Corrupt Florida Repubs Living Large on Public Education $$

Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone at 5:34 AM on April 8, 2008.

Local folks in Florida, Republicans, of course, are showing thier corrupt colors. We're not surprised here at ASZ. I'm personally offended, though, because I used to work for the educational institution involved in the scandal, Brevard Community College.

It just isn't surprising that we find Republican corruption in Florida. It's a Republican hotbed, after all, the home of the President's brother Jeb. I'm sure, since I lived there until three years ago, that Republicans, especially on the state level, feel they can get away with anything. I'm just a little pissed off that this example of the Republican Culture of Corruption involves my former employer down there, Brevard Community College (BCC). I have a very soft spot in my heard for BCC. The students there are honest and hardworking and just not able to handle the financial burden of going to a four year college. Damn, I loved my students down there.

Anyway, it appears that Brevard Community College, probably at the mercy of state legislators for their funding, struck a deal with a Repbulican State Senator, Mike Haridopolos, to pay him for publishing a book. I'm guesing the book was of such poor quality that their investment in him, in the six figures, didn't pan out. I hope BCC comes out of this well, but if not, it is directly attributable to a Republican who cut a deal so he could feed at the trough of public funding. Typical, huh?

Here's some of the story from the Orlando Sentinel:

If you want to read the new book by state Sen. Mike Haridopolos -- the one that Brevard Community College paid him more than $150,000 in public money to write -- don't count on finding it at the nearest Barnes & Noble.

That's because nearly a year after the manuscript was finished, it still hasn't been published.

In fact, Haridopolos won't allow copies of the manuscript to leave the BCC campus for fear of illegal copying.

Because the public paid for it, however, you can come to the school's Cocoa campus and curl up in an office with the senator's six-chapter, 175-page collection of political musings and advice to future political candidates. Just be sure to make an appointment.

Brevard officials appeared to have bigger plans when they offered Haridopolos an unusual four-year contract in 2003 that paid him about $38,000 a year to write what the contract called a "publishable work" of "historical value."

But it's unclear when or whether the book will get published. Haridopolos has said a deal is near. BCC officials directed all questions to Vice President of Public Affairs Jim Ross, who said he hasn't been involved in any talks with publishers.

"I'm surprised it hasn't been published by now," said Jim Hanley, who was a college trustee in 2003. When Hanley left the board last summer after serving eight years, he understood that the senator's manuscript would be published "any day now," he said.

If the book is ever published, BCC would get two-thirds of the royalties.

Haridopolos' book deal came under renewed scrutiny after the influential legislator took a $75,000-a-year job in February as a guest lecturer with the University of Florida's political-science department, even though he won't do any lecturing until after the state's legislative session ends in May. Haridopolos is expected to become Senate president in two years.

One of his colleagues, Sen. Evelyn Lynn, also came under fire after accepting a $2,300-a-week job at a Florida State University literacy center in Daytona Beach, in part because as a legislator she helped create the center and get it $1 million in start-up money.

Lynn, head of the Senate's Higher Education Appropriations Committee, announced last month that she was forgoing her salary for the remainder of her yearlong contract, which ends in September.

I'm figuring that money BCC pain the Republican State Senator is completely gone and wasted. I'm also figuring it was coerced form the Board of BCC. He probably promised them funding in exchange for the money. Yeah, the article doesn't say that, but if we had a hard-nosed prosecutor down there (fat chance), he or she would probably be able to prove that pay for play arrangement.

What we do know is that we've got one, if not a couple, Florida Republicans who are illegally sucking on the public teat and forcing schools to cede money into their bank accounts in exchange for funding. Yup, this is all a part of the Republican culture of corruption.

Tagged as: gop, corruption

Steven Reynolds is a regular blogger for the All Spin Zone