Aaron Deslatte's Blog

Business backing ebbs for tax amendment

2007-08-08T10:32:00.001-05:00

The Jan. 29 property tax amendment may not be getting much of a helping hand from the business lobby after all.
Last month, the Florida Association of Realtors announced it would spend up to $1 million to promote the ballot initiative from the Legislature that would ask homeowners to trade their Save Our Homes tax cap for a beefier homestead exemption.
The Florida Chamber of Commerce and Associated Industries of Florida quickly chimed in with statements that they would kick in some support.
But AIF President Barney Bishop now says he didn't bring it up with his board at their meeting last week, and isn't so sure they'll put any money behind the effort championed by Gov. Charlie Crist.
Business groups are still sore they didn't get much out of the bill after facing some of the state's steepest property tax spikes in recent years. They also say the amendment remains a hard sell with voters.
"I have no idea what kind of financial support, if any, they will approve," Bishop said. "Our higher priority is the Hometown Democracy effort."
To that aim, AIF has helped form a new group called Save Our Constitution along with veteran election lawyer John French, former House Speaker John Thrasher and former state GOP chairman Al Cardenas. That group is clearly geared toward undercutting Hometown by getting voters to revoke signatures they've given to the group, thanks to a new signature revocation law.
"If the business community doesn't do anything to thwart (Hometown's) signature gathering process, yes, it will get on the ballot," Bishop said.

Save Our Homes gets another day in court

2007-08-03T15:32:00.000-05:00

After a year of soaring rhetoric that Florida's property tax system is broken, state lawyers are set to argue next week that Save Our Homes serves a valid public purpose and shouldn't be scrapped.
The protection that limits how much taxes can go up on resident homeowners is being challenged by a group of Alabama lawyers in Leon County Circuit Court, where a hearing on the state's motion to dismiss is set for Monday.
Birmingham, Ala., residents Jerome and Joyce Lanning own a second home in the Destin area where their taxes have doubled since 1995 without the cap. They want class-action status to include every snowbird with a second home in Florida, and scared lawmakers enough to get a briefing on the case during their June property tax special session.
They also want the state to block the tax cuts headed for property owners this year on the grounds that everyone will benefit from the heightened burdens of non-homesteaders.
Lawmakers called Save Our Homes "broken" during the session as they placed a referendum on the Jan. 29 ballot that asks homesteaders to trade the cap for a bigger homestead exemption.
Meanwhile, the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission is slated next month to start studying how to change Save Our Homes to help those "trapped" in their homes by the tax break.
But government lawyers have written in court filings that the amendment "does not deny equal treatment to non-residents, nor does it discriminate against them" as it relates to the Fourteenth Amendment's privileges and immunities clause.
Nor does it violate the Commerce Clause because "any slight or incidental burden ... resulting from the Save Our Homes amendment is outweighed by its benefits in promoting the public interest," wrote Greg Stewart, a Tallahassee lawyer representing Okaloosa and Walton counties.

Trial Lawyers stand up for Noel's lawyers

2007-07-30T11:42:00.000-05:00

Don't fault the trial lawyers for the mess surrounding Minouche Noel's stalled claims payment.
So says, well, the state's trial lawyer association.
Lawmakers and Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink are trying to force the law firm for the Palm Bay woman to drop its efforts to pocket more of her $8.5 million state settlement than the Legislature mandated last spring.
Attorney Sheldon Schlesinger filed a lien earlier this month to try and get $667,000 more out of the settlement than the $1 million the deal allows.
But "if there is any lesson that can be taken from the resulting controversy," the Florida Justice Association said Monday, "it is that Florida's claims bill process is still terribly broken and needs to be fixed."
Among the group's chief problems: lawyers have to hire lobbyists.
FJA, formerly known as the Florida Trial Lawyers, claims the process is "over burdensome and fundamentally unfair" because people injured by the state must go to court for restitution, then lobby the Legislature and governor to OK the payment.
Noel was left in a wheelchair after a botched surgery on her spine by a state doctor when she was six months old. Her case took more than a decade to wind its way from a Broward County courtroom to the halls of the Capitol, a hit-and-miss process the group says has become "increasingly politicized."
The trial lawyers then implore lawmakers to "take politics and lobbyists out of the process" by handing over the claims process to the courts exclusively.

