Florida Governor and current U.S. Senate candidate Rick Scott’s close ties to New Republican PAC, a super PAC he used to run, underscores the increasingly blurry line between candidates and the purportedly independent groups allowed to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money supporting them.

In 2016, Scott took over New Republican PAC with the stated aim of re-inventing the Republican Party to promote President Donald Trump’s agenda and appealing to young Hispanic voters. Within 24 hours of Scott officially declaring his candidacy, however, New Republican PAC’s website abruptly changed from promoting Trump’s agenda to promoting Scott’s election as a U.S. Senator.

The super PAC continued to spend over $5 million against incumbent Senator Bill Nelson (D-Fl.) and in support of Scott—making it one of four outside groups surpassing the $1 million mark in the Florida Senate race.

Scott’s campaign told the Center for Responsive Politics in a statement that he is “not affiliated” with New Republican PAC since he “stepped down” earlier this year. But Scott has maintained a cozy relationship with the super PAC he used to run. He is scheduled to appear as a “special guest” of New Republican PAC on a conference call August 29, according to an invitation for the call obtained by the Tampa Bay Times.

Single candidate super PACs are a growing trend. While federal campaign finance law prohibits direct coordination of strategy and messaging, loopholes allow for a breadth of other collaboration with candidates. The FEC has not restricted candidates from appearing as “special guests” at super PAC events. Candidates can even take part in fundraising for super PACs supporting them and explicitly asking for money so long as the amount requested does not exceed contribution limits—currently $5,000 per election—and super PAC donors who engage those candidates are still welcome to then give legally unlimited amounts as they so choose.

Scott continued to regularly meet with and fundraise for New Republican Super PAC weeks before declaring his candidacy, hosting a dinner at his home with donors to New Republican PAC as recently as the weekend before officially launching his U.S. Senate campaign.

At the helm of New Republican PAC, Scott had hired multiple former campaign staffers and consultants, including his long-time fundraiser Deborah Aleksander along with former chief of staff and 2014 campaign manager Melissa Stone.

Blurred lines and revolving doors

As he was leading the federal New Republican PAC, Scott was also raising and spending money as head of a state-level political committee called Let’s Get to Work.

Let’s Get to Work, New Republican PAC and Scott’s U.S. Senate campaign have a lot in common, including whom the groups are paying.

Consulting firm OnMessage was recently implicated in a complaint by the nonpartisan public-interest watchdog Campaign Legal Center alleging that it evaded federal rules prohibiting coordination between congressional candidates and outside spending groups after a Politico report raising questions about its work with the National Rifle Association. OnMessage is also a shared vendor of Scott’s campaign and the two outside groups with which he’s involved.

Let’s Get to Work’s inaugural $1.9 million ad buy made by OnMessage media group in October 2017 highlighted Scott’s hurricane-response performance and attempts to thwart future tax increases, but stopped short of mentioning his interest in a Senate run. Let’s Get to Work continued paying OnMessage through 2018, with their last reported payments on April 11, according to expenditures reported on the political committee’s website.

New Republican PAC started paying OnMessage as early as August 2017, with payments continuing through January 2018.

Scott’s U.S. Senate campaign has continued to pay OnMessage through August 2018 spending over $24 million through the firm, according to FEC filings.

Under Scott, New Republican PAC also brought on prominent Republican law firm Holtzman Vogel Josefiak Torchinsky, which was paid by his state-level campaign committee and was later hired by his U.S. Senate campaign.

A political operative named Robert Manders was also involved in all three groups. He was on the payroll of Scott’s U.S. Senate campaign since April 2018 following work as a consultant for New Republican PAC from September through December 2017 and for Let’s Get to Work from August 2016 through March 1, 2018—around a month before Scott officially entered the U.S. Senate race.

Scott’s U.S. Senate campaign shares even more payees with New Republican PAC, according to FEC records, including Response America LLC, consulting firm Crosby Ottenhoff Group, data firm CMDI, fundraising and donor management platform Anedot, Chain Bridge Bank, Visual Impact Design and Capitol Hill Lists.

Federal law would prohibit an announced federal candidate or campaign from coordinating with either state-level committees or federal super PACs, which can take unlimited corporate money that federal candidates are not permitted to receive.

Under the “common vendor rule,” a super PAC is not allowed to hire a company or staffer from a campaign until a four-month cooling-off period passes. Outside of that cooling-off period, a campaign and an outside group sharing a common vendor would not necessarily violate the coordination ban, but common vendors are a consideration that may be taken into account by the FEC to determine whether activities constitute illegal coordination.

The revolving door between Scott’s office, campaigns and super PAC has continued spinning in the 2018 election cycle.

