Florida is awash in corporate cash. Florida suffers from a culture of corruption, from the courthouse to the state capitol. Statistics in the New York Times, a retired judge friend (and FBI agents) suggest that Florida may be the most corrupt state in the Union. Louisiana may have colorful figures. Other states may have better reporters writing about it (Mike Royko's book, Boss, about the first Mayor Daley, is a classic.)
But Florida, with its many rotten government officials and lousy developers, takes the cake. Here in St. Johns County, our former Republican County Commission Chairman is currently residing in a federal prison, convicted of bribery. He's not the only St. Johns County official ever to take a bribe -- just the latest one to get caught and prosecuted (albeit in a questionable sting with questionable motives, stirred up by tacky Sheriff DAVID SHOAR and lawyer GEORGE McCLURE).
We need a state Attorney General who will fight corruption -- not one who defended it as a secretive white collar criminal defense lawyer for the state's largest law firm, AKERMAN SENTERFITT.
We need someone who will give no quarter to Sunshine and Open Records violations.
We need someone who will target Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP suits) and use the powers of government to fight them.
We need someone who can spell antitrust and will use the state's powers to protect consumers.
We need someone who is not tainted by associations with the 500-lawyer AKERMAN SENTERFITT law firm, which represents Big Oil, Big Sugar and Big Tobacco interests, developers, health care cartels, and other corporate criminals.
DAN GELBER is tainted by his association with the AKERMAN SENTERFITT firm. His income, friends and associations are on the side of corporate crime. He's a corporate criminal defense lawyer, and a darn good one -- he's taken his prosecution experience and used it to represent evildoers. In the words of William Wordsworth, "They have given their hearts away, a sordid boon. Getting and spending we lay waste our powers."
DAN GELBER was a fine legislator. He'd make a good U.S. Senator. But he'd make a lousy Attorney General -- it would be like putting Dracula in charge of the Blood Bank.
GELBER could have used his considerable courtroom skills to help consumers. He could have represented whistleblowers and other corporate crime victims. Instead, he represents the victimizers.
GELBER masks his deficiencies with hauteur, flippancy and ageism -- he thinks that anyone younger than him, with fewer jury trials, is unintelligent and unqualified.
He reminds me of some of the law review preppies I have known -- people who have contempt for anyone out of their "league," people who look down their distended nostrils at lesser mortals as if they were inferior. GELBER's affect gives it away, as a schemer (as recorded by one of my friends, who saw him here in St. Johns County last year). He's not for the people -- he's for the powerful special interests, the people who paid his paychecks as a shadowy "Policy" advocate and white collar criminal defense lawyer. DAN GELBER can't be trusted as Attorney General, because he's part of the culture of corruption that threatens to ruin Florida -- GELBER identifies with wrongdoers -- that's who he has represented for most of his legal career.
As Attorney General, Dave Aronberg will be a people's lawyer, in the spirit of Robert Kennedy --- someone we can count on to be a real Democrat.
DAN GELBER would lose if nominated for Attorney General by the Democrats. Republicans would beat DAN GELBER like a rented mule. If you think Dave Aronberg's ads are tough, wait till you see what the Republicans would do -- they would win.
In person and on the telephone, DAN GELBER comes off as a bully, one who was utterly insensitive to the fact that he went to work for a corporate law firm that represents oligopolists -- unseemly for a State Senator to have been part of the "Policy" (lobbying) practice of our State's largest law firm, and to have been a white collar criminal defense lawyer for the rich and powerful, while never taking any pro bono cases (when he called me July 2nd, his idea of pro bono was being a Big Brother. Oh bother!).
Dave Aronberg desires our support -- DAN GELBER was part of the sinkhole of corruption (AKERMAN SENTERFITT) that defended our Nation's Oldest City in its anti-environmental campaign, with AKERMAN SENTERFITT lawyers billing us more hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend the indefensible -- WILLIAM B. HARRISS' deposting 40,000 cubic yards of solid waste in our Old City Reservoir (in the African-American community of West Augustine). Our City wanted to bring the waste back the African-American community of Lincolnville, for a park, and the BIg Law firm of AKERMAN SENTERFITT argued this position (with straight faces).
Tell AKERMAN SENTERFITT (and DAN GELBER) we don't need their services, such as they are, and that AKERMAN SENTERFITT (and its feckless thug clients) have too much power and influence in the State of Florida already.
Vote against corruption.
Vote against BP's law firm.
Vote against polluters, price-fixers, union busters and other Philistines represented by AKERMAN SENTERFITT. As Robert Kennedy said, "if we do not, on a national scale, attack organized criminals with weapons and techniques as sophisticated as their own, they will destroy us."
Read Florida lawyer's Mike Papantonio's interview about BP's culture of corporate crime, below.
My recommendation: please vote for Dave Aronberg for Attorney General in the August 24, 2010 Democratic Primary. You'll be glad you did.
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