to charges of grand theft and perjury.
“He wanted to get this behind him,” said Frank Louderback, Cappelli’s attorney. “He’s very remorseful and feels very bad about what happened.”
Cappell is a guy who had it all: a Yale education, money, a good job in banking (I know, that’s an oxymoron), house, car, wife, etc. When I sat down with him at the start of the 2006 election cycle for my column in CL, I was impressed with his in-depth knowledge of the issues and some of his ideas on how to solve them. I thought he was dressed far to garishly (expensive white-collared shirts, cuff links, braces, the whole corporate banking look) to come off as a “Man of the People” that was needed in the St. Pete district where he was running. Even our gay, married editor David Warner liked Cappelli, who was against gay rights, in a story Warner did about the Heller-Cappelli race. I was later disappointed to see that he had succumbed to the state Republican Party’s ham-handed inclination to attack his opponent, Bill Heller, in an unfair and untrue way in mailers and other ads. It cost Cappelli the election and his reputation as a caring, good guy.
Cappelli had some friends in high places, as well:
Well-known developer Mel Sembler and St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker supported Cappelli’s run against Democrat Bill Heller for House District 52 in 2006. Cappelli ended up raising $160,000 more than Heller but lost the race in a difficult election year for most Republicans across the state.
I have spoken with folks who spoke privately with Cappelli right after his arrest story broke. He was devastated and didn’t have an answer for why he lifted $100K from the estate of a dead client. My source knew Cappelli fairly well and was dumbfounded, too.
I’ve already seen lots of blog chatter on Cappelli being a hypocritical Republican, and given the GOP scandals of the past three years, that’s understandable. But Cappelli admitted his crime immediately, paid back all the money, didn’t fight the charges, and his taking his medicine rather than paying sharp lawyers to get him off or at least appeal the case for years and years. He pleaded guilty but didn’t bargain for a low prison sentence.
I think Angelo deserves some credit for that, and not a fresh bunch of lumps from blog-commenting knuckleheads. I think Cappelli still has something he can contribute to our Tampa Bay community when he gets out; let’s hope he turns things around enough to be able to do that.
The Supreme Court yesterday struck down some of the provisions of the 2002 McCain-Feingold elections reform law, mainly those dealing with limitations on corporate or union issue advertising paid for from treasury (not PAC) funds in the days leading up to an election.
The case was brought by Wisconsin Right to Life, which wanted the right in 2004 to run ads trying to stop a Senate filibuster on judicial nominees.
The effect of the 5-4 decision was to create a hole big enough to drive a semi through in the law, and to move the state of campaign financing law closer to deregulation. It likely has supporters and critics in both parties, since the coalition that put together McCain-Feingold was a strange one, indeed.
The crackdown on union treasury spending, for instance, was a major selling point for Republicans, who for years complained that the Democratic-leaning unions were using members’ dues to finance their left-wing ads and attacks on conservative politicians — without the explicit approval of the membership paying those dues.
“We see it as a positive; we think it is a fair ruling,” said Stephen Sarnoff, the president of a Communications Workers of America local in Pinellas. “We will be able to use it to inform and educate the voters about the issues that we feel are the most important. It is a just ruling that will allow more democracy and do a better job of educating the public.”
So, is the decision good or bad? It’s tricky. First, there are the money=speech advocates, who cite free speech and say let the marketplace of ideas deal with such advertising. They say government has no role in regulating free speech, and they insist that disclosure and contribution limits are enough to rein in the power of unrestrained spending.
On the other side are those who see how badly money is corrupting the political system, who worry that unfettered spending by any and all special interests will merely muddy the waters so badly that the marketplace of ideas won’t operate properly. They believed the controls in McCain-Feingold were reasonable.
One law professor argues that this decision signals a strong anti-regulation shift for the high court. Loyola Professor Rick Hasen writes:
What’s next? Expect a full, frontal attack on McConnell [a leading current campaign finance decision], likely manufactured by Jim Bopp, as invited by Justice Alito (not to mention Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas). Within a few years, expect the Court to take another campaign contributions case, revisit Randall, and reconsider whether even higher contribution limits violate the First Amendment.
Another legal expert writes that it is a banner day for corporations, who saw a giant leap forward in their ability to impact the political process:
… [F]or the first time in 60 years establishes a constitutional regime in which corporations are entitled to the same First Amendment protections as individuals, notwithstanding that, as the Court stressed in Austin, corporations’ “voice” in public debate is magnified considerably by virtue of numerous advantages that state law provides to such artificial entities.
The net effect is that the court has helped both the left (union politicking) and right (corporate spending) in campaigns, and left lots of uncertainty as to what will be treated as an issue ad vs. an ad advocating the election or defeat of a candidate. Given the Bush Court’s apparent inclination toward deregulation of campaign finance, look for more decisions that could even loosen contribution limits.
This is the biggest staff I’ve seen for a City Council race, but former legislative aide Gershom Faulkner seems ready for battle after announcing five appointments this morning.
Coming aboard are two campaign managers (Jett Jackson and Mitch Kates), a communications director (Peter Schweitzer) and two consultants, the mother-daughter team Ana Cruz and Janet Rifkin, both prominent Tampa Democratic consultants.
Faulkner, who was chief of staff for St. Pete Democratic state Rep. Frank Peterman and a campaigner for Congresswoman Kathy Castor, is running for Rene Flowers’ District 7 seat. Flowers is term-limited.
Mitch Kates, the Democratic consultant with two big Tampa Bay victories under his belt in 2006-2007 (as well as one not-so-successful journey into Sarasota politics), has started a new consulting firm. It’s called Think Big.
His news release says:
“Since arriving in Florida to work on the Charlie Justice campaign, it didn’t take long to figure out that there was a lot of potential for change and political victories in Florida. There is a great pool of candidates with a very strong volunteer base to organize efficient and effective winning campaigns,†claimed Mitch Kates .
“The I-4 corridor is arguably the most important region in the entire state of Florida from a local level all the way to the White House. Politically, this is THE battlegrounds of all battlegrounds. If I can make even a little bit of difference- I’m all in!†stated Kates.
My column in CL this weeks looks at the status of Democrat Christine Jennings’ attempts to get to the bottom of the missing 18,000 votes in her “loss” to Republican Vern Buchanan in the Sarasota-based Congressional 13 race in 2006. More and more evidence and studies have surfaced showing just how the undervote occurred. More importantly, scientific studies show she should have won if all the votes had counted.
My column ends:
One last thing: Dr. Herron’s study went further and looked at how those 18,000 votes might have gone if they had been registered. Its conclusion:
“We estimate that, had Sarasota used a ballot format akin to those in neighboring counties, Jennings would have beaten Buchanan. Indeed, our ballot-level analysis leaves virtually no doubt that the excess undervote would have broken in Jennings favor in a manner that would have easily reversed the certified election outcome.”
Click here to read the entire story in this week’s Creative Loafing.
“Criticism is necessary and useful; it is often indispensable; but it can never take the place of action, or be even a poor substitute for it:”