Weeks before announcing his candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat, Scott’s office announced that his political director during the governor’s 2014 re-election campaign, Brad Piepenbrink, would replace his longtime “trusted and loyal advisor” Jackie Schutz Zeckman as chief of staff at the Executive Office of the Governor of Florida. Schutz Zeckman temporarily left the governor’s communications office in 2014 to work on Scott’s re-election campaign with Melissa Stone, who became chief of staff following the election and is currently an adviser to New Republican PAC.

Political mirroring

The New Republican PAC appears to have blurred lines not just between Scott’s campaign and an ostensibly independent group, but also between that group and his role as sitting governor of Florida.

The website of the super PAC backing the sitting governor of Florida for a U.S. seat appears to have lifted multiple sentences—and, in some cases, full blocks of text—from the Florida government state budget website and other government resources.

Of the six pages highlighting Scott’s record, the only page that includes any attribution is the education page, which notes the source of a chart directly taken from the Florida government’s budget website. It also happens to be the source of multiple blocks of text found on the other issue pages without any indication that the content is not the campaign’s original material.

Other portions of Scott’s website include sparse changes from the original source. In some instances, the original text from Florida government sources differs only in that it also uses the first person singular or a collective term referring to the government rather than a third person reference to Governor Rick Scott.

Unlike other campaign pages that primarily rely on language from the Florida state budget documents, much of the text on the education page itself appears to be largely drawn from a letter to Florida school board officials in which the governor’s office outlined actions taken by lawmakers since the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 17 with any mention of school shootings notably cleansed from the text used on New Republican PAC’s website.

Like the other pages, it too lacks any attribution to the source of the text.

Funder scrutiny

New Republican PAC has also faced scrutiny over its fundraising sources, which include from two private equity executives that received lucrative state pension investments to their firms from the Florida government, a donor with a controversial history involving allegations of kickbacks and financial conflicts of interest and GEO Group, a federal contractor with multi-million dollar contracts from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The Office of the Governor of Florida referred a request for comment to “the Governor’s political team,” providing contact information for his U.S. Senate campaign press office.

A spokesperson for the Rick Scott for U.S. Senate press office declined to comment about New Republican PAC outside of stating that Scott is no longer affiliated with New Republican PAC after he “stepped down” earlier this year.

New Republican PAC did not immediately return a request for comment.

The following is a chart containing the text of issue pages about Rick Scott’s record on the New Republican PAC website. The bold text indicates content on the New Republican PAC website that is identical to language found on other sources, primarily websites that are the property of the Florida state government.

￼New Republican PAC: Economy As Governor of Florida, Scott has devoted his time in office to a one-word goal: JOBS. His relentless focus on cutting taxes, reducing burdensome regulations on businesses and creating an environment where any job creator can succeed has led to the creation of 1,459,300 million jobs by Florida businesses; and that was after the state lost 800,000 jobs in the four years before the Governor took office. Governor Scott has led the way in cutting more than $10 billion in taxes over the last six years.

Thanks to Governor Scott’s focus on tourism, Florida has welcomed more than 478 million tourists since 2011 . ( During 2017, 116.5 million visitors came to Florida, an increase of 3.6 percent over 2016. )

Governor Scott led the investment of $85 billion in funding for Florida’s roads, bridges, airports and seaports. This total includes investments in Florida’s seaports of more than $1.4 billion . These investments are vital to support the 107 million tons of cargo worth around $50 billion, and the more than 15 million cruise passengers that came through Florida ports in 2016 .

Since 2011, Governor Scott has directed investments of more than $2 billion for workforce development programs in communities that ensure the best workers are available to Florida’s job creators. Sources of Bold Text: Budget: Jobs Help us keep government accountable by making a donation today.

Florida Chamber of Commerce Budget: Jobs Florida Chamber of Commerce ______________________________________________________________________________ New Republican PAC: Environment Governor Scott made historic strides to protect Florida’s lands and ensure that the future of the state’s pristine environment is beautiful for generations to come. Governor Scott invested record funding of $239 million in the Everglades and $77 million for the Florida Forever land purchase, while also supporting the state’s vital produce and agricultural industries. Thanks to Governor Scott’s commitment to Florida’s State Parks, Florida won its third National Gold Medal for Excellence in Park and Recreation Management – an honor no other state has achieved. Sources of Bold Text: Florida Budget: Environmental Protection ______________________________________________________________________________ New Republican PAC: Education Governor Scott’s own education was the key to his ability to get a good job and mount an unprecedented career. Therefore, he has devoted record levels of funding to state education systems in Florida, always ensuring that schools were graded and held accountable for helping students succeed. Source: Florida First – Making Florida First in Education K-12 Education in Florida: During Governor Scott’s time in office, Florida’s K-12 public school funding has increased by $3.2 billion or 37 percent since 2011.

