Today Progress Florida delivered the below letter to Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer urging him to reject pay-to-play politics and give back the more than $1 million in campaign contributions developer Jay Odom used as leverage to secure state funding for a proposed aircraft hangar on the Northwest Florida State College campus.  Rep. Ray Sansom (R-Destin) and the college’s President, Bob Richburg, face felony indictments for their conduct surrounding the appropriation of $6 million in public funds to be used for the hangar.

Following, please find Progress Florida’s open letter to Chairman Greer reprinted in full: 

April 27, 2009

Dear Chairman Greer,

The trustees of Northwest Florida State College have called an emergency meeting for tomorrow in response to developments surrounding the $6 million of taxpayer funds appropriated for an aircraft hangar at Northwest Florida State College.

Gov. Crist, State Attorney Willie Meggs and others have stated publicly that these funds should be returned to taxpayers. Last week Sen. Don Gaetz indicated that the $6 million had become a "toxic issue" in the legislature, and that lawmakers would take steps seeking return of the funds if the board of trustees doesn't vote to do so themselves.

We're writing to find out if you agree with Gov. Crist and others that the aircraft hangar project should be abandoned and the funds returned by the school.

If so, we'd like to know why the money that the Republican Party of Florida received as part of this scandal shouldn't be given back to contributor Jay Odom, for whom the hangar was allegedly to be built.

Returning Mr. Odom's campaign contributions would help restore people's faith in the integrity of the political process, and make clear that the days of allowing political donors to dictate public policy and abuse taxpayers are over.

Progress Florida joins with Gov. Crist, State Attorney Meggs and others in urging the trustees of Northwest Florida State College to return the $6 million so it can be used for more critical needs by the citizens of Florida. In the spirit of good government, we also call on you to return the more than $1 million in tainted political contributions that Jay Odom leveraged through the Republican Party of Florida to help create this debacle.


Sincerely,

Mark Ferrulo, Executive Director
Progress Florida

Bumped. It looks like Moffitt is taking notice. - Ray

And not just any hospital, we’re talking H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, one of the top 20 cancer hospitals in the country.  This nationally renowned cancer treatment and research institute is paying thousands of dollars to lobbyists in Tallahassee, that are also registered lobbyists for tobacco companies.

Seriously, I’m not just trying to grab your attention with a provocative headline and then blogger-judo you down some tangentially related, but less interesting story line.  The Moffitt Cancer Center has seven registered lobbyists that represent them in Florida’s capital, who also walk the halls of The Capitol building on behalf of cigarette companies, cigar manufacturers and purveyors of chewing tobacco and snuff.

For example, there’s Michael P. Harrell, public affairs director of the law firm, Foley & Laudner, and registered with the state of Florida as a lobbyist for the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Dosal Tobacco Corporation, the Miami based manufacturer of the popular “305’s” brand of cigarettes (among others.)

Sebastian Aleksander is another Florida lobbyist registered to represent the Moffitt Cancer Center.  He’s also got some dandy clients in his portfolio, notably Reynolds American and Swedish Match North America.  Reynolds American is the parent company of R.J Reynolds Tobacco Company, manufacturer of 1 out of every 3 cigarettes sold in the country, including...

Mr. Aleksander’s other client, Swedish Match North America, has five different product categories - snuff, cigars, chewing tobacco, pipe tobacco and lights.  You may be familiar with their popular “Red Man” chewing tobacco brand.

Then there’s Florida lobbyist Carole Duncanson.  Not only is she officially registered with the Florida legislature to “press the flesh” for the Moffitt Cancer Center, she also walks The Capitol halls on behalf of Swisher International, maker of the ubiquitous Swisher Sweets cigar.

In fact, I sent the following Email to their Public Information Officer hoping there was some reason for this cancer hospital/tobacco lobbyist relationship I was unable to fathom on my own:

Dear Ms. Foley,

                The Moffitt Cancer Center, a hospital I’ve long admired, has more than a dozen lobbyists that represent the institution in Tallahassee.  A number of these lobbyists also represent cigarette manufacturers, cigar makers and chewing tobacco companies.  How does the Moffitt Cancer Center justify hiring lobbyists for tobacco companies to represent the best interests of a cancer hospital? 

Sincerely,
Mark Ferrulo

Two weeks later, here’s the only response I’ve received:

Hi Mark,

Thanks for your e-mail. I will make sure it gets passed along to the most appropriate department.

Best,
Michelle

It comes as no surprise that there exists amoral lobbyists who will work on behalf of anyone who will write them a check, whether it’s an institution trying to save the lives of people with cancer, or a company whose products cause it.

What’s surprising is that Moffitt Cancer Center would spend thousands of dollars hiring tobacco industry lobbyists who have such a clear conflict of interest with their own mission and the best interest of their patients.  I’ll give you one example:

In the 2008 legislative session, there was an effort to raise the cigarette tax.  Studies have shown that raising cigarette taxes reduces both adult and teen smoking rates and provides much needed revenue to fund anti-smoking and health care programs.  In fact, the Moffitt Cancer Center receives more than 15 million dollars every year from Florida’s current tax on cigarettes (among the lowest in the nation.)  On which side of this issue were the Moffitt Cancer Center lobbyists I’ve named above?

We may never know exactly what role they played in the defeat of this particular bill, but this is just one example of the clear conflict of interest Moffitt Cancer Center’s tobacco lobbyists have with the hospital and research center that also writes them a check each year.

On April 1, 2008, the Moffitt Cancer Center’s campus went “100% Tobacco Free”.  This should also be the year that the Moffitt Cancer Center also goes “100% Tobacco Lobbyist Free”. 

Well, I finally did it, I subscribed to HBO.  After years of being content renting DVDs of my favorite HBO series (Six Feet Under and The Wire being my two favorite shows of all time,) my hand was finally forced to hit the Subscribe to HBO button on my set-top box remote control.   

Yep, my girlfriend, a political junkie whose addiction makes my own seem merely a School House Rock inspired dalliance, forced my hand. 

She was so fixated upon the Sunday night premiere of the much hyped HBO movie Recount: The Story of the 2000 Presidential Election, that it started to interfere with our relationship.

The tipping point came Friday night.  We were out with two other couples enjoying a nice Italian dinner in downtown Sarasota (a restaurant Katherine Harris probably frequents,) when my girlfriend decided to ask the table “Do any of you have HBO and if so, can I come over Sunday night to watch a movie?” 

Two hours later our household became the newest member of the HBO family. 

I don’t have a review to share, there are plenty of those to be found on the InterTubes.  Overall, I enjoyed it. As someone who feels that he sort of lived the experience of the 2000 debacle (my office at the time was just a few blocks from the Florida Supreme Court Building,) and knew many of the places and protagonists, it was pretty cool to see it played out on the boob tube by some of my favorite actors.

More importantly, there were two lines of dialogue in the movie that do the best job of distilling the entire spectacle down to the most digestible understanding of how the final outcome came to be.     

Very early in the movie, Secretary of State James Baker (Tom Wilkinson) says to a roomful of Republican heavies "This is a street fight for the Presidency of the United States" – and immediately afterwards, Warren Christopher (John Hurt), says to his fellow democrats "This is a legal process, not a street fight."

There you Have it – two sentences, two totally different approaches to the crises -  one that led to a two term VP growing a beard and the other to two terms of the worst president in American history.

P.S. If you're wondering - did my girlfriend like it?...she fell asleep half-way through.  I should have stuck with renting.