Rubio backs Crist in Seminole talks

2007-07-27T13:09:00.000-05:00

Gov. Charlie Crist faces an August deadline to pen an accord with the Seminole Tribe of Florida to expand slot machine offerings at its seven casinos.
And one man pledging to support the governor when he cuts a deal is . . . House Speaker Marco Rubio.
The fervently anti-gambling Rubio called out Crist this week in an opinion piece in the evangelical publication Florida Baptist Witness for allowing bills expanding gambling to become law.
But the speaker said this week that Crist's hands are tied on the Seminole expansion since the U.S. Department of Interior gave Florida until late August to negotiate a deal.
"He's got no choice, and that's why I'll support him on that, even though it will expand gambling," Rubio said.
Rubio is girding himself to oppose Miami-Dade's second stab at bringing in Las Vegas-style slot machines.
Broward has already done so, which is why the Seminole Tribe alleges it's also entitled to install what are known in the biz as Class III machines, which rake in more dough.
Overall, Rubio maintains that the gaming industry is having a field day without the certain veto of any gaming expansion Jeb Bush posed.
"For the last seven or eight years, the governor made it pretty clear he would veto anything that expanded gambling," Rubio explained.
"That was his management style. Gov. Crist is anti-gambling. But his attitude is 'If it passes the Legislature, I'm more or less going to respect that.'"
Rubio also pledged again to take a firmer stand against gambling bills in his second year as speaker.
"The gaming industry had its best session in years, and I'm upset about it."

Crist, Rubio go another round

2007-07-26T11:22:00.001-05:00

It's obvious Gov. Charlie Crist faces a hard sell among the conservative bedrock of Florida Republicans for his green goals.
House Speaker Marco Rubio has taken the governor to the woodshed this week for his executive orders setting goals to force utilities and auto makers to cut their carbon emissions.
Rubio penned a scathing rebuttal calling the concepts "European-style big government mandates" but seemed to soften his warnings to the governor Thursday.
"I think (Crist's call to reduce carbon emissions) is a great goal. The only question is how do you get there, with a mandate or with incentives that create technological innovations?" he said in an interview.
"If you get there with a mandate, it is going to raise utility rates."
But he also said he didn't think human impact on global warming was "junk science" and that global warming would be a huge issue "for the next 15 sessions" as Florida tries to make itself into "the Silicon Valley of green tech."
"There's no negative to doing this if you do it right," Rubio said. "I lean toward the thought process that there is global warming. But even if global warming wasn't true, there's no harm that comes from cleaning your environment."
Crist said he welcomed the coming debate Thursday morning when he announced Progress Energy was building the nation's largest wood waste energy plant in Liberty County.
Meanwhile, a top deputy to Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Bronson, one of Crist's three compatriots on the Florida Cabinet, distanced the office from the idea backed by Crist to require utilities to create one-fifth their electricity from renewable fuels like wind and solar.
"Generally speaking, Commissioner Bronson prefers reasonable goals for incentives over mandates," said Deputy Commissioner Jay Levenstein.
"We need to insure our ability to produce and deliver this energy is not out paced by our desire to meet this goal."

