GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich (Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Gage Skidmore)

GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich today announced campaign chairs and co-chairs for all of Florida’s 67 counties.

The Miami Herald reports that GOP state Reps. Michael Bileca and Carlos Trujillo will chair and co-chair (respectively) Gingrich’s campaign committee in Miami-Dade County, and Rep. Debbie Mayfield will chair the Indian River County committee.

Gingrich hired Jose Mallea, former campaign chief for U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, as his Florida campaign director last week.

The Herald cites a Newt 2012 press release issued today that includes other Republicans close to Rubio: Monica Rodriguez, a former aide to Rubio in the Florida House; Karin Hoffman; Sam Rashid, chairman of the Rubio for Senate campaign in Hillsborough County; Dr. Miguel Fana, finance chair for Rubio for Senate; and Tony DiMatteo, the county chair for Rubio in Pinellas County.

The Herald adds that more than 20 “Gingrich backers were on Herman Cain’s team until his campaign fell apart.”

The release adds: “‘Campaigns are won on the ground and through the hard work of grassroots activists such as those who have joined Newt Gingrich’s team in Florida,’ said Deborah Cox Roush, Florida State Director of County Chairs.”

The list of Gingrich supporters in Florida brings together GOP members who in the past have supported among others John McCain and Sarah Palin, former President George W. Bush, Jeb Bush, Charlie Crist, Bill McCollum, Gov. Rick Scott, Rep. Allen West and Attorney General Pam Bondi.

According to a recent press release, the first panel scheduled for CPAC FL is entitled the “Health Care Freedom & Constitutionalism: Reining in the Rogue Federal Government” panel:

[The panel] will feature a conversation on the unconstitutional overreaching of the Obama Administration and Congress when it comes to the right to make individual health care decisions, and conservatives’ courageous efforts to protect personal liberties.

This panel will be headlined by:

• Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, currently leading the 26-state lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of ObamaCare
• Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos, recently led the effort to pass The Health Care Freedom Act through the Florida Legislature, giving Floridians an opportunity to make their own decisions on individual health care choices.
• Former Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, the Sunshine State’s former chief legal officer who engineered the court challenge of ObamaCare and launched the initial coalition of participating states.

Florida is currently one of only five states returning grants awarded by the federal government to implement the federal health care reform law.

The state Legislature is also not accepting various grants from the law. Legislators have turned down money awarded to the state for community health centers, grants to help seniors avoid or get out of nursing homes and others.

Their reasoning has been that the state is currently in litigation with the federal government over the constitutionality of health care reform. Despite the dismissal of all these grants, the legislature did accept Affordable Care Act funds for abstinence education. Furthermore, half the country is in litigation against the law, yet most states are still accepting grant money.

CPAC FL is CPAC’s “inaugural regional Conservative Political Action Conference.” The organization says the event will “bring national and state conservative leaders and grassroots activists together for a day of blockbuster speeches, policy discussions and networking opportunities – all celebrating CPAC FL’s theme of ‘We STILL Hold These Truths.’”

Confirmed speakers for the event inlcudes Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Ralph Reed and Marco Rubio.

In other words, he said, the fund is now “current,” and anyone still calling his process slow or delay-ridden (a common complaint in the fund’s early days) “just isn’t looking at the statistics.” #

To date, the fund has paid out some $5 billion, including slightly more than $2 billion to Florida — more than any other state. #

Of some 131,794 Florida claimants in the fund’s post-emergency phase, 72,446 have received final payments and waived their right to sue BP. Only 4,405 remain under review. Feinberg said those were largely from claimants who had filed in the past few months. #

He cited several reasons for Florida’s high share of the overall payouts. For one thing, Florida has a larger population and a longer coastline than the other states. For another, its claims were concentrated more heavily in the tourism sector — which included many “indirect” losses due to false perceptions of oil-soaked beaches far from where oil actually came ashore. The fund’s treatment of those claims was a hotly contested issue during the fund’s first few months. #

