Flablog

The not-so-green governor

2009-06-30T20:02:00.006-04:00

Well, no big surprise. Gov. Crist signs the water bill that allows executive directors of water management districts to quietly OK water-use permits for developers without the fuss and bother of board votes and public hearings. He urges boards, however, out of the goodness of their hearts, not to do so entirely in secret. Maybe put these things on the agendas so the tree huggers can vent a little before the executive directors cut the deals back in their offices.

Is there any environmental issue left that the governor hasn't sold out on this year?

+ The Buzz
+ St. Pete Times editorial
+ AP
+ Tallahassee Dem
+ Post on Politics
+ Audubon of Florida
+ Roundup of editorials opposing the new growth-management law.

Mail bombing

2009-06-24T16:30:00.004-04:00

Your correspondent knows that Rep. Alan Grayson is in some kind of controversy which makes sense if you follow Orange County politics, which he doesn't. His real concern is about his email in-box. With elections more than a year away, he is being mail-bombed by the state GOP. As of 3:36 pm today, he has received no fewer than eight anti-Grayson mailings in one day starting at 7:12 am. That's on top of the half dozen yesterday. Andy Sere, you have one foot in my e-mail spam filter!

Dubyah-dee

2009-06-19T15:12:00.005-04:00

I'm a little late on this, but former Florida Senate President W.D. Childers was paroled from federal prison on Wednesday. (Cotterell's advance here.) In Cotterell's memorable words:

W.D. Childers -- once president of the Florida Senate and boss of the Escambia County Commission -- has been Florida state prisoner P21902 for nearly three years. The sly wheeler-dealer who openly relished squeezing campaign money out of lobbyists is now an old man puttering with maintenance jobs in low-security lockups where he’s done his time.

Meanwhile, the Progressive Pensacola blog argues for renaming W.D. Childers Plaza.

Maybe they could call it Sansom Plaza instead.

Just kidding.

(Photo: Fla. Archives.)

Congressional kookwatch

2009-06-19T10:20:00.007-04:00

Melbourne-area Rep. Bill "Birther Bill" Posey went from being just another conservative among conservatives in the Florida Legislature to a flaming, conspiratoid, tin-foil-hat-wearing, rightwing kook in Congress. The issue of vital importance to Florida, the economic crisis and his constituents that he's pushing? A measure to require presidential candidates submit birth certificates.

Well, acting on concern that the president is secret terrorist foreigner working to subvert our sacred Christian nation, four more reps have jumped as co-sponsors.

Here's what the Congressman said on the rightwing WorldNetDaily site:

Though the freshman representative said he won’t make this personal about Obama – "It’s not a matter that I don't want to tackle it head on with him," – he made the point that, "The only people that I know who are afraid to take drug tests are the people who use drugs."

He paused, choosing his words carefully. "There's zero chance … of him being removed from office. I've talked to high ranking members of our judiciary committee who say, 'You know, this is a matter of standing, this is why the Supremes won't take this up, and the Supreme Court exists to protect individuals or groups of individuals from having their rights trampled and there's not anybody that has the proper standing.'"

I'm not saying he's a secret Muslim terrorist foreigner who needs to be impeached because he's ineligible to hold office bu-u-u-t ...

Meanwhile ol' Tom Feeney is doing some fundraising to help him out.

+ Washington Independent- Bill Posey, Congressional Birther, Finds Some Friends and Bashes ‘Angry Woman’ Rachel Maddow
+ Political Animal - Birther Bill speaks
+ Politico -- "Birther rep fights on."

Makeover

2009-06-06T11:59:00.001-04:00

Flyin' Jeff Kottkamp gets a makeover in preparation for running for attorney general. When will the consultants allow candidates to wear facial hair again?

The return of Poll-0-Rama

2009-06-05T10:36:00.004-04:00

Your correspondent does not intend get sucked into a year and half of poll postings. Nosiree. That way madness lies; let me shun that. Still-l-l-l, Strategic Vision, which tends to work for Republicans, sent out some interesting numbers today. Highlights:

+ Obama's Florida approval rate -- 60 percent approve, 30 percent don't, 10 percent don't know, don't care or had beans in their ears.

+ Gov. Crist: 62 percent approve, 34 percent don't, 4 percent were distracted by shiny objects nearby.

