The Miami Herald reports: one of Gov. Scott's first acts was, within days of being sworn into office, was to throw up a road block to the constitutional amendments supported by over 60 percent of Florida voters in November. The report further raises the question why the governor, representing the executive branch of government, had usurped the role of secretary of state. When implemented, Fair Districts will establish new lines for state and congressional districts.
Miami attorney Miguel De Grandy, a former Republican state legislator and chief lobbyist for land speculators, has been advising the anti-Fair Districts movement. (De Grandy is also pulling the strings to combat Charter Reform in Miami-Dade. His assistant, Stephen Cody, has been Natacha Seijas' chief line of defense against the upcoming recall election.)
Scott appointed Kurt Browning as secretary of state; the office he resigned from, in order to coordinate the failed campaign against Fair Districts. Dan Gelber, the Miami attorney representing Fair Districts, former state senator from Miami Beach and recent candidate for Attorney General, is correct: "Floridians have a right to know why their secretary of state and their governor are engaging in a course of conduct so clearly intended to frustrate their will as expressed at the polls."
The one line sentence mailed to the US Department of Justice Voting Rights Section three days after taking office could have fit on a Twitter feed. That, by the way, is Governor Scott's preferred method of communicating with the outer world: "The Florida Department of State withdraws the above-referenced submission." Curious, that no one was in charge of the Florida Department of State at the time. Browning had not yet been appointed.
The Florida GOP wants war with Florida voters. War, it will get.
10 comments:
All this talk of war with your elected Government. G.O.D. you sound like Sarah Pailin! It must be true that she talks to you then.
Putz above: I didn't write this post. Look at the heading. I reprinted court records today that a newspaper can't show you. Try to find fault with that. Read my post next time.
I will enlist. Where do we sign up?
This governor is nuts. The herald has an article on his political appointees... he has put people who has no clue in jobs of responsibility. Yay.
Exactly what Alvarez did when he came into office. You would think these people would want experienced staff to help support them.
Notice: I did not say experienced politicians to support them. But, experienced staff that knows constituent and management of government entities.
The article is on the inside pages of local.
Doesn't the Secretary of State in Florida work for the governor? If that is the case, is it not the governor's prerogative to weigh in on any matter he chooses that is before any department in the state's executive branch? Just asking.
So the guy's a putz. He's certainly not the first, and he won't be the last.
Report: Bush administration broke law in '06 races
By PETE YOST, AP
4 hours ago
WASHINGTON — In the run-up to the 2006 midterm election in which Republicans lost control of the House, the Bush administration repeatedly broke the law by using federal funds to send Cabinet secretaries and other high-level political appointees to congressional districts of GOP candidates in tight races, according to a government report.
"Because those trips were classified as official, funds from the U.S. Treasury were used to finance the trips and reimbursement from the relevant campaigns was never sought," stated the report by the Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal agency that enforces Hatch Act restrictions on partisan political activity inside the federal government.
"In other cases, even when trips were correctly designated as political, agencies used U.S. Treasury funds to cover the costs associated with the trips and did not recoup those funds as required by the Hatch Act and its regulations," the office concluded.
OSC found that 10 agencies used federal funds to pay for political appointees to travel to events supporting Republican candidates in 2006 in an operation monitored closely by the White House Office of Political Affairs. The report says that aspects of OPA that came in conflict with the Hatch Act during the Bush era "have apparently existed for decades."
On Tuesday, David Sherzer, a spokesman for former President George W. Bush, declined to comment.
The report found that in the three months before the 2006 elections, agency political appointees participated in 197 events.
Out of that number, 183 of the events were with a Republican candidate. In contrast, in the same time frame in 2005, a non-election year, agency political appointees went to 76 events, 46 of them with a Republican candidate.
Hatch Act violations are punishable with a maximum penalty of dismissal, a remedy that is unavailable since those involved left the government. OSC spokesman Darshan Sheth said no criminality was uncovered in the office's investigation and that therefore, the results were not referred for possible prosecution to the Justice Department, where spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler declined to comment.
The 10 agencies that used federal funds to pay for political appointees to travel to events supporting Republican candidates in 2006 were the departments of Transportation, Interior, Housing and Urban Development, Education, Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Energy, the Veterans Administration, the Small Business Administration and the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
I am ready to go to war with Rick Scott.
Rick Scott is THE WORST!
Gimlet: What facts do you have, beside your own idle speculation, that "Miami attorney Miguel De Grandy ... has been advising the anti-Fair Districts movement." How about names and dates? As for Cody being De Grandy's "assistant", Cody split with De Grandy over 2 years ago. Ever try to contact either one for a comment? I guess that's the difference between a journalist and a blogger.
Maybe Governor Scott is simply pulling the submittal of Amendments 5&6 for preclearance by the U.S. Dept. of Justice until the legal challenge is resolved in federal court. There is no point in getting the changes in redistricting precleared until we know whether the changes are constitutional or not.
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