State: Butterworth's Senate bid triggers scrutiny by GOP

Republican Sen. Jim King of Jacksonville said Friday that he had lawyers studying whether Butterworth's candidacy violates state law. The law says an incumbent has to submit a resignation from his current position 10 days before the deadline to qualify for another political office. Butterworth did not meet the 10-day deadline, but he says he didn't have to.

King said a Senate lawyer was looking into it.

"You're using taxpayer money?" a reporter asked.

"It's not really tax money," King replied.

Huh?

King, who is expected to be Senate president after the November elections, later said that lawyers for the Republican Party would handle any lawsuit against Butterworth. He said he asked a Senate lawyer to look into it because "I still don't know what my role is as presiding officer of the Senate in this matter."

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The Florida Democratic Party and its chairman, Bob Poe, have fired off 44 press releases since February, 39 of them bashing Gov. Jeb Bush. A typical example, from June: "Jeb Bush has worked to systematically destroy our public schools by starving public schools of critical funding, demoralizing teachers and students and enriching private schools at the expense of public schools."

Now the Florida GOP has launched a TV ad showing the dancing feet of a man and woman that accuses Janet Reno and Bill McBride, Democratic candidates for governor, of being evasive. Poe was shocked, shocked, by the negative campaigning by the governor. He called on Bush and the GOP last week to yank the spot.

Republican Party Chairman Al Cardenas responded with his own letter to Poe: "It is too bad you are not enjoying the Republican Party of Florida's new television ad. . . . I myself enjoyed it immensely and thought the stand-ins for your candidates accomplished some pretty fancy footwork."

* * *

Among the bigger surprises to come out of the qualifying paperwork submitted by the gubernatorial candidates last week was that Reno is the richest of the bunch. She has a net worth of $2.4-million, compared to $1.9-million for McBride and $1.5-million for Bush.

The governor has not yet released his tax returns, but those released by the Democrats show Reno edging out McBride on charitable contributions. She gave $35,895 to six groups, while McBride gave $31,693 to 21 organizations. Reno's biggest donations: $25,000 to Penn State and $10,000 to Cornell University. McBride's biggest contributions: $12,600 to the Holland & Knight Charitable Foundation and roughly $1,700 each to the Florida Orchestra, Antioch Little League and NAACP of Hillsborough County.

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Reno's South Florida support showed up again in her latest fundraising report, which covers April 1 through June 30. More than 82 percent of her in-state donations came from South Florida, 12 percent from Central Florida and 5 percent from North Florida. She raised 76 percent from within Florida.

McBride continues to rely on his own home turf. In the last quarter, half of his in-state money came from Central Florida, 28 percent came from South Florida and 22 percent from North Florida. Roughly 92 percent of his money came from within Florida.

Bush raised 69 percent of his last donations from within the state, and, of that, 57 percent came from South Florida, 34 percent from Central Florida and about 8 percent from North Florida.

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The Republican Party of Florida can have the cruise ship industry. Florida Democrats have South Dakota.

The South Dakota Democratic Party contributed $265,000 to its Florida brethren during the last campaign-finance reporting period, making it the biggest single donor to the state Democratic party from April 1 to June 30.

The Republican Party's biggest donor was the cruise ship industry, which gave $500,000.

The gift from Democrats in the Coyote State actually isn't as far out as it may seem: South Dakota is home to Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader of the U.S. Senate, who, as the leader, has a vested interest in helping Democrats regain as many U.S. House seats and governor's mansions as they can this fall.

Daschle also may be trying to buy a little love: He's the only major Democratic presidential hopeful who hasn't visited Florida, the nation's biggest swing state, this year. Then again, perhaps the South Dakotans simply wanted to ensure they'd have a warm place to crash this winter.

-- Wes Allison, Julie Hauserman, Lucy Morgan, Adam C. Smith and Connie Humburg were on spin patrol.

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