Of course Crist bashed Governor Rick Scott's (R. FL) cuts to education but this is the part that really got me:A group of teachers met with former Republican Governor and now Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist during his stop in North Fort Myers Thursday.Charlie Crist has been on an education listening tour the past two days. On Wednesday, he stopped in Sarasota where he talked to a small group of teachers. In North Fort Myers, nine teachers spent a lot of time talking about teacher pay. They mostly had concerns about the very first piece of legislation Gov. Rick Scott signed into law during his first year in office. The law ties teacher pay to how students perform on standardized tests. Crist said the law is hurting teachers and that’s why he vetoed a similar bill when he was governor a few years ago.
“We do have to take a measure, but you have to do it reasonably and it’s why when I was governor before when testing got out of control I vetoed Senate Bill 6 because it wasn’t the right thing to do and it had gone too far,” Crist said.
Crist’s running mate—Annette Taddeo-Goldstein—joined him for the event. Former state Senator Dan Gelber was also part of the discussion. He said merit pay has been a big issue since he was in the Florida Legislature.
“When you talk to teachers, it has decimated the profession,” Gelber said. “I have a sister who teaches history—a lot of her merit pay is determined by children she doesn’t see in a subject she doesn’t teach.” - WGCU Southwest Florida, 7/24/14
Well said. It's clear Scott doesn't care about teachers. This is what he really cares about:Megan Allain, a teacher at Pelican Elementary School in Cape Coral, told Crist and Taddeo she often struggles to make ends meet."I'm the mother of a 3-year-old who goes to child care full-time and I'm often living paycheck to paycheck," she said. "For the work I do and what I do, it shouldn't be so much of a struggle."
Crist said he agreed.
"I think we need to pay our teachers more and put more money into education," he said. "This year, Florida had a $3 billion surplus. That's extra money, and what I don't understand is why more money wasn't devoted to education. That will be a priority for us, but obviously it's not much of a priority for Rick Scott."
Taddeo, the mother of an 8-year-old daughter who attends public school in Pinecrest and a member of the PTA, said she and Crist would look out for teachers' best interests if elected to the state's two highest offices.
"I just think you're heroes," she told the assembled teachers. "You're so underappreciated, and I think it's great that you care so much and give so much of yourselves despite having a governor at this point who doesn't care."
Then a Republican who left office to pursue a Senate seat, first as a Republican and then as an independent, Crist served as governor from 2007 to 2011. Scott succeeded him.
Buoyed by a pair of unspecified new polls that Crist said showed him holding "a five- or six-point lead" over Scott in the governor's race, Crist said that even a $30 million negative ad campaign couldn't slow him down.
"Rick Scott has a problem with the truth," Crist said. "He's been running misleading ads for months, but the good news is that Floridians don't believe his junk anymore." - Naples Daily News, 7/24/14
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And this is just one of a few scandals that could hurt Scott:A 474-mile natural gas pipeline could run from Alabama through Georgia and into Florida as early as 2017, and Florida Gov. Rick Scott owned stock in the company that’s set to build it.BrowardBulldog.org revealed this week that a review of Scott’s financial records show investments of several million dollars “in the securities of more than two-dozen entities that produce and/or transport natural gas” including in Spectra Energy, the company in charge of building the Sabal Trail Transmission Pipeline — as well as other companies with ties to Florida. His stake in Spectra, according to the financial records, was worth $53,000. Scott’s office says the governor didn’t know of the investment because it was part of a blind trust — so even though the investments go against Florida’s ethics laws, Florida’s “qualified blind trust” statute protects public officials from conflicts of interests if they invest their money through them.
As BrowardBulldog.org reports, the five Scott-appointed members of the Florida Public Service Commission unanimously approved the $3 billion Sabal Trail pipeline, which is slated to transport up to 1.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day to a Florida Power and Light plant in South Florida in late 2013. But in order for the pipeline to be built, Spectra must still submit proposals to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for approval. The pipeline has raised concerns among environmental groups and residents along the proposed path.
