Rick Scott dismisses gripes about disclosure delay, ‘pay to play’

Rick Scott doleful

In Jacksonville Thursday, Gov. Rick Scott fielded questions about his Senate campaign financing, which is still under scrutiny by political opponents.

Two points were of specific interest.

The first: a report from Capital and Main asserted that donations to Scott’s “New Republican” Super PAC by two company CEOs after business from the state pension fund went to their firms amounted to “pay to play” and a contravention of federal anti-corruption rules.

The second: Scott delaying submitting his Senate campaign financial disclosure until July 29.

While that move is legal, Scott’s finances have been questioned repeatedly by political opponents, and Scott had not offered meaningful disclosure about how he became $46 million richer while governor, saying that such was only a concern of “career politicians.”

On Thursday, Scott hewed to similar talking points.

“These are the tired old Democrat attacks,” Scott asserted. “We’ve made disclosure after disclosure. We’ll make the disclosure this year. We’ll follow all the rules and regulations. I’m completely transparent.”

“It’s just attacks from the Democrats. Think about it: what does my opponent have to run on? He can’t run on job creation, can’t run on tax cuts, can’t run on regulation reform, can’t run on reducing permitting time. So all he can do is attack,” Scott said.

We asked Scott if he would drag out the disclosure filing until the July 29 deadline.

“We’ll be filing on time,” Scott said.

A.G. Gancarski

A.G. Gancarski has written for FloridaPolitics.com since 2014. He is based in Northeast Florida. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter: @AGGancarski



#FlaPol

Florida Politics is a statewide, new media platform covering campaigns, elections, government, policy, and lobbying in Florida. This platform and all of its content are owned by Extensive Enterprises Media.

Publisher: Peter Schorsch @PeterSchorschFL

Contributors & reporters: Phil Ammann, Drew Dixon, Roseanne Dunkelberger, A.G. Gancarski, Anne Geggis, Ryan Nicol, Jacob Ogles, Cole Pepper, Gray Rohrer, Jesse Scheckner, Christine Sexton, Drew Wilson, and Mike Wright.

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @PeterSchorschFL
Phone: (727) 642-3162
Address: 204 37th Avenue North #182
St. Petersburg, Florida 33704




Sign up for Sunburn


Categories