Rubio torches Crist's green ideas

2007-07-25T08:41:00.000-05:00

House Speaker Marco Rubio has finally decided to part ways with the populist governor from his own party, at least when global warming is the issue.
In a stern op-ed published today in Rubio's hometown paper, the West Miami Republican calls Gov. Charlie Crist's aim to impose caps on carbon emissions from Florida tail pipes and smoke stacks "European-style big government mandates."
He predicts the governor's executive orders this month will "fail to achieve their desired result," and "carry actual negative consequences" including higher utility prices.
"Floridians already are paying too much in taxes and insurance. The last thing we need is higher utility bills," he wrote.
Crist hosted a two-day climate change summit in Miami earlier this month where he ordered targets for reducing Florida's greenhouse gas emissions to below 1990-levels over the next four decades.
Utilities have quietly started grumbling, former U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey (remember him?) has said Crist must be under the spell of Al Gore and his Hollywood allies, and now Rubio, the conservative standard-bearer for Jeb Bush in the Legislature, is taking his turn.
Read Rubio's full piece here.
Crist said Wednesday he had read the op-ed and was "encouraged" by it.
"I'm glad that he recognizes that this is a big, bold initiative that we need to be focused on."

Giuliani grows his Florida grasstops

2007-07-24T10:57:00.000-05:00

The Rudy Giuliani team has dusted off former state Sen. Charlie Clary of Destin to try to give the New York City presidential candidate a Redneck Riviera advocate.
Giuliani's campaign announced some new grasstops supporters Tuesday, naming three regional chairs for Miami-Dade County and one for the entire Florida Panhandle.
See the complete list here.
Two other current Republican legislators, Reps. Rich Glorioso of Plant City and Julio Robaina of Miami, were named "communications chairs."
Clary has been retired from public life since term-limits forced him out of office last year.
Among the other chairs rolled out were Orange County Property Appraiser Bill Donegan for Central Florida and Paul Sharff for the West Coast.
In a conference call today, the campaign played up the added importance Florida's early primary could play in deciding nominations next year, teeing off on Barack Obama and John Edwards for saying in Monday's CNN-YouTube debate that they'd sit down and talk with Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
The two also said they were willing to negotiate face-to-face with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
"I think they absolutely hurt themselves when they said they'd sit down with Castro," Giuliani operative Karen Unger said.
The latest public polling for Florida shows Giuliani and Hillary Clinton leading their respective parties.

Armey blasts Crist's green stance

2007-07-23T16:52:00.000-05:00

Florida's utility giants may be keeping their heads down after Gov. Charlie Crist signed three climate change executive orders, but conservative operatives are starting to raise their rumblings.
Monday, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas accused Crist of "pandering to radical environmentalists" by setting targets to reduce greenhouse gases in Florida.
On his Freedomworks Web site, Armey accused Crist of acting "under pressure from Al Gore and his liberal buddies in Hollywood," and warned the orders would force either reductionsin usage of higher utility bills.
"You can magically figure out how to power the entire state with wind, solar, or some other non-carbon emitting source - unfortunately, this isn't the movies," Armey wrote. "The state of Florida derives 70% of its energy from fossil fuels that emit carbon."
See the rest here.

No easy road to poll for property tax amendment

2007-07-20T14:25:00.000-05:00

Not a lot of folks are putting faith in the Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday that found the Jan. 29 property tax amendment had made a largely positive, if uninformed, imprint on voters.
The poll found 57 percent supported it, even though 67 percent confessed they needed more information to make an informed judgement.
Democrats were quick to pass off a poll of their own conducted last month in Jacksonville's House District 16 that found 43 percent would vote yes, 44 percent no, with 13 percent undecided.
The big difference between the two polls (other than the fact that the Q. poll was statewide, and the Democrats' was in an upper-class Republican House district) was the wording of the question.
Quinnipiac didn't explain what the amendment would do, other than mentioning it would give homeowners a "super" homestead exemption, which one Democratic strategist called "biased."
The Democratic poll went into mind-numbing detail, describing how the amendment would "replace the current $25,000 Homestead exemption with a super-exemption of 75% of the first $200,000 of the home's value and 15% of the home's value from $200,000 to $500,000 with a minimum exemption of $50,000 or $100,000 for low-income seniors," (breath), and "allow homeowners to preserve their Save our Homes provisions when those savings are greater than the savings under the new exemptions And require the legislature to limit the authority of counties, municipalities, and special districts to raise ad valorem taxes, and authorize an exemption of no less than $25,000 from tangible personal property."
So what's so confusing?
Voters tend to oppose ballot questions they aren't totally clear about, and poll questions that take too long to spit out over the phone are likely to get the same reaction.
Still, you have to wonder whether the expected media blitz around the amendment will make this any easier for the public to digest, or just add to the noise.
For everyone's betterment, read the whole amendment here.