+ Governor- Republicans: 59 percent of Republicans supported Charlie Crist; 22 for Marco Rubio, and 19 percent undecided.

+ Governor, general: McCollum, 41 percent; Sink, 39 percent; 20 percent undecided.

(N=492 Ds, 468 Rs, 240 indies. MoE=+-3 points)

Later: The McCollum camp quickly hits back with polling counter-spin.

The runner-up is...

2009-06-03T20:09:00.002-04:00

The 538 blog looks at the nation's governors, weights the scores to see whether a governor is running ahead or behind the party and is running in a populous state (where it's harder to be popular) or a small state (where it's easier to be popular) . The results? Charlie Crist is the 2nd most popular governor in the country either on the normal scale or the weighted scale. Gov. Dave Freudenthal, Wyoming, is at the top of both charts.

'Gov. Gridlock'

2009-06-02T09:26:00.012-04:00

Roundup on Crist's signing of the sprawl bill: (Will be added to over next day or two.)

+ St. Pete Times' editorial "Gov. Gridlock" -- Gov. Charlie Crist just made it easier to pave over what's left of Florida. By signing SB 360 into law Monday, the governor clearly values the voices of developers and big business — and their campaign checks for his U.S. Senate campaign — over the concerns of environmentalists and local governments. Crist set growth management back more than 20 years and left a permanent stain on his legacy.

+ Naked Politics Blog -- "Crist's environmental image takes a hit." --

+ The Political Whore -- "Charlie Crist bends over for special interests and signs anti-growth-management SB 360" -- The only good news? This should be exactly what we need to get Florida Hometown Democracy approved by the voters in 2010.

+ Eye on Miami, "While Gov. Crist and Marco Rubio lock in battle for the US Senate, Florida is the victim" -- The ridiculously-named “Community Renewal Act” represents anything but “renewal”. It is more aptly called “The Bailout Bill for Land Speculators”, aimed to appease developers down in the dump who need a piece of good news, any news, to make it easier to swallow the massive hits to their net worth through property market decline and their ill-advised purchases of raw land at speculative values whose monthly holding costs are burning cash at an alarming rate.
-----

+ Florida Today editorial, "Reckless Rollback" -- Crist tossed aside his strong growth management and environmental protection record to side with the development lobby in a move certain to gain him access to their deep pockets and campaign contributions for his U.S. Senate run. He has irreparably harmed Florida and we’ll all pay the price.

+ Jim Morin cartoon.

+ Palm Beach Post editorial, "The governor can't hide" -- The idea is to make it easier to build when the recession ends. That might help large developers who are likely to donate to Gov. Crist's campaign. But for the rest of the state, the loss of control over development will make it much harder to protect paradise. And does anyone blame Florida's economic woes on building too little?

+ St. Pete Times columnist Howard Troxler's piece "Crist signs growth bill, sells Florida down the river" -- In the defining moment of his career Monday, Gov. Charlie Crist sold the state of Florida right down the river. He did it in a gutless fashion, too, waiting until the close of business to send out a brief announcement that he was signing Senate Bill 360. Look. If you're going to destroy your state to get elected to the U.S. Senate, be proud of it. Do it at a news conference. Surround yourself with bulldozers and smiling developers. Order a cake.

+ Miami Herald editorial, "Gov. Charlie Crist made a bad call on growth limits" -- A new growth-management law signed by Gov. Charlie Crist this week broadly redefines ''dense urban land areas'' as land with less than one home per acre. That's like calling bucolic Parkland the equivalent of packed Hialeah. The change could allow condominiums and zero lot line townhomes in 245 Florida cities and in the entirety of eight of the state's largest counties -- including Broward and Miami-Dade. Worse, the law says that developers don't have to provide adequate infrastructure (think roads) to accommodate this growth.

+ Orlando Sentinel columnist Mike Thomas', column, "Crist & Co. pave way for lower home values"
Charlie Crist and his Republican cohorts just depressed the future value of your house. They did this by gutting the state's growth-management law.

+ Tampa Tribune editorial, "Toothless growth law" -- Now that Gov. Charlie Crist has signed into law a major weakening of growth rules, Hillsborough and other urban counties appear to have lost the power to force developers to help pay for new or improved roads. One of our objections to the law is based on the uncertainty of what its full consequences will be. On something this important, the starting point should be broad agreement of what the bill would do.

