Marco Rubio as Florida House Speaker
UPDATE: Get out the popcorn. We may soon have grand jury action.
The St. Pete Times unearths emails that upend the Marco Rubio talking point that he as Florida House Speaker had noooothing to do with finding the money to build an elaborate courthouse nicknamed the Taj Mahal. And the SPTimes story shows just how dangerous party insiders can be when they’re speaking from under the bus. Case in point, former Speaker Ray Sansom, who before he was speaker, was Rubio’s ace budget chief …
Rubio, now a candidate for the U.S. Senate, has repeatedly said the courthouse was a Senate project and the House knew nothing about the architectural plans. He said it was part of the last-minute House and Senate give and take.
Rubio’s appropriations chairman, former Rep. Ray Sansom, remembers it differently.
In a recent interview, Sansom said $7.9 million included in the 2007-08 budget for courthouse “expansion” was a Rubio priority. He said Rubio confirmed his support for the project several times between November 2006 and the end of the 2007 session.
He said 1st DCA Chief Judge Paul Hawkes frequently visited Sansom’s office to remind him the project was a priority of the speaker’s. As was Sansom’s practice whenever someone said he had the speaker’s backing, Sansom said he went to Rubio to make sure.
“I asked, and Speaker Rubio said yes, it was a priority and important to FSU to get a new building too,” Sansom said, adding that nobody from the Senate contacted him about wanting money for the courthouse.
Sansom said he did not know about a last-minute amendment authorizing a $35 million bond issue that was attached to a major House transportation bill until he read about it in the Times last month.
By tradition, several legislators said, in the final two days of session, the House speaker personally approves any amendment attached to an important House bill.
In an unrelated case, Sansom has been criminally charged with grand theft in connection with a $6 million appropriation in the 2007 budget for a friend’s airplane hangar. He has denied wrongdoing, and his trial scheduled for January.
The full list of heroes can be found beneath the story. As one commenter put it, voters might want to take that list with them to the ballot box. Read the whole thing here.
And read part one: “Marco Rubio, Lord of the Taj Mahal“
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