Jennings back in the saddle

2007-07-19T13:13:00.000-05:00

After taking a few weeks off from the permanent campaign, Christine Jennings, the Democrat who waged a futile effort to overturn the results of last year's bizarre Sarasota County Congressional race, says she'll run for the job again.
With pedigreed support from the likes of former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham and the son of the late Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles, Jennings made here announcement Thursday even though Congress is still investigating why thousands of voters who showed up at the polls last November failed to record votes in the District 13 contest.
Jennings lost to Republican Vern Buchanan by 369 votes.
"For those of you who have watched me during the last eight months, and for those of you who have known me for years, you know that when I make a commitment, I keep it," Jennings said.

St. Pete lands CNN debate

2007-07-18T15:23:00.000-05:00

Florida Republicans will announce Friday that the Sunshine State will host yet another presidential debate.
This one will go down Sept 17 in St. Petersburg, hosted by CNN and YouTube, for the Republican candidates.
Gov. Charlie Crist, GOP chairman Jim Greer and other politicos will be on hand at the Mahaffey Theater at the Progress Energy Performing Arts Center in St. Pete for the announcement.
CNN and YouTube are also staging a Democratic debate in South Carolina July 23, with Anderson Cooper hosting.
The format will allow for citizen-submitted video questions, which you can post here.

Crist backing up California in court

2007-07-16T13:11:00.000-05:00

Gov. Charlie Crist said again on national television this morning that he could join in California's anticipated court showdown with the federal government to get permission to impose tougher auto emission standards.
CBS' "The Early Show" aired a piece taped last Friday at Crist's climate change conference in Miami, where Crist stood by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's tough emissions standards. The Governator said his state would sue in October if the federal Environmental Protection Agency hadn't approved the state's toughest-in-the-nation tailpipe standards yet.
The U.S. Supreme Court rebuked the Bush administration in April for claiming it couldn't approve the tougher standards.
"Come October, we're going to sue. There's no two ways about it," Schwarzenegger said.
He had kind words for the feds in other policy areas, but didn't mince words about the environment, claiming "there's still a lot of people who think the world is flat."
Crist, meanwhile, said he was ready to plunge into the fight.
"We will partner with our friends from California and get this done," Crist said.

Schwarzenegger goes green, and raises it

2007-07-13T09:04:00.000-05:00

After an afternoon of toasting Florida's green-streak, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger helped the state GOP grab some of the real stuff.
The Governator headlined state Republicans' 2007 Foundation for Victory dinner Friday night at the Hyatt Regency Tampa, along with Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez. Schwarzenegger had been enlisted to headline Crist's climate change summit earlier in the day in Miami, and also got to show some fundraising muscle. Republicans said the event brought in over $1.6 million, a record for a non-election year.
The soiree is the first big fundraising bash of the campaign year in advance of what is expected to be an active 2008 election season for state races, with a presidential contest, five state senators and 34 House members termed out of office.
The GOP is also facing a property tax special election this January that has failed to draw a base of paid-media financiers -- meaning the party could have to spend money supporting Crist's campaign for the amendment.
The Republican Party raised $2.2 million and spent $2.8 million over the last three months, while Democrats brought in $1 million and spent $896,000.