+ News-Journal columnist Mark Lane's column, "Gov Crist changes his colors" -- It's bad growth policy and worse economics. And it reverts to the old mistaken belief that Florida is just one filled-in wetland away from prosperity. The green governor has become the sprawl governor.

+ Jacksonville T-U columnist Ron Little, "Great news for developers, not so good to everyone else" -- Perhaps you've fallen for Crist's charade that he's an environmentalist. What Crist is is a politician whose goal is to win the next race. This time it's the Senate and big-time developers with big bucks are going to be very happy they don't have to worry about such pesky things as helping pay for roads and having their development plans reviewed to see what impact they have on other areas. The ploy is that doing away with concurrency and Development of Regional Impact reviews will jump start the economy.

+ Daytana Beach News-Journal editorial, "Savaging Florida's growth laws isn't 'balance'" -- The governor suggests balance was achieved because proponents of the bill -- cities, developers, builders, Realtors and the Florida Chamber of Commerce -- aren't entirely happy with it, while its opponents -- 1000 Friends of Florida, all major environmental groups and several counties among them -- appreciate that its worst provisions were mitigated before passage. But being grateful that the thief who stole your wallet and car left you with bus fare doesn't make the theft a square deal.

+ Column by St. Petersburg Times editorial editor Tim Nickens, "Crist loses his bearings" -- Gov. Charlie Crist's political radar went haywire last week when he decided to become the governor who killed growth management in Florida.

+ Column by Herald columnist Fred Grimm, "Timing perfect for passage of building law" -- It was a fine time to sabotage the state's growth-management policies. With 300,000 unsold homes languishing on the market, with another half-million in various stages of foreclosure, with God knows how many stalled projects moldering amid rusting rebar, bare cinder-block walls, concrete slabs and fading ''no trespassing'' signs, growth management lately seemed more about nostalgia than policy.

The government propaganda bill

2009-06-01T10:33:00.003-04:00

Your correspondent gets a lot of hilarious advocacy mail. But even he was a little taken aback by the level of misrepresentations in the Florida League of Cities' blast against the bill which would prohibit local governments from electioneering at public expense. (SB216)

The mailing and league surrogates say the law would "muzzle" public officials and prevent them communicating to constituents. In fact, it merely prohibits spending public money on government-produced propaganda. If you're not spending public money, you can say anything you want. What part of "does not prelude an elected official of the local government from expressing an opinion on any issue at any time" is complicated?

+ Herald editorial page buys the bullshit.
+ Troxler does not.
+ The veto campaign may have more to with fighting the Hometown Democracy Amendment than fear of "muzzling" elected officials.

Will Brown go rogue - well, more rogue?

2009-06-01T10:18:00.007-04:00

Will Corrine Brown become the Democrats' Katherine Harris?

Dems wince. Reporters prepare for fun.

Later: Looks like she might.

Sotomayor and Florida

2009-05-28T10:58:00.002-04:00

CQ Politics runs an interesting piece about the political effects of Puerto Rican migration to Florida and in particular the I-4 corridor of Florida. The headline: Did Obama Just Use the Sotomayor Nomination To Lock in Florida?

The ongoing Puerto Rican migration to Florida is so huge that it may well be the case that by the time of the next presidential election in 2012, Puerto Ricans make up the largest Hispanic voting segment in Florida.

Why, it turns out that even Sonia Sotomayor's mother was part of the influx of Puerto Ricans moving from New York to Florida.

Small tenters rally

2009-05-27T16:02:00.004-04:00

Mike Huckabee endorsed Marco Rubio for US Senate. This is being treated as major news event in some quarters even though Huckabee received an anemic 13 percent of the vote and carried exactly four counties in last year's Florida Republican presidential primary. Remember that was a closed primary, so we're only talking about 13 percent of Republican voters, a minority within a minority.

Those ideas again

2009-05-22T16:34:00.004-04:00

At Slate, Christopher Beam revisits Marco Rubio's 100 Ideas book.

Nice lede - In the country of no ideas, the 100-idea'd man is king. At least that's the hope of Marco Rubio, the 38-year-old former speaker of the House in Florida who is now gunning for the Senate seat being vacated by the retiring Mel Martinez.

