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by Marc Caputo http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/corporate/florida-house-leaders-lived-big-on-gop-plastic/1086585Florida House leaders lived big on GOP plastic
TALLAHASSEE — For Florida House leaders, membership had its privileges: a Republican Party American Express card to charge trips on jets to Manhattan and Disney World, stays at chic hotels and meals at five-star restaurants.
Flashing the party card opened limousine doors and bought gifts at Harrod's Limited in London, Toys "R" Us and Best Buy. It provided a seemingly bottomless coffee cup at Starbucks.
In all, about $458,000 in AmEx charges like these were racked up by former House Speaker Marco Rubio, his now-indicted successor Ray Sansom, and the man set to lead the chamber in November, Dean Cannon, according to a St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald computer analysis of Republican Party of Florida charge card statements for nearly two years ending in 2009.
The part-time lawmakers paid for little of it. Republican Party donors, mostly corporate interests seeking favorable legislation from lawmakers, picked up the bulk of it.
Though some of the records have been reported, the AmEx card statements of the three party leaders viewed together offer a window into the world of public officials conducting private, partisan business.
The Republican Party has declined to release the billing statements, but the paperwork has leaked out amid criminal investigations connected to party donors and a civil lawsuit involving former party chairman Jim Greer. Gov. Charlie Crist's handpicked leader, Greer was ousted in January after leading the party to its zenith of spending.
"All the spending, all the charges and the nice hotels and dinners just don't cast the image of good fiscal management, either in Florida or in Washington," said Tom Slade, chairman of the Republican Party of Florida from 1993 to 1999. He said some Republicans lost their way amid all the money that flowed into the party under Greer and Sansom.
Sansom awaits criminal trial on charges that he rigged the state budget to help a friend and major party donor.
When Sansom led House campaign efforts, a young party staffer named Melanie Phister charged nearly $1.3 million in expenses — some for Sansom and his family — and in ''multiple instances," she said, her card was used without her knowledge.
"When someone gives a credit card to someone else and that someone else doesn't pay that, the temptation is overwhelming," Slade said. "After a while, it becomes an entitlement. And the 'while' is a short period of time."
Rubio charged the least of the trio, about $100,000, and paid AmEx about $16,000 in expenses he deemed personal at the time. Cannon charged the most: about $200,000, of which he identified more than $3,000 in personal expenses, reimbursing the party for some of it just weeks ago as the scandal over party finances widened.
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