Crist: an Abe Lincoln Republican

2007-07-12T17:31:00.000-05:00

Shortly after deploring the "false choice" of being a Republican or an environmentalist, activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. used his podium at Florida's "Serve to Conserve" summit in Miami to rip the Bush White House and mining and auto corporations.
The performance demonstrates why conservatives might not be rushing to embrace GOP Gov. Charlie Crist's new greenhouse gas initiatives.
But the governor was having none of it as the summit wound down its first day Thursday.
In an interview, the governor said Florida Republicans had a birthright born in environmentalism owed to Teddy Roosevelt and Abe Lincoln.
"This is a proud part of our party and our history as a party," Crist said.
He also said other Southern states could be asked to join in a regional carbon emissions cap-and-trade system, and that he thinks Florida's industries will fall in line.
"They all have children who live here, too."

Obama's coming back to Tally

2007-07-10T16:28:00.001-05:00

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama will headline the Leon County Democrats' Collins-Steele Dinner next month, marking his second trip to Florida's capital city this year, the party announced Tuesday.
"The Leon County Democratic Party has come a long way," state Democratic Party Chair Karen Thurman said in a statement. "Two years ago they had no office, phone line, or Web site. But thanks to an outstanding team of hard-working Democrats, they've earned a reputation throughout the statewide Democratic community as a local party on the move. They're seen as a very capable host for a leading Democratic presidential candidate such as Sen. Obama."
The Aug. 24 dinner at Florida State's University Center Club is the second annual bash to toast former Gov. LeRoy Collins and civil rights leader C.K. Steele. Tickets are $100.
Last April, Obama held a private fundraiser at Tallahassee's Challenger Center IMAX.
Rick Minor, county Democratic chair, calls the addition of the Illinois senator "an historic event in Tallahassee."

New Jersey voters steamed over taxes

2007-07-10T14:25:00.000-05:00

Tax critics have warned Florida could look like New Jersey if it doesn't reel in property taxes.
And there, anyway, the public appears a little more willing to swap property taxes for sales taxes.
The latest Quinnipiac University poll shows 66 percent of New Jersey voters support a ballot measure this fall to dedicate another half-cent of sales tax to take the place of property tax bills there. Only one-quarter of those surveyed opposed the constitutional amendment.
As you may recall, Quinnipiac found Florida voters ambivalent last spring to House Speaker Marco Rubio's similar plan to replace all tax on homeowners with a 2.5-cent sales tax hike. That March poll found 51 percent of voters opposed Rubio's plan.
New Jersey voters socked by the nation's highest property taxes approved the sales tax hike last year with half the cash going to property tax relief.
"Voters have gotten a taste of property tax relief and are clearly saying they want more by dedicating all of last year's one percent state sales tax hike to sweeten the pot," said Clay Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
See the AP story here.

Police Chiefs "disappointed" with Crist

2007-07-09T15:16:00.000-05:00

One of Gov. Charlie Crist's most die-hard support bases, the police chiefs, just took a swipe at his veto of a court fee bill that would have added $1 to the $3 charge for court costs.
Florida Police Chiefs Association President Skip Clark, Juno Beach's top cop, on Monday called the bill "very little to ask for" and said his organization was "very disappointed" the governor went through with the veto.
The fees go to a trust fund that pays for law enforcement and corrections officer training. Crist vetoed it a couple weeks ago because he said he didn't want to raise costs for already-struggling families.
The group also levels a charge that Crist has been denying for months, namely that the property tax constitutional amendment headed to voters Jan. 29 will cut law enforcement services.
"The unresolved property tax issue, if passed, will result in severe budget cuts to police departments statewide, making the need for a $1 increase even more critical," Clark said in the statement.

