The Lobbyist Culture and Pecking Order at County Hall ... by gimleteye

Dan Ricker's Watchdog Report picked up an interesting tidbit about lobbyists that would have otherwise gone unreported. The Miami Dade County Commission, last week after "... a lengthy discussion eventually settled on four lobbying firms with three getting $190,000 each (Alcalde & Fay, Patton Boggs, and Greenberg Traurig) and the fourth Akerman, Senterfitt & Edison will be paid $150,000 a year." (Why does the county need more than one law firm to lobby in DC? Never mind.)

The purpose of lobbying by the county in DC is to obtain as much funding as possible for Florida's most populous county while rewarding the maximum number of campaign contributors. The county commissioners, with a majority of Republicans, may not have gotten the message from Governor Scott: taking money from the federal government isn't a Tea Party kind of thing. But money precedes politics and the lobbying firms all bring something special to the table. Patton Boggs is a blue blood DC based firm, with deep ties to Congress and the Executive Branch, Alcalde & Fay (Sylvester Lukis) specializes in representing Florida, and Greenberg Traurig (Jack Abramoff, Marvin Rosen, Miguel De Grandy etc.) is the home-grown, land use and "environmental" practice black hat law firm, that sunk its roots in Miami Dade with its a la carte menu for converting zoning of farmland for suburbs to reward campaign contributors.

It is interesting that the fourth law firm, Akerman is being paid $40,000 per year less, inviting its own speculation.

Even more interesting is why GOP anchored, local law firm Cardenas Partners was "jettisoned after being ranked fifth though Commissioners Bruno Barreiro (Net worth $728,000) and Jose “Pepe” Diaz (Net worth $164,000) fought hard verbally to keep Al Cardenas in the mix." It is clear enough why Pepe Diaz fought hard for Cardenas: he received a ton of help from the law firm with Diaz' power play in the Florida Keys for Calusa Campground (see our archive, under Pepe Diaz). Barreiro? Maybe one of our readers can comment. According to Ricker, "... the attorney also ran afoul of Commissioner Natacha Seijas." Now there's a plump subject ripe for EOM's attention.

"Seijas told commissioners during the discussion she was offended when the former Florida Republican Party Chair under Gov. Jeb Bush, suggested to her the federal lobbying contract should just be “split five ways,” she told commissioners and she railed sternly that the comment crossed the line in her opinion." One thing you can be sure about Seijas: when she publicly says a comment crosses the line, you can be certain the line was drawn somewhere else, in the back hallway or in the office of Terry Murphy (her chief of staff).

The question: why is Seijas turning against Cardenas who represents the closest tie to Jeb! and by extension, to Marco Rubio and federal appropriations. It would be a worthwhile to find out what is the mind of the de facto chair of the county commission. Seijas is in a fight for her political life. She was deeply irritated a few weeks ago when fellow commissioners like Barreiro, Martinez and Diaz rejected her effort to block her upcoming recall from being tied to the same recall ballot as an unpopular mayor. Would rejecting Cardenas serve as a slap in the face of her fellow commissioners? Maybe.

But perhaps there is another reason. Cardenas, when patron Jeb! was governor, obtained the contract to privatize the services of the general counsel's office at the South Florida Water Management District. It was a critical juncture in the district's relationship with Miami-Dade County, and the county's consumptive use permit for new sources of fresh water to feed land speculators was under review. Seijas wields her supreme authority at the county through infrastructure including water and sewer. The District came down hard on the county for its incredibly wasteful water use policies. Seijas, in particular, was taken to the wood shed; an unprecedented event that caused amazement. The District told Seijas in no uncertain terms, she would have to change her ways if the county expected to receive any additional water allocations through its massive consumptive use permit.

Today, those arrangements-- that Cardenas represented-- are being unravelled by the Gov. Scott upheaval in Tallahassee. Scott and the right wing conservatives are poised to dismantle the influence of state agencies and undo past agreements on water supply. Perhaps it is wrong to attribute Seijas' scolding of Cardenas to confidence on her part that the keys to the county casino bank are turning back to her, but there is more to cutting out Cardenas from the lobbying work than politics. In the end, it is all about money.