Feinberg was ultimately persuaded by critics, including then-Attorney General Bill McCollum and representatives of the state’s tourism industry, to entertain claims from parts of the state where tourism suffered due the perception of oil on the beaches. #

The fund recently tightened requirements for people who continue to seek interim payments, which don’t require them to waive their right to sue. Feinberg said the changes were intended to ensure they were claiming losses that were tied to the spill, and not a languishing economy. #

He said his ultimate goal was to ensure that 90 percent of claimants receive satisfaction from his fund, and thus avoid resorting to litigation. #

So far, BP has paid out a total of $6.7 billion, including the payments through the fund and another $1.7 billion for government claims and clean-up costs, Feinberg said. The company has planned to set aside up to $20 billion to compensate losses stemming from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. #

It appears that Smith was not always so strongly opposed to discretion on the part of the executive branch when it comes to deportations. An editorial in the New York Times points out:

Back in 1999, Mr. Smith was one of several members of Congress who wrote the attorney general and the head of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, arguing that “unfair” deportations had caused “unjustifiable hardship” for otherwise law-abiding immigrants who had jobs and families and close citizen relatives. “True hardship cases call for the exercise of discretion,” the letter said. Hard to explain the change, although hypocrisy and rank opportunism seem likely.

In fact, the letter (PDF) called not just for discretion in non-criminal deportation cases but also cases where the crime committed had occurred when the immigrant in question was underage:

Cases of apparent extreme hardship have caused concern. Some cases may involve removal proceedings against legal permanent residents who came to the United States when they were very young, and many years ago committed a single crime at the lower end of the `aggravated felony’ spectrum, but have been law-abiding ever since, obtained and held jobs and remained self-sufficient, and started families in the United States. Although they did not become citizens, immediate family members are citizens.

The letter was also signed by other Republicans now considered immigration conservatives: then-congressman and current Georgia governor Nathan Deal, who earlier this year pushed for and signed that state’s new stringent immigration law; former Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, who endorsed a law similar to Georgia’s in his campaign for governor last year; and Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, author of a 2006 federal immigration reform bill that drew massive protests from immigrant and Hispanic rights supporters across the country.

UPDATE: Rep. Smith has posted a response below similar to his letter to the editor of the New York Times published on Wednesday, stressing that the 1999 letter referred to discretion in the case of “legal – not illegal – immigrants who committed a single minor crime but have been a law abiding resident ever since.” He claims that President Obama is now abusing this power, which is why he has introduced the HALT Act.

The letter stresses the urgency of making payments quickly. Last summer was a lost season for much of the Gulf Coast’s economy, and if money doesn’t start flowing soon, 2011 could be too. #

One passage is especially important to Floridians who have had their claims denied or ruled ineligible: #

In resolving claims, it is important to note that [the Oil Pollution Act, which governs the process for oil spill claims] does not create categories of eligible and ineligible claimants. Rather, in determining whether a particular damage resulted from the spill, the GCCF must examine the facts and circumstances of each claim and ascertain whether the harm asserted by the claimant occurred “as a result of’ the oil spill and is a type of harm, such as lost profits, covered by OPA. In so doing, it is relevant to consider the nature of the economy from which the claim arises. In many parts ofthe Gulf, tourism is the economic engine on which many industries and professions depend. #

Former state Attorney General Bill McCollum made a similar argument back in August, when he blasted Feinberg’s protocol for applying a stricter standard than the Oil Pollution Act. #

There businesses of all sorts — perhaps especially in the Florida panhandle — whose fortunes are closely tied to the health of the region’s tourism industry. And there claimants — see here, here and here — in some of those industries whose fortunes were damaged by the spill, but whose emergency payments were denied. #

The Justice Department’s letter continues: #

As we enter this most critical period, I urge you to take a second look at the categories of eligible and ineligible claims that the GCCF applied with respect to emergency advance payments. As noted above, OPA does not create such categories. Rules of decision regarding a particular industry that may make sense further inland may be wholly inapplicable for that industry in a purely coastal community that depends on visitors whose plans changed as a result of the spill. Communities that can demonstrate pervasive effects of the spill on their overall economy should have that evidence credited. The National Pollution Funds Center will issue its rulings based on the particular facts and circumstances of these claims, and the GCCF should, too. #

