TEXANS FOR PUBLIC JUSTICE: Profile of Lobbyist Van B. Poole

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Van B. Poole
Occupation: Lobbyist
Employer: Poole McKinley & Blosser
Home: Tallahassee, FL
A onetime Exxon marketing manager, Van Poole was an insurance executive for 20 years at Krieg Kostas & Poole. He spent 12 years in the Florida Legislature, including a stint as House Minority Whip. When he was governor, Pioneer Robert Martinez appointed Poole to head the Florida Department of Business Regulation. Poole made a failed U.S. Senate bid in 1982 and chaired the Florida Republican Party from 1989 to 1993. He also held minor posts in the campaigns or administrations of Presidents Ford, Reagan and the first President Bush. Governor Jeb Bush appointed Poole’s lobbyist wife, Donna Maggert Poole, chair of Florida’s Public Employees Relations Commission. Jeb Bush and two Florida Congressmen, including E. Clay Shaw, appointed Poole in 2001 to the Florida Federal Judicial Nominating Commission headed by Robert Martinez. Congressman Shaw then paid Poole $10,000 to lobby to keep his district safe during redistricting. Van Poole’s lobby shop has produced three Bush Pioneers (see James Blosser and Justin Sayfie). Poole reported 39 Florida lobby clients in 2003, including Accenture, AT&T, Dell, GM, Microsoft, PhyAmerica and the Seminole Tribe. The firm ran into conflicts after it hired Pioneer James Blosser, who was the top lobbyist for H. Wayne Huizenga’s empire (including Blockbuster Video, AutoNation, National and Alamo car rentals and sports teams). After Blosser led Huizenga’s efforts to tap tax dollars for new Dolphins, Marlins and Panthers stadiums, new Marlins owner John Henry hired Poole McKinley & Blosser to help publicly fund a $400 million new stadium. The firm resigned when Henry decided to fund it with a tax on rental cars—part of Huizenga’s empire. All apparently was forgiven, with the firm lobbying for Huizenga’s AutoNation in 2003. Another recent Blosser client is JM Family Enterprises, which sells, finances and insures vehicles (see Paul Anderson). JM’s billionaire owner, James Moran, was convicted of tax cheating in the 1980s and the company did not pay corporate income taxes in Florida for most of the 1990s. JM subsidiary Southeast Toyota, the world’s largest independent Toyota distributor, shook down local and state governments for $15 million in corporate welfare in 1999 after threatening to move to Georgia. The firm also lobbies for Pioneer George Dean Johnson’s Advance America. Its Cash Advance Centers are the leading source of small “payday loans” to the working poor at predatory interest rates. Advance and other payday lenders allied with out-of-state banks in 2002 to evade limits that some states imposed on the industry’s excesses.