Tag: Perry Thurston
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NRA’s Marion Hammer isn’t really retiring, just dodging lobbyist disclosure requirements
By Dan Christensen
FloridaBulldog.org
Last week, the National Rifle Association announced that its longtime Tallahassee-based lobbyist Marion Hammer will “step down” but “continue to serve as an advisor to the NRA.” That’s a curious turn of a phrase. But it has a simple, unstated meaning: Hammer, 83, will soon be able to dodge once again regularly disclosing to Floridians the splendid sums the NRA slips regularly into her purse, currently more than $50,000 every three months. -
New Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book has conflict of interest as Republicans quietly shower taxpayer millions on her charity
By Dan Christensen
FloridaBulldog.org
Lauren Book, the newly anointed leader of Florida’s Senate Democrats, has a financial conflict of interest that’s raising questions about her loyalties as her beleaguered party prepares for the challenge of redistricting in January. -
N.Y. figured out NRA’s dishonesty, but Florida Senate, ethics commission bootlicked NRA’s Hammer
By Dan Christensen
FloridaBulldog.org
Corruption. The dictionary defines it as “dishonest or illegal behavior, especially by powerful people.” How else to explain the failures of both the Florida Senate and the Florida ethics commission to hold powerful National Rifle Association lobbyist and board member Marion Hammer accountable for not disclosing more than $1.7 million in arguably illegal payments she received from the NRA between 2007 and 2018? -
DeSantis’s justice-screening panel blamed for Francis fiasco and all-white Supreme Court
By Noreen Marcus
FloridaBulldog.org
Renatha Francis was to have been the first Florida Supreme Court justice from the black Jamaican-American community, but it didn’t happen after a fight erupted between Gov. Ron DeSantis and the court. The fault for this fiasco lies mostly with the governor-controlled panel that screens potential justices: the Florida Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission. -
Pretzel logic, NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer and the Florida Commission on Ethics
By Dan Christensen
FloridaBulldog.org
Why did the Florida ethics commission vote to let NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer off without sending her case to the governor and cabinet for a possible public hearing, further investigation and, if necessary, an “appropriate penalty’’? The answer involves a kind of pretzel logic… -
Florida Commission on Ethics lifts NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer off the hook
By Dan Christensen
FloridaBulldog.org
The Florida Commission on Ethics has found “no probable cause” to believe that National Rifle Association lobbyist Marion Hammer didn’t adhere to state lobbyist registration requirements, and it also dismissed a second allegation that she failed to properly file lobbyist compensation reports.
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