Can the panhandle demonstrate “pervasive effects of the spill” on its “overall economy?” There are studies showing it can. #

Has your claim been denied or ruled ineligible? Share your story: travis(at)floridaindependent(dot)com. #

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller is leading the nationwide investigation into foreclosure fraud, but he's in danger of losing re-election. (Flickr: Iowa Democratic Party)

With unusual unanimity across the political spectrum, all 50 state attorneys general announced a coordinated investigation on Oct. 13 into recent revelations that mortgage servicers routinely used “robo-signers” to approve hundreds of thousands of foreclosures without scrutinizing the underlying documents. Because state law governs the mortgage lending industry for the most part, consumer advocates and experts believe this investigation will be the most effective way to resolve the foreclosure mess and compensate homeowners.

[Congress1] “The fact that all 50 have launched an investigation into potential fraud speaks for itself,” said Kathleen Day of the Center for Responsible Lending.

But after the midterm elections, the individuals holding those offices could vary wildly, and some of the leaders of the investigation, as well as the most aggressive advocates for consumers and against banks, could find themselves out of a job.

Consider this: Of the 12 state attorneys general on the executive committee of the coordinated investigation, only two of them — Roy Cooper in North Carolina and Rob McKenna in Washington — aren’t up for re-election this year. Several of them — Jerry Brown in California, Richard Blumenthal in Connecticut, Terry Goddard in Arizona, Andrew Cuomo in New York and Bill McCollum in Florida — are running for higher office and will not return to their posts. And other races are closely contested.

Currently, 32 of the 50 attorneys general across the nation are Democrats, to 18 Republicans. According to Governing Magazine, the GOP is poised to pick up anywhere from six to 13 of those seats after November, dramatically changing the makeup of the attorneys general across the country — and potentially the nature of their investigation.

“There are good AGs and not so good AGs,” said Ira Rheingold of the National Association of Consumer Advocates. “The question is, who will be the leaders of the investigation and who will drive the decisions they make?”

Take Ohio, for instance. Attorney General Richard Cordray (D) was the first to sue a major mortgage servicer, GMAC Mortgage, over faulty foreclosure documents. “Nobody’s very comfortable with the notion that people are committing fraud upon the courts on a deliberate and systematic basis,” said Cordray of his attorney general colleagues. He seeks not only damages of $25,000 per fraudulent document, but restitution for homeowners who may have been illegally evicted from their homes. But he faces former Sen. Mike DeWine (R) in a re-election battle on Nov. 2, and a Suffolk University poll from early October showed DeWine ahead 44-38 among likely voters.

Or look at Iowa, where Tom Miller, who has been Attorney General off and on since 1978, heads up the 50-state investigation. He has been investigating abuse in the mortgage lending industry for years, and is widely recognized as one of the best attorneys general on consumer protection in the country. “Tom Miller being involved is a really good thing,” said Rheingold. “Tom has been doing this for years, and has a demonstrated record on consumer protection.”

But Miller is being challenged strongly by Brenna Findley, a Sarah Palin-endorsed 34-year-old who previously spent seven years as the chief of staff for conservative Republican Rep. Steve King. She’s raised twice as much money as Miller and has campaigned more energetically in the state. There has been no public polling since August, but with the Republican lean in statewide races in Iowa, most experts see Miller’s odds as a tossup at best.

While no attorney general candidate, Democratic or Republican, has actually pledged to drop out of the investigation into foreclosure fraud, many of the GOP candidates have focused their attention elsewhere, saying little about the issue on the campaign trail. In Iowa, Findley has run almost entirely on her vow to join the lawsuit against the federal government over health care legislation, and on an aggressive effort to crack down on sexual predators. In Florida, Republican candidate Pam Bondi has a section of her website labeled “Protecting Our Consumers” that talks generally about consumer protection and barely mentions mortgage fraud or housing at all.