As of last year, school districts have reserve funding of more than $2 billion statewide, and a vast majority of districts have reserves in excess of five percent. Governor Scott challenged Florida’s higher education institutions to not just focus on getting more students to enroll in their school, but to shift their entire mission to helping students get the education they need to get a good job when they graduate. It’s working! This year and in 2017, U.S. News & World Report has ranked Florida as the best state in the nation for higher education. The report says it looked at: the time it takes students to complete their degree programs, the cost of tuition and fees, and the burden of debt for college graduates. Governor Scott is dedicated to ensuring that all students in Florida have affordable options to pursue a quality education that will prepare them for success in the workforce. The Governor has continuously challenged higher education institutions to reduce the cost burden to students by holding the line on any tuition increases in Florida and creating initiatives like the $10,000 four-year degree at Florida’s colleges and holding the line on college and university tuition. Governor Scott’s work to hold the line on college tuition forced the cost of a Pre-Paid Florida Public University degree to plummet from $53,729 in 2013-2014 to $27,379 in 2014-2015. Sources of Bold Text: Florida Budget: Education Letter from the Office of Florida Governor Rick Scott ______________________________________________________________________________ ￼New Republican PAC: Fiscal Management

Florida has paid down $9 billion in debt under Governor Scott’s leadership including $5.5 billion in outstanding bond debt, as well as the $3.5 billion loan taken out in 2009, before the Governor took office, for the unemployment compensation program. This has resulted in an approximately 28 percent reduction in outstanding debt since Governor Scott took office. California and Illinois have more than double the debt per capita of Florida; New York has nearly triple the debt per capita; and New Jersey has nearly quadruple the debt per capita. Over the last five fiscal years, refinancing activity has generated gross debt service savings of approximately $2.1 billion. Refunding transactions executed over the last five years total nearly $10.4 billion – lowering the interest rate on about 43 percent of Florida’s total outstanding debt. With historically low interest rates and Florida’s AAA credit ratings, Florida has saved an additional $247.7 million in gross debt service thus far in fiscal year 2016-17. The state has maintained its AAA credit ratings and most recently in 2016, the Turnpike system was upgraded by all three ratings agencies. Sources of Bold Text: Rick Scott for Florida Campaign Website ______________________________________________________________________________ New Republican PAC: Health Care Governor Scott declared a statewide public health emergency for the opioid epidemic allowing the state to immediately draw down more than $27 million in federal grant funding from the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Opioid State Targeted Response Grant. This critical funding was awarded to Florida on April 21, 2017 to provide prevention, treatment and recovery support services. The order also ensured that first responders have immediate access to lifesaving drugs to respond to opioid overdoses. Including this federal investment, the Governor has now committed a total of $65 million to help combat the national opioid epidemic in Florida. This funding will provide additional residential treatment beds, outpatient treatment and case management, emergency room treatment and follow up, targeted outreach for pregnant women with substance abuse disorders and Naloxone for first responders. Eliminating the Critical Needs Wait List for Persons with Disabilities Making history, Governor Scott has consistently provided funding to eliminate the special needs waiting list in Florida and enroll all individuals with critical needs to help them live, learn and work in their communities. Sources of Bold Text: Florida Budget: Healthy Futures Florida Governor’s Office ______________________________________________________________________________ New Republican PAC: Public Safety Thanks to the hard work of Florida’s law enforcement officers, the state’s crime rate is at a 46-year low and the number of juvenile arrests is the lowest it’s been in more than 40 years. Governor Scott recognizes that evidence-based diversion and re-entry programs help to reduce recidivism. His emphasis on such programs have helped to reduce Florida’s recidivism rate to 25.2 percent which means that fewer offenders are committing new crimes and returning to prison. This reduction in recidivism translates into fewer crime victims, safer neighborhoods and helped to reduce Florida’s inmate population, which has decreased by more than 4,000 over the Governor’s term. This has saved taxpayers more than $73 million. Florida has nearly 4,800 sworn state law enforcement officers that selflessly put their lives on the line to protect Florida’s citizens. The Governor recently invested millions in the state budget for state law enforcement salary increases. Governor Scott also invested $5.8 million in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) to hire 46 new agents for counterterrorism efforts. FDLE works hand-in-hand with local, state and federal intelligence agencies to establish a comprehensive domestic security strategy. Sources of Bold Text: Florida Budget: Public Safety ______________________________________________________________________________



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