Nice concept. But the run-to-base Rubio already had moved the right of the 100 Ideas Rubio. Rubio2006 was a whole lot more promising and pragmatic than the Florida for Huckabee Rubio2008. And R2009? A more old-school righty with troubling history of impulsive bad political decisions. It would be cool if he transcended the big tent/small tent dichotomy, but he's strictly hiking tent.

The notebook thing again

2009-05-22T09:11:00.004-04:00

Most blog-readers know Kevin Kelly from his popular Cool Tools blog. But he also hosts The Quantified Self blog which explores self-tracking. Tim Wilson sent me a great link there about former Sen. Bob Graham, his notebook system and the what-did-the-CIA-say-to-who-about-torture controversy:

This is interesting for several reasons. First, it's worth noting that one man's spiral bound notebooks were able to accumulate enough credibility to defeat the records of an organization whose very reason for existence is to collect information, communicate it to trusted members of government, and keep records of these communications. Anybody who has been following some of the controversy about patient records can add this strange example to their list of favorite anecdotes. Personal data, kept by a dedicated and interested party, even using yesterday's technology, will trump large scale collection systems managed by bureaucrats.

But the cultural resonance is also important. Watch the video below, in which talking-head Rachel Maddow explains the controversy. Notice how condescending she is about Graham's disciplined collection of personal data. But by the end, she is forced to admire the triumph of good individual records over bad institutional ones. "Nerds, 1; Spies, 0" she proclaims.

Fla driving for dummies

2009-05-21T14:33:00.006-04:00

Your correspondent loves state-ranking exercises of all kinds. In today's ranking story, GMAC Insurance rates the states for how much their drivers know about driving rules. Florida ranks 43rd. Perhaps because there are so many people here from NY, which ranks dead last.

There is no recorded instance of anybody being surprised by this information.

Building the next boom and crash

2009-05-21T09:24:00.006-04:00

The state rep. in the district just south of me, Dorothy Hukill, R-Port Orange, has lately become The Voice of Sprawl, promoting the loosening of Florida's already ineffective growth management laws.

NYTimes:

“We are dependent on tourism and construction,” Ms. Hukill said, “whether we like it or not”

So why do anything to change that dependence? Come on boys, there are swamps out there crying out for pavin'! Forget about those empty houses and let's lay the foundations for Florida's next cycle of unsustainable boom and bust!

+ Herald version here.
+ Palm Beach Post story, Bill awaiting Crist's signature would gut Florida's controls on development, opponents say
+ St. Pete Times editorial on the bill -- Enough of this: Legislators exploited the economic crisis to reward developers and mount a frontal assault on growth management. Do not buy the claims that government bureaucracy is stalling development that fuels Florida's economy. More than 300,000 housing units sit vacant and millions of square feet of retail space are approved but unbuilt. Overdevelopment, not growth management rules, helped create this collapse.
+ Ron Littlepage: I haven't been a fan of Florida Hometown Democracy, but that's changing. Here's why: Let's start with what the Legislature just did to basically gut growth management laws that at least attempt to have infrastructure keep up with development.

Oh yeah, and Hukill also introduced the election law insta-bill in the House elections committee,
so it could be passed with three whole minutes of debate and no public input. Vote suppression and overdevelopment -- this woman is going to to go far in the Florida Republican Party. (And of course, she's for offshore oil drilling, too.)

Election bits

2009-05-15T09:20:00.004-04:00

The NYTimes Opinionator runs a good roundup of the rightwingers grumping about Crist's candidacy and they're right. Anyone this certain to win a general election just isn't a real Republican.

And Flyin' Jeff Kottkamp will run for attorney general. For somebody who doesn't like to spend weekends in Tallahassee, he's sure looking for ways to stick around. The Dem's commercials should write themselves. Assuming, of course, they find a candidate who can rise from being a virtual unknown to somebody who's just unknown in north and central Florida.

For whom should Dems root?

2009-05-11T23:14:00.002-04:00

538: Politics Done Right asks Should Democrats Be Rooting for Charlie Crist? And replies with a rousing, yeah, sorta.

Fan letter

2009-05-10T20:42:00.004-04:00

The Weekly Standard's John McCormack writes a mash note to Marco Rubio, declaring him the new Republican Obama. He's Jeb Bush without that awkward last name! All he has to do is win a statewide election. No wait, he doesn't even need to do that!

