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FEC Complaint Filed Against Alan Grayson

LeMieux, a longtime Republican insider in the state, has served as chairman of the Broward County Republican Party, deputy state attorney general and campaign manager for Crist’s 2006 run for governor. He ran unsuccessfully for the state House in 1998.

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Officials: Florida more prepared for disasters than ever before

The RPOF’s grievance committee met Friday at the Gaylord Palms in Kissimmee to vote on whether allegations of dirty tricks and party subversion were enough to banish Guetzloe and Egoroff from their party posts. Both were reelected Republican precinct committeemen in 2008.

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Sink has ordered her office to conduct a thorough and immediate review into whether she misused the state plane to pick up and drop off family members. Sink reimbursed the state for the cost of those flights before questions were raised. But the lawmakers say the review might not be good enough. In this letter, they cite a story in which Sink reacts to a Miami Herald investigation of financier Allen Stanford, who struck a deal with state regulators to sell investments and move vast amounts of money offshore without government oversight.

Sink said the Office of Regulation should not investigate itself and the lawmakers are asking Sink to apply the same criteria to her office. If its good for the goose, it should be good for the gander, Dorworth said in an interview.
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Four House Republicans ask for investigation into Sink’s use of state planes

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Statement on Governor Sarah Palin

One day our local Legislators will look back at the 2009 legislative sessions and realize when offered good advice to take it. Although this may come as a shock, the world does not revolve around Tallahassee.

All the rabbits have been pulled from the hat in the state budget. None are left. Next year – the election year – you will have to make the severe cuts. Re-read Machiavelli, do the worst – first. Cut in 2009 so that a break-even 2010 looks good. Assuming the state were even in a break even position next year.

The Clerk’s Office here is hammered. We are down 1/3 of our employees for three months. Perhaps the Legislators can explain why we are gutted 16% when the State is spending $66 billion AGAIN. The Clerk was already heading south about 5% due to the economy and the failure to have a number of fines assessed. Had the rest of the State been cut 16% there would have been a savings of $11 billion.

If Republican Legislators are challenged from the right by a Republican or a moderate Democrat there will be some explaining to do. Right now too many in Tallahassee believe all races are won or lost on Tallahassee money and some alleged Tallahassee genius. All races are local, the smaller the more local, and I am certain we will have a statewide backlash against those who supported all the tax increases (didn’t we have a few signing a no tax increase pledge?).

There are Republicans who smoke and who do not have kids in school. I do not expect them to be voting for any Republican incumbents in the primary and maybe not even the general.

All the new taxes were done to give the schools more money. A school system which increased 40% or more in a few years during the bubble is ‘held harmless’ while taxes are raised and other areas plundered. Of course, the grateful local schools immediately applied School Board Math to show they had been cut again by $30 million, conveniently glossing over the 2,000 less students they’ll have, the fact the idiot state formula still pays a portion of the student money for departed students, and blaming their extensive short and long term borrowing on the State Legislature.

I am not sure what happens to the heads of normally sane people when they go to Tallahassee. Don’t these guys realize they have to come home and here is where their election is held?

I am somewhat amazed at the cowardice in Tallahassee in the junior members kowtowing to ‘Leadership’. A combination of math and backbone shortfall convinces them to vote against their own principles (else ‘leadership’ will exile them and their bills) yet at the same time forget that thanks to term limits, a good thing, those in ‘leadership’ who may be sitting on them will leave first.

Legislators who campaigned on less taxes and smaller government go to the capital and do their damnedest to prevent any decrease in overall state spending.

The national Republicans lost Washington by forgetting their small government roots and moving into the me-toosim of expanding government, using that expansion to rake in campaign dollars for individuals and party organizations.

In 2006, though, the infamous ‘K Street Strategy’, named for the shakedown of the multitude of lobbyists in DC with K Street addresses, blew out as the Democrats swept into power.

We’ll see the same thing at the state level in the coming years. The Republican Party doesn’t have an identity crisis – it has an INTEGRITY crisis.

The State Senate and the Florida Supreme Court, with the acquiescence of the Florida House, moved to make major cuts in the funding of local Clerk’s Offices during the final days of the Legislative session. In late February, well after the normal filing of bills for the Legislative Session had been completed, certain Legislators in ‘leadership’ positions late filed bills designed to remove the Clerk’s courts employees from the Clerk of Courts to the Judiciary. Along with the employees, current court fees and fines which now fund the Clerks would be diverted to the State to fund the Judiciary and the State general fund.

While the full court press was on by theSupreme Courts and its administrative arm, OSCA, to peel off the employees, and more so, the funding, the Legislature went instead for the self-fulfilling prophecy plan of cutting the Clerks by enough to ensure they would fail this year to better set the stage for the take-over next year. For Brevard County, we will end with about the same revenue as we had back in 2005 when we had 25% fewer Judges and Hearing Officers, 10% of the current foreclosure work load, and less expense on insurance and wages. Yet the Clerk’s Office, the public’s true door into the courts system, is being slashed in the name of guaranteeing the public’s access to the courts.

The Clerks as a whole began the fiscal year with $539 million in allowable expenses, with all other collections of court fees and fines going to the State. In January the Legislature pulled more of the fees to the State and the economy was clearly taking a toll on revenues, so in Brevard County we began cutting back expenses to meet what we projected to be a $800,000 shortfall in our planned $17.3 million budget. In late February another $500,000 reduction was imposed on our office and we continued cutting expenses with two small layoffs and reduced working hours.

During the Legislative Session the State Senate working in conjunction with the Judiciary managed to pull over the House version of the bills (the final week of the planned sesion) and took control of the changes with SB 1718 and SB 2108. While in late April we were looking at reductions of $54 Million to $65 million of the prior $539 million for all Clerks, by the time Monday May 4th arrived the reduction had been changed to $88 million, a total of $451 million.

