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Report: López-Cantera will step aside if Marco Rubio changes his mind about the Senate
Florida’s lieutenant governor tells Politico he has urged Rubio to reconsider his decision not to seek re-election
MIAMI (CFP) — Just days before qualifying is set to begin in Florida’s U.S. Senate primary, Lieutenant Governor Carlos López-Cantera has disclosed that if U.S. Senator Marco Rubio decides to run for re-election, he will end his own Senate campaign.
Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera
López-Cantera, who got into the Senate race at Rubio’s urging, tells Politico that when he met Rubio at the scene of the Orlando nightclub massacre, he urged Rubio to reconsider his decision not to seek re-election in 2016.
Rubio has been under increasing pressure from Republican Senate leaders to reverse course and run again. But his longtime personal and political friendship with López-Cantera has been seen as an obstacle to any Rubio candidacy.
Rubio gave up his seat to make an unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential nomination and has insisted repeatedly that he will not be a Senate candidate. But Florida’s relatively late party primaries, at the end of August, have left him a window of time to change his mind.
Qualifying ends June 24, giving Rubio a little more than a week to make a final decision.
Rubio is seen as the strongest Republican candidate in the Senate race, which Democrats are trying to capture to wrest Senate control away from the GOP. López-Cantera and three Republican rivals have been battling for the nomination; the lieutenant governor is the only one of them who has won statewide.
There has also been speculation that another GOP Senate candidate, U.S. Rep. David Jolly of St. Petersburg, will also abandon the race and instead seek re-election to his 13th District House seat.
Jolly opted to take a pass on defending his House seat after a court-ordered redistricting added Democratic voters to what had been a swing district. However, the likely Democratic nominee for that seat is former Governor Charlie Crist, a Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat who lost statewide races in 2010 and 2014.
As the incumbent, Jolly would be in the best position to thwart the political resurrection of Crist, a man roundly despised in Republican circles.
The other Republicans in the Senate race include Carlos Beruff, a real estate developer from Manatee County, and U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis, who represents a Jacksonville area House district.
On the Democratic side, U.S. Reps. Patrick Murphy of Jupiter and Alan Grayson of Orlando are battling for their party’s nomination.
Grand jury may be investigating Alabama Governor Robert Bentley
Probe centers on the governor’s alleged affair with a former aide
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
MONTGOMERY, Alabama (CFP) — A special prosecutor has been put in charge of a federal investigation of Alabama Governor Robert Bentley, and a grand jury may be looking at whether the governor misused his office to carry on a purported affair with an aide.
Alabama Governor Robert Bentley
A letter sent to attorneys representing people questioned in the investigation, obtained by AL.com, says that U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch has appointed U.S. Attorney John Horn from Atlanta to handle the case, after the federal prosecutor in Montgomery, George Beck, recused himself.
Horn has been U.S. attorney in the Atlanta-based Northern District of Georgia since 2015. He is perhaps best known for successfully prosecuting Eric Robert Rudolph, who was convicted of setting off a bomb during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
Although the letter did not state that a grand jury investigation was underway, the subject line of the letter reads, “Re: Grand Jury Investigation.”
A grand jury probe would be the latest in a long series of headaches for Bentley in the wake of allegations he had an affair with Rebekah Mason, a former top aide.
A group of state legislators is pushing for his impeachment, he is facing an ethics investigation, and he is being sued by Spencer Collier, the former head of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, who went public with the affair allegations a day after Bentley fired him.
Collier claimed that he was removed by the governor because he refused to mislead the state attorney general’s office about an investigation related to a political ally, a charge Bentley denied.
Bentley also denied the affair, but he apologized to the people of Alabama for making “inappropriate” comments after an audio recording surfaced in which the governor expresses “love” to an unidentified party in a telephone conversation and talks about how much he enjoys touching her breasts.
Just who made that recording isn’t clear, but, according to Collier, an unidentified member of Bentley’s own family provided it to ALEA officials in August 2014.
In 2015, Bentley, 73, and his wife of 50 years, Dianne, divorced. He has declined to say whether his inappropriate conduct played a role.
A few days before receiving the audio, Collier said he confronted the governor about his relationship with Mason, after a member of the governor’s security detail accidentally saw an inappropriate text message from Mason on Bentley’s cell phone.
Collier said he informed the governor that he would be committing a crime if he used state resources or campaign funds to facilitate the affair. The governor told Collier he would break off the affair but never did, Collier said.
He said Mason exhibited so much influence over Bentley that she was “the de facto governor.” Collier said he had received complaints about Mason from other law enforcement officials, as well as members of Bentley’s cabinet and members of his family.
Mason, who has also denied an affair, resigned from Bentley’s staff shortly after the allegations were made public.
Bentley, a dermatologist, was elected to his second term in 2014 and is term limited in 2018. He is the third Alabama governor in the last two decades to run into legal trouble.
In 1993, Republican Governor Guy Hunt was forced to resigned after he was convicted for looting his inaugural fund to pay personal expenses. Former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman is currently serving a six-year sentence after being convicted of trading government favors for campaign contributions while he was governor.
Federal court refuses to block new Florida U.S. House map
Ruling is a blow to U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, who objected to changes in her district
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CFP) — A panel of federal judges has refused to block a court-ordered redistricting map for Florida that drastically altered the majority-black congressional district of U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown.
The three-judge panel also refused to issue an injunction of its ruling pending a possible appeal, which clears the way for qualifying for congressional races to begin June 24.
U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown
The decision may affect the fate of two incumbent congresswomen: Brown, a black Jacksonville Democrat whose district will become more white, and U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham, a Tallahassee Democrat whose district will become more Republican.
The judges ruled that Brown had not proven that the new configuration of Florida’s 5th District, with a reduced black voting age population, violated the federal Voting Rights Act, citing evidence that a black candidate was still likely to win the seat.