While the investigators for the probe are likely to be career bureaucrats at the staff level who would probably not change from one administration to the next, the decision-makers at the top play a central role. Reuters reported last week that banks have already initiated talks with the attorneys general to reach a quick resolution to the matter. State attorney general settlements in the recent past, with lenders like Countrywide and Wachovia, have included mandates for mass mortgage modifications that would allow homeowners to stay in their homes.

“Those who understand the issues know what the remedy needs to be,” said Rheingold. “Other AGs may have political calculations. For example, they might want a one-time pot of money to give out to homeowners, so they can do a press conference and declare victory. That wouldn’t be a serious move. This should be about what you make the lenders do to comply with state law.”

Several attorney general candidates on the Democratic side have boasted of their consumer protection credentials. In California, one of the states hardest hit by foreclosures since the housing bubble popped, San Francisco district attorney and statewide candidate Kamala Harris touted her past efforts, including the formation of the first-ever stand-alone mortgage and investment fraud unit in the district attorney’s office. She has already made several indictments through the unit, which has a $1 million grant from the Justice Department to investigate fraud. Harris trails Republican Steve Cooley in public polling, and Cooley has raised more money as well, while getting support from million-dollar independent expenditure campaigns led by former RNC Chair Ed Gillespie. Cooley has stressed public safety in his campaign more than consumer protection.

The campaigns for Cooley, Findley and several other Republican attorney general candidates did not respond to repeated requests for comment about their views on foreclosures and the 50-state investigation.

In New York, a key state because of the presence of Wall Street and the fact that New York trust law governs some thorny national legal issues which may determine whether or not servicers even have the standing to foreclose, Democratic candidate Eric Schneiderman said he would strongly support investigations into the banks’ activities. “I held the first hearing in the history of the state about the under-prosecution of mortgage fraud,” said Schneiderman, who supports a moratorium on foreclosures while the investigation proceeds. “The economic meltdown was driven by pools of bad mortgages. A lot of New Yorkers got stuck with those bad mortgages. Everyone in the state of New York should get a fair hearing before they’re foreclosed on.”

Schneiderman’s race in particular is emblematic of the stark difference between Democratic and Republican attorney general candidates on the issue of the financial industry, including the foreclosure crisis. His opponent, Daniel Donovan, has derived around 25% of all his campaign contributions from one hedge fund, Elliott Management, according to The New York Times. Donovan has been quoted on several occasions saying that he “doesn’t want to be anybody’s sheriff,” a reference to former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, nicknamed the Sheriff of Wall Street.

“Dan Donovan has said that we shouldn’t ‘disturb the garden’ of Wall Street,” Schneiderman said. “The central tenet throughout my career, as a public interest lawyer and a public servant, is that I have sought to do justice and fight against unfairness. I don’t like bullies. I don’t like when people use their power to take advantage of people who are weaker.” Donovan, on the other hand, writes on his website that “Wall Street is the financial backbone of our state, and we must ensure that it continues to create jobs and remain the economic generator our state depends on.” Although New York Democrats are running away with races at the top of the ticket, Donovan has cut into Schneiderman’s lead, trailing in a recent Siena College poll by just seven points, 44-37.

Similarly, Florida Republican nominee Pam Bondi, who led Democrat Dan Gelber in an October Mason-Dixon poll by five points, criticized her opponent as an “activist” who would prosecute too cavalierly. (Gelber, like Schneiderman, supports a foreclosure freeze as allegations are investigated.) She told the St. Petersburg Times, “Unlike Mr. Gelber, I understand the difference between using the attorney general’s office to responsibly protect consumers vs. attacking businesses as an activist AG in the mold of Eliot Spitzer.”

An attorney general with this kind of measured, pro-business worldview, in the midst of a politically charged national investigation against the biggest banks in the country, can change the focus of the probe. “The bureaucrats won’t change over the years,” said Rheingold, “but sometimes they have to keep their heads down” when their new boss doesn’t support their actions.

