Mitch Perry
Sam Rashid is still a member of the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority as of 7 a.m. Wednesday, despite that by doing so, he is directly snubbing Gov. Rick Scott, the man who appointed him to the agency last year and is now calling on him to resign from the board.
“Governor Scott expects him to resign and would accept his resignation,” spokeswoman Jackie Schutz told the Tampa Bay Times’ Steve Contorno in Wednesday morning’s paper.
The governor is telling Rashid it’s time to move along now because of the disparaging “slut” remark that he made on a Facebook posting two weeks ago, in reference to Tampa public relations consultant Beth Leytham and her involvement with the Go Hillsborough transportation plan.
Rashid is being quite the drama queen in all of this. He originally denied that the remark was sexist in any way. Then he sort of apologized, then he said he would leave if the governor wanted him gone. After Scott essentially said last week that his resignation would be appropriate, Rashid then said he would wait until WTSP aired reporter Noah Pransky‘s report on Leytham, an extremely influential player in local politics.
That report began airing Monday night. The story used public documents and text messages to question whether Leytham’s close relationships with Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn and County Commissioners Sandy Murman and Ken Hagan meet the definition of lobbying, and whether she should be registered as a lobbyist. Leythem denies the allegations, saying her actions don’t reach the legal definition of a lobbyist.
Back to Rashid. If he refuses to resign by the end of Wednesday, isn’t it time for Scott to go ahead and fire him, or is he OK with his edict being ignored?
On Fox News Tuesday night, Carly Florina told Megyn Kelley that “character matters” when talking about Donald Trump‘s outlandishly disparaging remark about her looks that he made about her in the pages of Rolling Stone.
Trump has with a straight face denied the comment, saying he was talking about her persona.
Character matters. Whatever Rashid’s point was in his original Facebook post has been lost because he crossed the lines of what most consider civil discourse with his remark.
In other news …
We wrote a lot about one poll Tuesday: The Public Policy Polling survey showed that a majority of Floridians would prefer if Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush went ahead and quit their campaigns, right now.
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That same poll shows that while Democrats in other states are “Feeling the Bern,” in the Sunshine State it’s nothing but Hillary Clinton.
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While in Southern California, Bush is channeling Ronald Reagan in touting his new tax reform plan.
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L.A. Democratic U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra says Republicans like Bush and Rubio can go “Trump lite” or stand up for Latinos Wednesday night and on the campaign trail.
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NextGen Climate is also bringing up the Gipper in trying to push the GOP candidates to address climate change.
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And U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor is attempting to gin up popular support for her bill that would reform the student loan system for university students.
