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Editorial: If Gov. Rick Scott only had a heart

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Tampa Bay Times Editorial Board
February 28, 2014 3:00pm

tinmanforwebThis time four years ago Rick Scott was a stranger to Floridians. Then he spent $73 million on his first political campaign and rode an angry voter wave to the Governor’s Mansion. For Florida, this has been a hostile takeover by the former CEO of the nation’s largest hospital chain. In three years Scott has done more harm than any modern governor, from voting rights to privacy rights, public schools to higher education, environmental protection to health care. One more legislative session and a $100 million re-election campaign will not undo the damage.

This is the tin man as governor, a chief executive who shows no heartfelt connection to the state, appreciation for its values or compassion for its residents. Duke Energy is charging its electric customers billions for nuclear plants that were botched or never built. Homeowners are being pushed out of the state-run Citizens Property Insurance Corp. and into private insurers with higher premiums and no track records. Federal flood insurance rates are soaring so high that many property owners cannot afford the premiums but also cannot sell their homes. The governor sides with the electric utilities and property insurers. He criticizes the president rather than fellow Republicans in Congress for failing to fix the flood insurance fiasco they helped create.

In Scott’s Florida, it is harder for citizens to vote and for the jobless to collect unemployment. It is easier for renters to be evicted and for borrowers to be charged high interest rates on short-term loans. It is harder for patients to win claims against doctors who hurt them and for consumers to get fair treatment from car dealers who deceive them. It is easier for businesses to avoid paying taxes, building roads and repairing environmental damage.

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Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s 2012 voter purge violated federal law, court rules

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Steve Bousquet, Tampa Bay Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Tuesday, April 1, 2014 7:48pm

TALLAHASSEE — Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s administration violated federal law by trying to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls too close to the 2012 presidential election, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in calling the mistake-prone effort “far from perfect.”

The decision by a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta invalidated efforts by the Department of State to identify and remove noncitizens from the voter rolls in advance of an election in which a Florida victory was crucial to President Barack Obama’s re-election.

Federal law prohibits states from “systematic” removals of voters less than 90 days before a federal primary or general election.

Judges said they ruled in a case that might otherwise be moot to prevent Scott’s administration from undertaking a future purge effort.

“This is a big win for Florida voters and a significant victory for good election administration practices,” said Deirdre Macnab, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida, which joined the case on the plaintiffs’ side. “Systematic computer purges are often wrong so they shouldn’t come just before an election, when the voter can’t get it corrected. … This is a precedent-setting case that upholds a key protection for voters.”

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Rick Scott’s Campaign Could Be Fined $82 Million

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Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s (R) reelection campaign could be fined as much as $82 million if found guilty of an accusation of campaign finance violations.

State Democratic Party chair Allison Tant filed a complaint with the Florida Elections Committee on Monday, alleging Scott’s campaign illegally transferred nearly $27.4 million from the governor’s longstanding but now-shuttered electioneering communication organization, called “Let’s Get To Work,” to a newly formed political committee of the same name.

Scott, who opened the original Let’s Get To Work while running for governor in 2010, continued fundraising for it even after taking office; it was closed out earlier this month in favor of the committee. At heart of the allegations from Democrats is the difference between how electioneering communication organizations and committees are allowed to operate.

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Broward Democratic Party Chair Mitch Ceasar’s Weekly Column

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After 10 months, Gov. Rick Scott has picked a Lieutenant Governor in Miami-Dade Property Appraiser Carlos Lopez- Cantera. Many believe the choice was an election year calculation. I believe that is true, but there is a special reason. The governor made an assumption that the Hispanic community is simplistic and will “fall in love” because of a temporary appointment. This would disregard Scott’s horrible record toward Hispanics, including cutting educational dollars, fake voter purges and no meaningful Republican immigration reform. The other reasons for the choice of Lopez-Cantera were total loyalty and finally finding someone to say yes.

Editorial: Failure at the top on Medicaid

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Tampa Bay Times Editorial
Friday, December 13, 2013 4:54pm

Florida is stuck with a tea party governor who won’t talk and a tea party House speaker who won’t listen. Gov. Rick Scott refuses to repeat his earlier support for Medicaid expansion, and House Speaker Will Weatherford refuses to hear the economic and moral arguments for accepting billions of federal dollars to cover the poor. Congress is finally rejecting such ideological rigidness in embracing a budget compromise, and the Legislature should do the same on health care.

At least twice last week, Scott declined to publicly reaffirm his support for accepting billions from Washington to expand Medicaid. The Republican governor’s embrace always sounded unenthusiastic, and it came hours after the Obama administration approved his request in February to convert the state’s entire Medicaid program into a managed care system. Scott did not push the House to adopt a Senate plan to take the federal money, and he dropped the subject after the Legislature adjourned in May. Now he chokes on his own words of support as he gears up his re-election campaign.

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