Property Tax Payback is in the Mail

2007-06-29T14:11:00.000-05:00

It may not be a check, but Florida Republicans are mailing another reminder of their just-completed property tax showdown.
This week, five freshmen House Democrats (all seats Democrats took back from the GOP last November) were hit with attack mailers from the Florida Republican Party that read like this: "Taxpayer Alert for Florida Homeowners: State Representative Marty Kiar just voted NO to the largest tax cut in Florida history."
It goes on to state Kiar "voted NO to tax cuts that will save Floridians billions. When it comes time to vote for Marty Liar you should vote NO too."
Besides Kiar, D-Davie, Democratic Reps. Janet Long of Seminole, Bill Heller of St. Petersburg, Keith Fitzgerald of Sarasota and Debbie Boyd of Newberry got the letters mailed in their districts.
The state GOP declined to comment on the mailers Friday, and Gov. Charlie Crist wouldn't take the bait, either.
"I'm not going to pass judgement. That's a House issue," the governor said.
But Republicans all-but spelled out their intent to punish Democrats who refused to vote for the Jan. 29 proposed constitutional amendment creating a "super" homestead exemption for homeowners.
"Anyone who voted against this plan voted against the single largest tax increase in Florida's history," House Speaker Marco Rubio said last spring after the chamber's first tax plan passed by a mostly party-line vote. "I'm not sure the voters are going to be forgiving."
Rubio's counterpart, House Democratic Leader Dan Gelber of Miami Beach, was non-too-pleased with the mailers, given they leave out the fact that most Democrats voted FOR the $15.6 billion tax rollback this year and FOR the January election on the second piece of the plan.
"If anybody wondered whether these guys were trying to make this a partisan game, you just have to look at that mail piece," he said.
"I'm almost convinced these guys have a lactose intolerance to bipartisanship."

PIP special session "pretty close"

2007-06-27T12:07:00.000-05:00

Get ready, Tallahassee, for Special Session, Pt. III.
Gov. Charlie Crist is all but certain he can coax lawmakers to return sometime before Oct. 1 to keep the heart beating on Florida's "no-fault" auto insurance law.
Florida's mandatory Personal Injury Protection coverage covers costs of injuries in accidents regardless of fault, but is set to expire Oct. 1. Legislative negotiators thought they had a general agreement to keep the law from expiring last month, but House and Senate leaders decided not to add it to the workload in the property tax special session concluded earlier this month.
Hospitals have been lobbying to extend the law, while insurers have fought it.
Crist said Wednesday that he was "pretty close" to an agreement with lawmakers to come back and extend the law.
But Senate Banking and Insurance Chairman Bill Posey of Rockledge said Wednesday that taking another crack at PIP this year was news to him.
"It sounds doable. Nothing's impossible if you try hard enough."
This would be the third time lawmakers were called back to work this year, coming after previous property tax and insurance sessions.

Crist is wedded to homeowners' woes

2007-06-26T14:08:00.000-05:00

Even as evidence mounts that insurance and property tax rates might not be headed southward as much as politicians have advertised, Gov. Charlie Crist is holding fast to the promises he made on the campaign trail.
Crist admitted Tuesday that insurance rates haven't dropped as much as he'd hoped after lawmakers passed reforms to bolster the state's role in insuring private property in January, even suggesting lawmakers were misled by promises from big insurers.
"It's been a little frustrating for me. The Legislature did great work in January, and rates have not come down as much as I would like or the people would like or even the Legislature would like," Crist said at a press conference to unveil a new Website, www.shopandcomparerates.com, that compares insurance rates in each county.
"But the reality is they are coming down, which is an enormous sea change ... and turning the ship in that direction is not easy, and the industry continues to resist."
Florida insurers have filed to reduce rates an average 12 percent as a result of the reform.
Crist also implied some insurers who promised reductions misled Senate Democratic Leader Steve Geller, who helped spearhead the January reform.
The Office of Insurance Regulation had predicted rates would drop 20 percent to 28 percent.
Crist also defended the property tax reduction lawmakers passed this month, estimated to bring an average 7 percent reduction to homeowners' tax bills. Crist has repeatedly said the aim was to drop taxes "like a rock."