“I’m outraged and disheartened by this news. I feel blindsided,” Beth Gordon, a South Florida resident who helped create SpectraBusters, a group that’s fighting the proposed pipeline, said of the news of the governor’s investments. “The governor’s interest is in getting these companies the permits they need and he’s not interested in the environment.”
GreenLaw, an Atlanta-based law firm, has also voiced concerns about the pipeline and the natural gas compressor stations that will be built along with it. The firm filed objections to the project last week, saying it would be a “major emitter” of nitrogen oxides and other pollutants and would end up harming air quality. The firm is also worried about methane escaping from the pipeline, which would increase the project’s impact on the climate, as well as the pipeline’s impact on Georgia’s protected longleaf pine forests. - Think Progress, 7/24/14
And Florida Democrats are hitting him on this:The first involves Scott’s support for a controversial Miami-to-Orlando rail project known as All Aboard Florida, when the company pushing it had financial ties to his chief of staff. The second involves Scott’s support for a controversial natural gas pipeline to North Florida, when he owned a stake in the company building it. You probably haven’t heard about these messes, because they’re pretty obscure. They’re also mini-messes, especially for Scott, who was once CEO of a hospital chain that paid a record $1.7 billion fine for fraud committed on his watch.What could turn these messes into scandals is their potential link to public policies—in particular, to lame and unpopular policies that could look even worse if Scott’s probable opponent, Republican-turned-Independent-turned-Democrat Charlie Crist, can frame them as corrupt policies. There’s nothing inherently wrong with government support for a train linking Miami and Orlando—though my pal Carl Hiaasen is not an All Aboard Florida fan—but it looks pretty sketchy after Governor Scott (at the urging of his conflicted chief of staff) rejected $2.4 billion in federal money for a high-speed rail project that would have eventually linked Miami, Orlando and Tampa. Similarly, there’s a case to be made for a natural gas pipeline to Florida, but it’s hard to square with Scott’s support for utilities waging an outrageous war to prevent homeowners from going solar in the Sunshine State.
Asking questions about an opponent’s record can be good politics, but answering them can be even better politics. It’s one thing to ask why Scott rejected federal money for a shovel-ready high-speed train that promised 27,000 jobs and enjoyed strong support from Florida’s business community; it’s another thing to suggest that Scott was clearing the way for his crony’s speculative slow-speed train. It’s one thing to ask why the Sunshine State is intentionally skipping a nationwide solar revolution that is reducing carbon emissions while saving ratepayers money; it’s another thing to suggest that Scott has a personal interest in pushing gas instead. - Time Magazine, 7/23/14
We can beat Scott but we have to get our base out and ready to vote. Since it's Crist's Birthday today, how about sending him a little gift and help keep his campaign fueled and ready to go:So today the FDP introduced a new website called releasethedeposition.com, referring back to a deposition Scott gave in a case that alleged that his former company Solantic had broken Florida law by filing false medical licensing information with the state. Scott has always said the issue was a "private matter."
"Rick Scott refused to answer questions about the lawsuit and to this day, refuses to release the Solantic deposition," said Florida Democratic Party Chair Allison Tant in a conference call this morning. Referring to how Republicans like former House Speaker Larry Cretul made a similar request, Tant called on the governor to release the deposition now. "What's so damning that Rick Scott won't release it no matter what the price? I think you and I have a right to know. There has to be stuff in that secret deposition that is pertinent to a lot of Floridians."
She then referred to the recent reports regarding the governor's chief of staff Adam Hollingsworth lobbying for the All Aboard Florida project that would financially benefit his (now former) company as another example of Scott and his "insiders" attempt to "secretly direct state business to make profit from it."
"I think there's a failure to follow the law in public disclosure. I think there's a failure to be honest with Floridians ... what is he trying to hide?" Tant asked.
Scott divested his interest in millions of dollars in stock with Solantic during his first year in office, with the controlling shares going to a trust in his wife's name. - Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, 7/24/14