As originally drawn, Brown’s district began in Jacksonville and meandered south down the St. Johns River valley to Orlando. The new configuration instead goes directly east from Jacksonville, stretching more than 200 miles to Tallahassee.
The Florida Supreme Court had struck down the state’s U.S. House map on the grounds that it violated a constitutional amendment passed by state voters in 2010 that outlawed partisan gerrymandering. When the state legislature could not agree on a new map, the Supreme Court drew one instead.
Brown had challenged the new configuration of the 5th District, which has a black voting age population of 45 percent, compared to 50 percent in the old map.
The new map also put a number of large state prisons in rural North Florida into Brown’s district, adding about 17,000 prisoners–half of whom are black–to the district’s population. Prisoners are counted in the voting age population, even though they can’t vote, which Brown charged further diluted the black vote.
Much of the new territory in the reconfigured 5th District comes out of Graham’s neighboring 2nd District, a swing district that will now be more Republican.
Brown’s suit presented the federal judges with a novel legal question–how to resolve the conflict between the state constitution’s prohibition on gerrymandering with the Voting Right Act’s requirement to maximize minority electoral opportunity.
Brown had argued that the federal law should prevail. But the judges ruled that she had not proven that the Supreme Court erred in drawing its map, citing evidence from experts showing that even with a lower black voting age population, the 5th District is still likely to elect a black candidate.
The judges also noted that 120,000 black voters in the St. Johns valley and Orlando were moved from the 5th District to the new 10th District, which could also make a black candidate competitive there.
The Republican incumbent in that district, U.S. Rep. Daniel Webster, has already announced he will leave that seat and instead seek election in the neighboring 11th District, where U.S Rep. Rich Nugent is retiring.
Brown issued a statement saying she was “extremely disappointed” in the ruling. She hasn’t yet indicated whether she will appeal or if she will run in the reconfigured district.
U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham
Graham, too, expressed disappointment in the ruling, saying it will transform her 2nd District “from a fair, moderate district into two extreme partisan districts.”
“Now that the lengthy legal challenges to the maps have been completed, I will make a decision as to what’s next as soon as possible,” she said in a statement. “Though the maps may have changed, my commitment to public service has not.”
Graham was the only Democrat in the South who defeated a Republican incumbent in 2012. There has been speculation that she might seek statewide office if her House district becomes untenable.
Ted Cruz looks forward to Super Tuesday after finishing third in Nevada
Texas senator touts himself as the only “consistent conservative” left in the GOP presidential race
♦By Andy Donohue, Chickenfriedpolitics.com contributor
LAS VEGAS (CFP) — After a third-place finish in the Nevada caucuses, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas looked forward to the pivotal Super Tuesday primaries, touting himself as the “one proven consistent conservative” remaining in the GOP presidential race.
Cruz on caucus night in Las Vegas
“Elections are about choice, and there are clear choices in this race,” Cruz told supporters at a YMCA in Las Vegas on caucus night, where he pledged to be the candidate who says no to bipartisan corruption, stand up to special interests and lobbyists and rein in debt.
“Who has lead the fight against amnesty? Who has lead the fight against the Affordable Care Act? Who has lead the fight defending life, marriage and religious liberty?” he asked.
Cruz also assured the Nevada crowd that, as a Texan, he understands how “folks in Nevada kind of like their guns” and is counting on Americans in Super Tuesday states feeling the same.
On international issues, Cruz emphasized his opposition to the Iran nuclear deal, which he vowed to “rip to shreds” on his first day as president. He also said his administration would “stand unapologetically alongside the nation of Israel.”
Cruz also framed himself as the candidate who can best fight Islamic terrorism and “keep American safe.”
Cruz finished behind Donald Trump and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio in the Silver State, winning six delegates. He is now moving into Super Tuesday on March 1, when 13 states will hold primaries or caucuses.
Among those states is Texas, where polls show Cruz locked in a battle with Trump for the Lone Star State’s 155 delegates.
He’s ba-ack! Charlie Crist plans a run for Florida U.S. House seat
Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat to run in a district the Florida Supreme Court ordered redrawn
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (CFP) — He’s ba-ack.
After losing two statewide races in two years, running under three different party labels, former Florida Governor Charlie Crist says he will seek a U.S. House seat if Florida legislators redraw the district lines to include his St. Petersburg home.
Former Florida Governor Charlie Crist
“If the new congressional map includes my home, I intend on running to serve the people again,” Crist said in a July 20 Twitter post.
Crist’s tweet came after the Republican incumbent in the 13th District, U.S. Rep. David Jolly, announced he would forgo re-election in 2016 and seek the state’s open U.S. Senate seat instead.
On July 9, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the Republican-controlled state legislature unconstitutionally gerrymandered the U.S. House map to help the GOP’s electoral prospects. The high court ordered the state legislature to redraw eight districts, including the 13th, a change which is likely to make it more Democratic.
The Supreme Court objected to the legislature’s decision to shift African-American voters in St. Petersburg into the neighboring 14th District, across the bay in Tampa, to make the 13th more Republican-friendly, which justices said violated a requirement that districts be geographically compact wherever possible.
Crist lives in the part of the 14th District that is now in Pinellas County. However, even if legislators don’t move his house into the 13th District, he could still run for the seat because there is no requirement that House members actually live in the district they represent.
Crist, 58, was elected governor in 2006 as a Republican. In 2010, he opted to seek a Senate seat, rather than run for re-election. After it was clear he would lose to U.S.Senator Marco Rubio in the primary, Crist bolted the GOP and ran unsuccessfully as an independent.
He became a Democrat in 2012 and won the party’s nomination for governor in 2014. He was narrowly defeated by incumbent Republican Governor Rick Scott.
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