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Looking to 2010: Florida Attorney General

Continuing our series of articles looking forward to races in 2010, we take a look at the race for Attorney General of Florida, an office currently held by Republican Bill McCollum.

The Republicans

Bill McCollum

McCollum, the Republican incumbent, is relatively popular; while there has been some chatter about McCollum making another run at the Senate in 2010, it now looks pretty certain that he’ll seek reelection as attorney general.

The Democrats

Dave Aronberg

It’s no secret Aronberg, a popular state senator, has his eye on statewide office, and the Attorney General’s office is certainly the best fit for him.  Aronberg, a Harvard graduate, is a former Florida Assistant Attorney General, where he headed up the state’s lawsuit against “Miss Cleo”.  Aronberg has a gift for building bipartisan relationships, as evidenced by his achievement of a committee chairmanship in the Republican-controlled Florida Senate, and by his continued popularity in his district, which is only 39% Democrat by registration.

Buddy Dyer

The mayor of Orlando and former Democratic State Senator is also rumoured to have an eye on the office.  As a former minority leader in the state Senate, he’s got the fundraising network.  Dyer was suspended from office for a month in 2005 by Governor Jeb Bush after allegations of election fraud, but those allegations were not proven, and Dyer was reinstated; it’s unclear how the appearance of impropriety would affect him in a statewide race.

4 Comments

    Allegations were not proven??? Yes they were. He plead and had his adjudication withheld. Get your facts straight.

  • DyerError: Granted, I’m not from Orlando, and not directly familiar with the issue, but my understanding was that the charges were dropped by the prosecutor.

    I went back and looked, and that does appear to be the case, according to several sources. Take the Washington Post, for example:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6073-2005Apr20.html

    A special prosecutor dropped all charges Wednesday against Mayor Buddy Dyer (D) and three others who had been indicted on charges of allegedly violating a state law that prohibits payments for collection of absentee ballots.

    Dyer, suspended by Gov. Jeb Bush (R) when the charges were announced March 11, was reinstated hours after the charges were dropped.

  • I have worked in many capacities on many campaigns, but I have never worked so hard as I will for Mr. Aronberg for AG. McCollums’ administration is extremely sloppy, his programs are loose and ineffective and his staff is unprofessional. The people of Florida deserve, no – they NEED better.

  • The Attorney General Position in Florida is very powerful. I strongly dislike Sen. Aronberg’s remarks that Florida go back to mandating a 1000 foot Residency Restriction for Convicted Sex offenders. What I dislike even more is on his homepage he profess’s to have support for it. He does not. Mayors, Law Enforcement and Child advocacy groups adamantly oppose this. He has endorsement from the Department of Corrections but why wouldnt he? The DOC would love to see more room opened up for sex offenders, it would lesson their work load. Sen. Aronberg had better get an understanding with Florida’s Parents. We arent going to concede one more foot of the stronger restrictions we fought so hard to get. If he thinks our cities are going to become dumping grounds for the DOC again, he had better think twice. Going back to the 1000ft. gets the DOC, Immigration Enforcement and Probation off the hook to perform. Sen. Aronberg needs to do his homework, Florida has offenders moving into Florida for no other reason than the beaches are better. He needs to put a moritorium on offenders who committ their crimes in other states from setting up residency here in Florida. Miami-Dade’s sex offender registry is the who’s who of criminal alien offenders, who this state doesnt have the will to deport. (just who do you think three quarters of the Julia Tuttle offenders are) The DOC are releasing these guys everyday back out on the street to feed because they dont want to spend the money to keep them, who gets the brunt of that? Children and Women.Sen. Aronberg has no business in the business of making policy on sex offenders. We need an AG who has the guts to stand up to DOC and other states who gladly process papers to move THEIR offenders into our state, not some Senator who stands there with OPEN ARMS to these guys.

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