“The emphasis can change with a new AG,” he added. “The goals change.”

And that would have wide-ranging effects for what Rheingold described as “the most important game in town,” the investigation by the 50 attorneys general. “After all, it’s their laws being broken,” he said. “Congress is not going to do anything. The administration has not been strong thus far. The most important challenge to the banks comes from these attorneys general.”

Correction: This story initially stated that the campaigns of Pam Bondi and Brenna Findley did not respond to requests for comment. Steve Cooley should have been listed here, not Bondi, whose campaign was not contacted. We regret the error.

David Dayen writes for the News Desk at firedoglake.com. His work has been cited by the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and The Washington Post, and he has been a guest on NPR, Pacifica Radio and Air America.

This afternoon, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum — who is considering charges on behalf of Floridians, residents of the state most impacted by the foreclosure crisis — agreed that a full freeze might not help. He wrote and released letters to major servicers, expressing concern over the widespread fraud. Here is one letter, to the head of Litton Loan Servicing:

As Attorney General of the State of Florida, I am writing you to express my concern for Florida’s economic future and the credibility of Florida’s judicial foreclosure system as a result of the actions of your company — actions that have affected the integrity of title to real property for Florida’s homeowners as well as the foreclosure process in Florida.

I was distressed to learn from media reports that your company may have engaged in filing faulty affidavits in foreclosure cases in Florida courts with regard to ownership of promissory notes and affidavits that attested to personal knowledge of facts when, in fact, the affiant had no such personal knowledge. The net effect of these actions, among other things, has been to cast a shadow on the title to these properties which is of such proportions that at least one major title company is now refusing to write title insurance on foreclosed properties. Even more disturbing in that some of these foreclosed properties have already been sold and resold, and now their titles are in question, which may substantially slow the economic recovery for the citizens of Florida.

All of this has been compounded by the impact of the recently announced moratoria on foreclosures by several mortgage servicers and the plethora of private litigation that has privately commenced. In my view, the moratoria and the private litigation are counterproductive to obtaining the swift solution necessary to address this serious problem facing Florida’s already fragile economy.

I am requesting that you come to Tallahassee to meet with me as soon as possible to discuss ways to promptly and effectively redeem the integrity of the foreclosure process and ensure the marketability of real estate titles in Florida. I realize that correcting the faulty affidavits and reopening may of the foreclosure cases may take many months, even years given the state of our overburdened court system. Florida cannot wait that long to correct the linchpin of our economic recovery — clearing the foreclosure backlog. I look forward to our discussion and trust you will assist us in our efforts to come up with a creative solution to restore Floridians’ faith in the judicial foreclosure process as well as maintaining the viability and marketability of real property titles in Florida.

I look forward to meeting with you.

Sincerely, Bill McCollum

The letter confirms the belief that this will take months, if not years, to unravel — perhaps why markets have not been spooked, at least yet, though the liabilities could be enormous.

Our sister site, The Florida Independent, has more.

They made a “lesser of two evils” argument for supporting Scott over his opponent, Democrat Alex Sink, The Miami Herald reported today:

On Monday, the congressional Republicans said they also disagree on immigration with Sink, who opposes an Arizona-style law but would require business owners and state agencies to validate employees’ legal status.

“Since we disagree with both candidates on immigration, on what do we have to focus on?” Lincoln Diaz-Balart asked in Spanish after answering the question in English. “I think it’s, ‘Who’s prepared to create jobs from day one?’”

Quipped Ros-Lehtinen: “I can’t even get my own family to agree with me on most of my issues.”

Of course, all three had supported a tough-on-immigration candidate before: They backed Scott’s opponent, Attorney General Bill McCollum, in the primary. Facing ads attacking him for his weak immigration stances, McCollum unveiled a proposal in August for an Arizona-style law. Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers quickly responded with concern. “I’m disappointed and was blindsided by Bill’s decision to promote this, and I encourage the candidates to focus on plans that will improve Florida’s economy,” Ros-Lehtinen said at the time.

