Peter Schorsch
Is it #Baileygate or #FDLEscandal?
For as much as the Capitol Press Corps has been writing about the set of allegations made by former Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Gerald Bailey to the Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald, no one is really sure how to describe this latest roogoodoo by the Rick Scott administration, much less where it is headed.
Bailey said that he was asked by Scott administration officials to falsely name the Orange County Clerks of Courts as a target in a criminal investigation into how two convicts obtained false documents in order to escape prison. Some of the other allegations included that the FDLE was asked to transport campaign staff during Scott’s re-election campaign.
The question now is, does the story (continue to) sprawl? Perhaps, but only if Bailey is willing to go back on the record about his accusations — something he appears unwilling to do. Leon County State Attorney Willie Meggs says he’s not going to investigate, so that’s a dead end. Are the feds really going to open up a file because Chief of Staff Melissa Sellers and General Counsel Peter Antonacci were mean to people? It’s doubtful.
For this story to have legs, another shoe has to drop. Otherwise, it’s just going to be an academic argument about — Are you sitting down? Because you may get really excited — the separation of powers within Florida’s archaic Cabinet system.
Zzzzz.
As much smoke as there is to this fire, #Baileygate also feels a little like “King Ranch: The Sequel.” There was a lot of heat there, but nothing has come of Craig Pittman and Michael Van Sickler’s pursuit of whatever was going on out in Texas. What happened at King Ranch stayed at King Ranch.
Likewise, whatever happened between Bailey, Sellers, and Antonacci is staying with Bailey, Sellers, and Antonacci.
There is one aspect of all of this that’s different from previous scandals, however, and that is the tenor of the press pursuing the story. Perhaps it’s because none of them voted for Scott and they still can’t believe he won a second term, but Van Sickler, Steve Bousquet, Mary Ellen Klas, and others are just in full-on trolling mode.
Van Sickler trolls Cabinet’ers Jeff Atwater, Pam Bondi, and Adam Putnam on Twitter…
Hey, @AGPamBondi, @JeffAtwater and @adamputnam: You reading ANY of this? http://t.co/WMD73fS3tt via @TB_Times
— Michael Van Sickler (@mikevansickler) January 18, 2015
… while Klas is increasingly wearing her heart on her Facebook page’s sleeve, such as when she linked to this story and wrote about it …
“Writing this story brought such sadness to me. I am discouraged by the sense of indifference to the public records tradition in Florida which has long served as a powerful, and bi-partisan, check against corruption and abuse of power.”
It’s not that Van Sickler or Klas are wrong — clearly there is something there there in Bailey’s accusations. But no one is willing to talk about it. This is an administration so focused on secrecy it makes Mossad look like a book club. Absent a treasure trove of documents falling from the sky, this scandal will likely suffocate on itself.
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A second takeaway about Florida’s political press: Marc Caputo’s jumping (ship) from the Miami Herald to POLITICO is not only devastating to the Herald, but it’s damaging to the Times/Herald alliance. Yes, yes, yes, the Herald still has Klas, it still has ace reporters like Carol Marbin Miller, and Caputo says Patricia Mazzei is three times the reporter he was at her age, but it doesn’t have a tentpole like Caputo, especially when it comes to covering statewide political campaigns.
If I had a nickel for every A-level source shared with Caputo … and I’m sure I’m not the only writer who can say that. He is the go-to guy for the statewide associations looking to leak critical poll numbers … he is the data geek who is as savvy as the operatives trying to spin him … he is, as I wrote when I included him in my listing of the Brightest Minds in Florida Politics, the one journalist who could have made it as a political consultant had he not been a reporter.
Part of the Times/Herald alliance — a partnership I believe Caputo himself was frustrated with; notice how some of the statewide polls commissioned by the Times, which historically had been T/H projects, no longer involved the Herald — is about having Adam Smith in Tampa Bay and Caputo in South Florida. That’s a pretty good zone defense. Except now, one half of that arrangement is no longer there. The shut-down cornerback the Times/Herald so depended on is playing for another team (to say nothing of the fact that Smith no longer plays at the speed he did five to 10 years ago).
Of all the staff departures the Tampa Bay Times has endured these last four months — Jeff Klinkenberg, Will Hobson, Bill Duryea, Michael Kruse — the most impactful to its political coverage will be the loss of a reporter who technically works for another newspaper.
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A subject SaintPetersBlog and Florida Politics will be covering in-depth in the coming months is the slew of lobbying firms battling for a spot in the College Football Playoff system?
Huh?
I am mixing concepts here, but that’s the closest analogy I can use to define the struggle at the top of the food chain in Florida’s burgeoning lobbying industry (Adams Street is likely to bring in more than $500 million in revenue in 2015-16, up from just over $424 million four years ago.)
As any fan of Alabama, Oregon, Florida State, Ohio State, Baylor, and TCU, there are only four spots in the College Football Playoffs. Three lobbying teams are definitely in, at least in terms of revenue: Ballard Partners, Ron Book, P.A., and Southern Strategy Group. Where the action is is for that final spot, or at least who is in the Top 5.
This website, Florida Trend, Sunshine State News, and perhaps other publications, will soon — final compensation reports are due by February 14 — crunch the data on which firms made what in 2014 and it will be very interesting to see which lobbying shop rounds out the Top 5. Capitol City Consulting, Johnson & Blanton, Corcoran & Johnston are among the firms vying for that spot.
But don’t feel sorry for the firms who don’t make the Top 4 or 5, being in the Top 15 nowadays equates to several million dollars in revenue. Being in the Top 25 is still a very good living for the lobbyists working at these firms.
That’s another reason this all feels like college football. Beyond the top two or three programs, there is a great deal of parity because there are so many good programs, err, I mean firms.
Take former House Speaker Dean Cannon’s Capitol Insight. In some ways, it’s like the Boise State of lobbying firms. It just recently burst on the scene, it has several blue chips (Capitol Insight is stocked with blue chip clients — Disney, Centene, the Florida Chamber — in several industry silos), and it wants to challenge for the top spot.
Perhaps I should start a weekly Top 25 ranking?
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The topic on many lobbyists’ minds remains Joe Negron vs. Jack Latvala for the Senate presidency. The Negron camp insists this drama is in the final act, while Latvala, who gets grizzlier the longer his odds get, insists there’s still a lot left to the story.
As Matt Dixon of the Naples Daily News first reported, Negron is now saying he has a majority of Senate Republicans backing his bid to become leader of that chamber for a two-year term starting in 2017. Negron’s announcement is the first time either has said they have majority support with at least 14 votes.
Negronworld, if there is such a thing, says that one senator flipped from Latvala to Negron, while another undecided colleague signed up with the Man from Stuart. I, apparently in mistake, suggested that this flipper was Tom Lee. However, consensus among the lobby corps is that the switcher, if there is one, is Thad Altman. With the Candlestick. In the Conservatory.
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Finally, all the credit in the world to lobbyist Chris Finkbeiner, a Scott loyalist if there ever was one, who is now plying his wares at The Rubin Group. Finkbeiner made it a point to introduce himself to me during my most recent trip to Tallahasssee and did so in a gracious, gentlemanly manner. Peace in our time, my friends, peace in our time.