Bense falls in line behind tax amendment

2007-06-26T10:25:00.000-05:00

Former House Speaker Allan Bense is softening comments he made last week about whether the Florida Taxation and Budget Reform Commission would draft a backup property tax plan just in case the Jan. 29 amendment fails.
"Let me address that," the Panama City Republican said Tuesday before a commission meeting. "The Legislature trumps everything. They're elected, we're appointed."
Bense went on to say he didn't want the commission's work to be seen as undercutting support for the amendment.
Actually, the commission enjoys equal power with the Legislature in this regard: it is empowered every 20 years to place its own constitutional revisions on the ballot. By May 2008, the panel will have to put its budget reform questions on the table.
Bense speculated last week the panel would have to be ready to tackle property tax reform should voters reject the Legislature's handiwork in January. But Tuesday, he refused to guess whether the amendment could pass with 60 percent of the vote ("Sixty percent is harder than 50 percent" he surmised) and wasn't even comfortable saying the commission he chairs was considering a "backup plan."
"We don't want to trump what the Legislature's done."
Still, the commission will have to do something on the hot-botton concern.
By the end of the two-hour meeting, Bense's marching orders were to press on with property tax plans, but keep quiet about it.
"We can't just put our heads in the sand," he said.

SD 3 money race is a whupping

2007-06-25T12:09:00.000-05:00

Sure, Republicans are expected to have a money advantage in campaigns, what with their overwhelming majority status in the Florida Legislature, their pro-business tint, and their superior organizational structure.
But the Florida Senate District 3 race is a downright smear, organizationally-speaking.
Republican Rep. Charlie Dean has raised over $506,000 since February for this race to replace Nancy Argenziano, compared to $13,104 raised by Democrat Suzan Franks.
This cash advantage is staggering, even with the in-kind support from the state Democratic Party.
It has allowed Dean to spend $207,000 on radio and TV through Tallahassee-based Southern Campaign Resources, and another $72,870 on direct-mail. He spent nearly $12,000 on a phone bank.
Franks' largest reported expense is $4,922 for signs. Dean paid three consultants $6,000 a piece.
This is a sprawling district (coiling from Citrus to Leon and Baker counties) that registers Democratic but votes Republican. But clearly, the GOP wasn't taking chances.

A Victory for Big Money

2007-06-25T10:48:00.000-05:00

Big-wheeling companies and unions won a victory for negative ad blitzes (er, free speech) Monday when the conservative wing of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled such groups can run ads targeting lawmakers closer to elections.
The case is Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc.
The court's 5-4 ruling is being interpreted as a major weakening of the nation's landmark campaign-finance law.
This decision is probably cheered by big media since political ad revenues have nose-dived this year. But smaller, grassroots organizations with less money for TV and campaign-finance reformers are no-doubt equally bummed.

The Taxman Comes Calling Today

2007-06-25T10:19:00.000-05:00

Cities and counties get their first real look today at the pinch they're put in by the property tax cut signed into law last week.
The Florida Department of Revenue is scheduled to call each city and county to deliver the news - and it isn't all bad. Some cities, including Miami of all places, won't be doing with less this year thanks to exemptions lawmakers put in the rollback. Other newer communities that haven't been incorporated for five years will also get a break.
But most local governments will have to do some juggling as they put together their 2007-08 budgets over the next month. The tax cap and rollback was sold as a $15.6 billion tax cut.
The rollback and cap are based on population and personal income growth.

Prez-elect Haridopolos hits the trail

2007-06-22T14:54:00.001-05:00

Sen. Mike Haridopolos is acting like he's got the votes lined up for the 2010-12 Senate presidency.
The Indialantic Republican claimed the mantle to lead that chamber following Sen. Jeff Atwater's term when J.D. Alexander and a cadre of other Republicans flipped to his side last week.
This weekend, he's spending his time doing what presidents-in-waiting have to: campaigning for Rep. Charlie Dean, the Republican vying for the open Senate District 3 seat.
Dean, a former sheriff and former Democrat, will also get help this weekend from Gov. Charlie Crist and Florida GOP chief Jim Greer.
Dean is facing Democrat Suzan Franks in Tuesday's special election.
As for Haridopolos, he said the future post is still a long way off.
"If there was an election today, we'd have the votes," he said. "What I need to do for the next two and a half years is be a good listener."