Marlette: Scott needs the sucker vote for Senate

Andy Marlette, amarlette@pnj.com
Gov. Rick Scott cartoons by Andy Marlette

Here in the great state of Florida, the terms “liberal” and “conservative” have ceased to have any meaning in the weirdo wasteland of state politics. Instead, there’s only a single designation that has any real relevance these days — “sucker.” And you either is one, or you ain’t.  

Gov. Scott really left his mark on Florida...

And in figuring out who among us are deserving of that illustrious title, there’s no better litmus test than recent revelations about Gov. Rick Scott’s finances.

Gov. Rick Scott cartoons by Andy Marlette

Because he’s running for U.S. Senate, Gov. Scott recently released federal financial disclosure forms that gave Floridians insight into the our bald-noggined governor’s financial fortunes for the very first time.

Gov. Rick Scott cartoons by Andy Marlette

Mary Ellen Klas and Steve Bousquet, reporters from the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times, have dug into the disclosures. And the revelations demonstrate how Scott’s political success  has nothing to do with either liberals or conservatives — and everything to do with suckers.

Gov. Rick Scott cartoons by Andy Marlette

For example, Klas and Bousquet explained how this is the first time that Scott has ever disclosed his wife’s investments. Federal law requires it. Florida’s don’t. Her assets are worth more than $173 million. Yet Floridians have had no idea what they are. Suckers.     

Gov. Rick Scott cartoons by Andy Marlette

The federal law also only requires reporting a range of total value. For Scott, the value is between $255 million and $510 million. Florida’s richest governor in history has gotten richer while holding public office. Suckers.

Gov. Rick Scott cartoons by Andy Marlette

The assets in Scott’s name have remained in a “blind trust” managed by a third party while he’s been governor, to avoid “even the appearance of a conflict of interest,” the campaign told the Times/Herald. Turns out, however, the third party company managing the “blind trust” includes the governor’s former personal adviser, Alan L. Bazaar. Suckers.

Gov. Rick Scott cartoons by Andy Marlette

The Times/Herald noted that “in the 125-page, financial-disclosure statement, Scott disclosed that his wife holds the majority of the family’s assets. ‘Spouse’ is listed as owner of every asset on 84 pages of the report.” Scott is currently being sued for dodging Florida’s financial disclosure laws by transferring all that wealth to his wife. Suckers.

Gov. Rick Scott cartoons by Andy Marlette

Among his investments are as much as $500,000 in stock in a subsidiary of NextEra Energy, which is the parent company of Florida Power & Light, the Sunshine State’s largest state-sanctioned monopoly utility company, the same one that just bought out Gulf Power. So Floridian’s electricity bills have actually been helping to make the governor richer. Suckers.

Bousquet reported that other disclosures show Scott had investments in a Russian energy company that was owned by Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law and a Russian oligarch currently facing punitive U.S. sanctions. Yet the governor wants you to put him in the U.S. Senate so he can help “make America great again.” Suckers.

And the cash doesn’t end at Scott’s personal fortune.

In recent months, Scott has been raking in the cash at political fundraisers hosted by shareholders and lobbyists of the private company that has so badly screwed up Florida’s Sun Pass system. There has been no investigation of the company. No penalties assessed on behalf of taxpayers. Yet fancy fundraisers have been held in Texas and Washington, D.C. Suckers.

And in exchange for years of gutting water management boards and environmental protections, Gov. Scott has taken tons of cash from the Big Sugar polluters who are at the core of a sickening toxic algae outbreak that’s oozing across Florida and killing tourism almost as fast as it’s wiping out wildlife. Yet we’re supposed to ignore our lying eyes and the last eight years of Scott’s dirty donors and the fish, sea turtles and manatees gasping and dying in Florida’s diseased waters. Suckers.       

Will Florida’s richest governor become one of our state’s esteemed U.S. Senators? Lord knows. But it will have nothing to do with Republicans or Democrats, the left or the right, the “liberals” he demonizes or the “conservatives” to which he panders.

There’s only one group of Floridians with the power to send Rick Scott from the wetlands of Florida to the swamps of Washington.    

Suckers.