All three are supporters of immigration reform, particularly the DREAM Act, which would help some college students and military service members earn legal status. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, who announced in February he will not seek re-election this year, introduced the bill in 2009, while Mario Diaz-Balart and Ros-Lehtinen co-sponsored the legislation. As governor, Scott would not have any say in the DREAM Act specifically — it is a federal effort — but he argues against all forms of “amnesty” for illegal immigrants in the country.

It has long been said that any political coalition large enough to aspire to majority status is an organization of factions, conflict and contradictions. That description defines the Republican Party as it looks toward the November elections and beyond.

This was a week in which the party’s strengths and weaknesses competed for attention. Turnout in Tuesday’s primaries showed Republicans energized and enthusiastic, far more so than the Democrats. If anything, Democrats are more pessimistic about their prospects in November than they were two months ago.

But the elections last week in Florida and Alaska also pointed to ideological differences and personal enmities that have played out in Republican primary battles all year and that threaten to leave scars and fissures within the party that will have to be dealt with later. Republicans have seen more turmoil in their ranks this year than Democrats have, a sign of both robustness within the coalition and unresolved debates about the party’s direction.

Balz correctly notes a number of divisions within the Republican party, but to label them “ideological” seems a bit of a stretch. Businessman Rick Scott and Attorney General Bill McCollum spent most of the GOP governor’s race in Florida attacking each other’s experience and character, not policy prescriptions. And Joe Miller may have edged out Sen. Lisa Murkowski in Alaska’s GOP Senate primary mainly by successfully characterizing Murkowski as a member of a political dynasty when the nation is looking for change.

The party is split between insiders and outsiders, even if those outsiders in turn represent a strange pantheon of grassroots Tea Party candidates and self-funded multi-millionaires. When it comes to policy, GOP candidates’ opposition to Democratic initiatives are a matter of degree, not kind. Tea Party candidates adopt the Republican mantle but often seek to go further in dismantling unwanted portions of government spending — like various regulatory agencies, departments, and entitlement programs. Often they simply cannot forgive Republican incumbents for betraying their principles through a vote for the Bush-era Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) that bailed out Wall Street banks.

Balz also seems to imply that this fractiousness speaks well of Republicans’ electoral chances in November. While Republicans will doubtless gain many seats in both chambers, I’d argue that they’d be sitting a lot prettier if they had managed to avoid nominating Sharron Angle, Rand Paul, Ken Buck, Rick Scott, and now, perhaps, Joe Miller. By way of example, Democratic pollsters confide that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (R-Nev.) looked like toast running against nearly any Republican for reelection except… Sharron Angle. Now that the race has become in large part about her antics, many think Reid’s got more than a fighting chance of holding on.

The numbers — compiled by Evan Tracey, who tracks political ads as president of CMAG, a division of Kantar Media — reflect a need by candidates and their allies to define opponents quickly to an increasingly engaged electorate. Those who don’t have paid the price.

Bill McCollum, running for Florida governor, and Lisa Murkowski, running for re-election as senator from Alaska, may have fought back too late in their respective Republican primaries. Their opponents attacked them early and often, costing McCollum the election Tuesday and leaving a stunned Murkowski on the edge of defeat.

Two candidates who seem to have taken this advice to heart are Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Both have spent early and often and haven’t been afraid to go negative against their upstart political challengers. McCain was rewarded with a smashing primary victory over former Rep. J. D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.) on Tuesday, and Reid now looks in better shape vis-à-vis Republican Sharron Angle than he did in months prior.

The only high profile candidate who seems to be content, thus far, to avoid going negative is Colorado gubernatorial hopeful, John Hickenlooper (D), who’s enjoying a comfortable lead over conservatives Dan Maes and Tom Tancredo. Hickenlooper is up with an ad that shows him jumping into the shower, repeatedly and fully clothed, to cleanse himself of all the attack ads being aired in the state.