Miami senator appears to have lost top job (Repub. "exile" "conspiracy")

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Thu, Feb. 09, 2006
Miami senator appears to have lost top job

BY MARC [e-mail]

TALLAHASSEE - At least seven Republican state
senators withdrew their support from Miami's Alex Villalobos bid to become Florida's first Cuban-American Senate president.

The senators, all solid conservatives, say they have different reasons for swinging their support to Sen. Jeff Atwater, a North Palm Beach Republican, and for backing away from the moderate Villalobos, who has made a few high-profile votes against the party line established by Gov. Jeb Bush.

Whether this means Villalobos is officially knocked out of the future leadership post -- which would begin 2008 -- is unclear.
Villalobos supporters say he still has enough votes from his fellow Republicans, who control the 40-member chamber with 26 votes.

Villalobos said he's not giving up, but acknowledged he was caught late in an active, well-organized conspiracy engineered by Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla, a fellow Miami Cuban-American Republican.
(snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13831279.htm



Villalobos, de la Portilla

Alex de la Portilla:

Senator says he can't pay fine
Lawyers questioned Alex Diaz de la Portilla's claim in light of his spending.
By LUCY MORGAN, Times Tallahassee Bureau Chief
Published January 4, 2005

TALLAHASSEE - Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla says he is living on the $29,000 a year legislators make and cannot pay a $17,000 fine the Florida Ethics Commission wants to collect for his failure to comply with election laws.

Election Commission lawyers say Diaz de la Portilla's spending habits don't reflect his income. They spent Monday questioning the way he handles his finances.

Diaz de la Portilla says the commission has a vendetta against him because some of its members are lobbyists who have opposed him politically.
(snip/...)

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/01/04/State/Senator_says_he_can_t.shtml

[geomon666]

1. What the hell are you doing being a republican?

You're a minority. Maybe not in Miami but you're a minority everywhere else. I have no sympathy for these sellouts.

[RagingInMiami]

3. Exactly

I e-mailed him and told him to switch parties. Manny Diaz is the same way. He was a democrat for two decades, then became an independent when he decided to run for mayor.

[RagingInMiami]

2. Villalobos is pretty progressive for a republican

He interned with Democratic Senator Lawton Chiles before switching parties and running for office, and Bob Graham is a close family friend. It's obvious he did just to capitalize on the Miami Cuban vote (a lot of them do that). He should switch parties.

This is from another Miami Herald article that I found on Nexis and can't post a link to:

MARC CAPUTO
[e-mail]

He wants to make it easier for convicts to prove their innocence with DNA tests and harder for juries to impose the death sentence, has supported laws against gender bias and played a key role in handing Gov. Jeb Bush a major defeat in the Legislature last year.

Alex Villalobos is not your average Republican lawmaker.

Some Republicans, upset that Villalobos helped kill Bush's plan last year to scale back Florida's law capping class sizes, say he'll endanger his Senate presidency if he votes against Bush's new class-size plan. Republicans don't want to embarrass Bush -- who staked out education as his legacy -- in his last year in office. Villalobos hasn't yet said how he'll vote.

''Last year I did what I thought was best. I knew there were consequences, and I was prepared to live with them,'' said Villalobos, who then watched Bush veto a University of Miami spinal-cord research program that Villalobos backed last year.

[quiet.american]

4. Thanks -- your post spells it out.

It's obvious he's too decent and not enough of a loyal Kool-Aid drinker for their tastes.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Here's the link. I used the first line for a google search.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13752011.htm

Interesting article. Thanks.

[f-bush]

6. First of all as far as the fine is concerned:

nail the fuckers ass. who in the hell does he think he is. Just because I can't pay a parking ticket, doesn't mean it's going to go away.

Next...I love it when the gop eats it's own. Keep it up you bunch of narrow minded assholes!

[Javaman]

7. I love watching repukes feed on their own. n/t