Even an unsuccessful campaign will raise his profile for the day, sooner or later, when voters decide that liberalism is not the change we need.

I thought Bobby Jindal was supposed to be the New Conservative Obama. I'm losing track.

(Via Ben Smith bog at Politico)

Old fashioned base-running

2009-05-05T10:21:00.004-04:00

The Fix lays out how the national press is going to describe the Rubio Crist matchup --

"We see this race shaping up as the Pennsylvania Senate primary that never was," said one adviser to Rubio's campaign granted anonymity to speak candidly about strategy. "Like [Sen. Arlen] Specter, Charlie Crist is outside of the mainstream of the Republican Party."

Remember Florida has closed primary so only the Republican faithful will vote in this primary and it's a non-presidential election year so voter turnout will be so-so. In other words, Rubio's running an old fashioned, run-to-the-base campaign. After that, he'll hope to run against somebody like Kendrick Meek who would play poorly in the Panhandle and be unknown in I-4ville.

Except that two-thirds of Republicans like Charlie just fine and he'll use an early media blitz and the tax-cut amendments campaign to shore things up over summer 2010. The only parts of the Republican Party not with Crist are the social-issue Christians and the Jebbites, and they aren't exactly riding a winning streak lately.

+ Fried Gator scan's Rubio's bookshelf.
+ A campaign of ideas. Idea #1: Obama's a socialist!

Oil drilling - God wills it!

2009-05-03T19:57:00.002-04:00

The level of debate in Florida House sometimes fails to raise to the level of a, non-drive-time AM talk-radio call-in show. Randy Schultz of the PB Post has a excellent column of the sad lack of deliberation before the off-shore oil drilling vote.

House members, Rep. Van Zant said, could express their "reverence in our Creator" by allowing companies to drill for the oil and gas that God had blessed Florida with in abundance. Rep. Van Zant, who holds two degrees from Baptist seminaries, knew this turf. Earlier in debate, he had said, "We worship a God who made (the oil), and if we ran out, I think he could make some more." Now, that is renewable energy.

But for those who enjoy the most simplistic arguments, Rep. Greg Evers, R-Baker, had one. A vote for the drilling bill "is a vote for our way of life. A vote against it is a vote for OPEC." Perfect. Patriot vs. traitor.

Blogger down haiku

2009-05-01T21:08:00.004-04:00

The session is done
But Blogger is not working
There's always Twitter

What 'Fla. problem'?

2009-05-01T07:53:00.007-04:00

I'm a John Dickerson fan and all, but I just don't find "Obama's Florida Problem; What's a president to do when his party attacks a politician he has praised?" very persuasive.

Aside from the fact that it's pegged to a single, not-much-noticed press release from the the DSCC, it assumes that there's no difference between running for reelection as governor and running for US Senate. Had Crist stayed focused on the governorship, he would have bought himself some immunity; but he's running for US Senate, so it's assumed that he'll be start to be the focus of of hypercritical DSCC press-releasery.

Big whup.

Comics blog and Ivey

2009-04-25T09:45:00.004-04:00

Your correspondent was a fan of Jim Ivey when he drew deceptively simple, stylized cartoons for the St. Pete Times and the Orlando Sentinel. Thanks to the always enjoyable Strippers Guide comic strip blog, written by Allan Holtz of Lake Co., I find out that Ivey's still in Florida. Find the posts about Ivey here.

(Fla Archives collection)

Elections bill dies

2009-04-25T08:22:00.006-04:00

The elections insta-bill is dead, dead, dead -- at least this session.

Meanwhile, one last editorial completes the roundup:

+ Sun-Sentinel: With time running out on this year's regular session, the Legislature is unwisely pushing a bill that would throw counterproductive obstacles in the path of citizens registering to vote, casting ballots and amending the state constitution.

Lesson learned: Two weeks is no longer a short enough time to ram something through the Legislature without anybody realizing what's going on. You gotta do it the last week or not bother.

Later:

+ Palm Beach Post: These dangerous bills may or may not be withdrawn during the session's final week. If they survive, Gov. Crist should declare in advance that he would veto them. They are not about election reform. They are about voter suppression.