The last $23 million had nothing to do with the State budgets, by this final ‘extra’ week the State budget was completed with all of its associated new taxes, and in an overall budget of $66 billion the $23 million made no difference. The real reasonfor the $23 million final additional cut was the State Senate was to set up the Clerk’s Offices for failure. We received our first 8% cut retroactively in February, and now this second 8% comes in our 4th quarter just as retroactively. Thus in our office we have an overall permanant reduction in 70 personnel to meet next year’s appropriation, as well as approximately 80 furloughs for the remainder of the Summer to balance this year in light of the two retroactive reductions. This is a permanant loss of 1/6 of the courts employees and a summer loss of 1/6 more.

Most frustrating to me has been the complete lack of work analysis of these Senate bills. Our office is very busy, we are not a permitting office somewhere without work. No effort was made to evaluate the costs of the courts system as a whole, studying the Clerks, Judges, State Attorney, Public Defender, and Sheriff, as well as the Florida Statutes, to see how the Courts could be revamped for costs savings. Numerous cost savings ideas presented by our office to the local judiciary have fallen on deaf ears.

While the session was ongoing I sent numerous messages to our State delegation. The House members at least read what I sent and gave me some contact, yet I was never contacted by phone or e-mail by our two State Senators. Bills are moving in Tallahassee which severely impact the Clerk’s Office and the Clerk in their own home county was not worth an e-mail of questions or comments. The overall impression I was getting was that ‘leadership’ in the House and Senate was pushing the bills, but what the heck do we vote to send our own Legislators to Tallahassee for?

They campaign like lions and then vote like sheep.

The majority of the Legislature will shortly find they have crashed Clerk’s Offices and access to the courts all over the State by allowing their ‘leadership’, in conjunction with the Judiciary, to drive the Clerk’s over the cliff. That may not be what was explained to them by their ‘leadership’, but for our Legislators I sent them full information on the ramifiactions of the bills and the impact of the cuts, both retroactive and forthcoming.

As an office we can adapt to declining economy and Judges waiving fines, even though our workload has not been reduced, but we cannot adapt to a willful and punitive reduction made without analysis or study whose underlying purpose is to set up the Clerks for failure. Next year the Legislature will convene and the Judges will come roaring in about the Clerk’s ‘inability’ to get the job done, completely ignoring said ‘inability’ is not by accident, but by design, of the bills passed this session by the State Senate and House.

I have put forward an explanation below:

Line 612: Appointments to State Committees
Prior to this Bill, the number of appointments was 52.

The maximum potential number of State Committee members elected is 201. These members include, State Committeemen, State Committeewomen and the local REC Chairmen.

Line 651: Privilege
This section of the bill allows all appointed and at large members to have full rights and privileges as those elected members.

Line 735: Contribution Increases through exemption
This provision allows for the full amount of potential contribution from a Party to a candidate in the Primary. This number used to be half the amount and had restrictions as to when the money could be disbursed.

This provision also exempts several very costly services from the amount. For instance, media messages on behalf of the candidate would no longer go against the maximum contribution a Party could make to the candidate.

So why should anyone care about these proposed changes to Statute?
Political Parties give a voice to the individual. The Party is a structure developed to promote candidates that have a likeminded political philosophy with that of the grassroots of the party.

In theory, elected officials are in office to do the bidding of the people that elect them. In the past, there has been a thin line between the Party and the elected Republican officials. The Party has acted as a check and balance against those elected Republicans that seek to gain more power through means that are not in keeping with the Republican Party’s ideals. In large part, elected Republicans are the result of the Party and its efforts. In addition, the behavior and governance of those officials reflect back on the Republican brand. For that reason, it is necessary to keep a divide in leadership of the party and the elected Republicans.

Looking at the proposed legislation, the new large voting block is a historical departure from the past. The legislature traditionally has stayed out of writing RPOF Rules and Bylaws and running the party, leaving that to the Chairmen, State Committeemen and State Committeewomen.

This new legislation now gives the elected officials the opportunity to control the message, the money and the ability to promote cronies and likeminded people for office. Couple with that the increase in dollars that would be allowed in a Primary, and you now has a recipe for a party that is run by politicians and not the grassroots of the party.

Further, by allowing at large members to serve as fully privileged members, a Chairman could easily appoint those members to Committee chairs and weight the Executive Board of the State Committee in their favor. This type of cronyism could lead to messages and directions that are determined but by a few and not the grassroots.

People are dismayed with self-serving politicians. If our Party is to succeed, we must return control of the Party back to the grassroots and the party must demand that our elected Republican’s govern in a manner that is keeping with the traditions and values of the Republican Party.

These sections of the legislation must not become law. Doing so will act as a conduit to the collapse of the Republican Party as a grassroots organization and promote an environment for power hungry individuals to promote an agenda that is not in the interest of the Republican Party. Here is some advice from now indicted Ray Sansom’s grand jury:

“This state should be guided in openness and transparency.”

It is with this simple concept of separation that I call upon Chairman Greer and the entire RPOF State Committee to publicly reject the portions of this bill that will undoubtedly bring great harm to our State Party. We as Party leaders have a responsibility to stand for what is right, and fight those things that will bring harm to our Party. Are you uncertain if the grassroots like this bill or not? Then contact your REC members and ask them, I did, and they are not happy. Let your voice be heard, too.

Editor’s note: Eric Miller is RPOF State Committeeman for Martin County and ran against RPOF Chair Jim Greer in the last RPOF election

Read the bill here: