Representative Rick Roth on the Legislative Session

The Florida Legislative session has just ended, and at our May meeting Representative Rick Roth, Florida House District 85, gave our members a helpful report on the new bills and issues.

Roth served on five committees, including Commerce, Pre-K (Education) Quality, and Agriculture and Natural Resources Appropriations. He explained that it was in committees that bad legislation could be stopped much more easily than on the floor of the House. He learned to appreciate how House Speaker Richard Corcoran set a very good tone for the legislative work. He also learned that there are twelve ways to kill a bill, but of course only one way to pass it–approval by both houses and the governor.

Some of the legislation he promoted, that is now waiting for Governor Scott’s signature, include revisions to the Certificate of Need required to build a medical facility (allowing a nursing home to add on a hospice–an increasing need in Florida); limiting funds for Enterprise Florida and Visit Florida bills, to add more transparency and accountability; passing a cap on the taxes for non-homesteaded property, and improving the Stand-Your-Ground immunity for self-defense.

Other legislation that was passed included more regulation of “sober homes,” a controlled substances act relating to opiod use, and insurance and non-discrimination regulations that apply to companies such as Uber and Lyft. A bill concerning choice and accountability in education increased public school funding, providing bonuses for exceptional teachers and help for low-performing schools.

Laws relating to medical marijuana did not get passed. Rep. Roth thinks that issue and the budget may be dealt with again in special sessions. He had reminded us at the beginning of his talk that none of the bills that were passed have yet been signed by the governor. (We will have to see what happens to them in the next few weeks.) It was a privilege to have Representative Roth at our meeting, and to learn about what was happening in Tallahassee from someone who is aptly representing us there.

Florida Legislative Session with Representative Rick Roth

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Rick Roth, a 37 year Wellington resident, grew up in Belle Glade. He is the President of the 5000 acre Roth Farms east of Belle Glade, and has been producing vegetables and sugar cane there since 1976.

Although never holding a public prior to the 2016 election , Rick has been involved in politics for years, including fund-raising for former Governor Bob Martinez, and he has held a variety of leadership positions with the Florida Farm Bureau Federation and the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association and is on the board of the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida.

WJNO’s Brian Mudd to Highlight April Meeting

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Brian Mudd is the WJNO Financial Analyst, co-host of the Palm Beaches’ Morning Rush, on-air weekdays from 5AM to 9AM. Brian’s career has included 19 years with iHeartMedia, including time as a fill-in host for Sean Hannity’s national radio show. Brian, whose motto is “Passion plus talent is unstoppable”, believes that many of our societal failures have resulted from a general willingness to distance ourselves from our founding values while embracing political correctness. He is actively involved in local events and has hosted many political forums at all levels in Palm Beach County.

Sid Dinerstein Talks about the Trump Victory

“Black People Vote on Sunday!” – with this thought, former county GOP Chairman Sid Dinerstein laid out for us all the clues that were readily available to predict the election of Donald Trump.

Describing a conversation he had with his daughter in New Hampshire on November 7, the night before the election, Sid gave us some insights into the demographics of 2016 and how it differed from when Obama was running. While at the time he wasn’t sure how it would turn out, there were encouraging signs.

The re-election of Barack Obama in 2012 saw a turnout in the black community that exceeded white turnout for the first time (on a percentage basis). Many thought the Obama coalition would turn out for Clinton and insure her victory, but it was not to be. On the traditional “souls to the polls” day – the Sunday before the election, turnout in Palm Beach County was very heavy, but the proportion of black voters seemed to be less. (Editor’s note: In fact, 24% of the 23K voters on 11/6 self-identified in voter rolls as black, compared to 33% on 11/3/2012.) This was happening all across the country.

Another clue was the polling, much of it designed by the media to suppress Republican vote.

Zander Lurie, CEO of Survey Monkey (the company that provides much of the polling muscle for the mainstream media), was known to have contributed $600K to the Clinton campaign. All pollsters are not dishonest of course, but when you know how the boss wants the poll to come out it can have an effect.

There are many ways to diddle with poll results. One that was used was to adjust the outcome to reflect the demographics of the 2012 race. Another was to adjust where the polling was done. If I wanted to make the case that independents were supporting Clinton with big numbers, I could have polled them in Century Village. Since many “independents” have a tendency to vote just like their neighbors, independents in heavily Democrat areas will lean that way.

Survey guru Nate Silver has usually been right about outcomes, but he is an aggregator of polls, not a pollster himself. Thus, if the majority of the polls show a Trump defeat, than he was led to draw that conclusion.

An ironic side-effect of this bias in the polls was over confidence by the Clinton campaign. They had no internal polling of their own and believed the polls that were skewed to make them appear to be running away with it. As a result, they neglected to campaign in Wisconsin and Michigan, believing those states to be solidly in their camp.

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Also at this meeting, we heard from Steve Hyatt who is running a “candidate school” for GOP candidates down in Plantation.

The next meeting will be April 26 for which we are trying to line up a speaker from the James Madison Institute.

If you live in Palm Beach Gardens or Jupiter, please remember their is a runoff election on March 28. Republican Joe Russo is the Republican in the Gardens Group 5 race, as is Ron Delany in Jupiter District 2.

An Analysis of the 2017 PBG Council Election

Good turnout for PBG Election

Apply Now for the 2017 Ann Roberts Scholarship

The Republican Club of the Palm Beaches’ Scholarship was named after a long-standing and active member of our Club, Anne Roberts.

The Anne Roberts Memorial Scholarship is available to any full or part time undergraduate or graduate student seeking to further their education. Students must have a GPA of 3.0 or above and plan to attend an accredited college. Applicants must be Palm Beach County residents and registered (or pre-registered under 18 yrs. of age) Republicans. Current members may refer applicants for this scholarship. The deadline for this application is June 2. The recipient will be eligible to receive up to $500 to be sent to the school they will attend. Award will be presented at the monthly luncheon June 28, 2017.

RCPB Scholarship application 2017

Previous Years Winners

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In 2016, we added two new recipients to our program, Lauren Staff and Jenna Calderaio.

Lauren graduated from Dwyer High School in 2015 and is presently at Gator Land, University of Florida in her sophomore year, majoring in telecommunications. She writes for the Independent Florida Alligator Newspaper and works for ESPN Gainesville Radio 95.3 researching sports statistics. She tells us that Law School is in her future.

Jenna graduated from Jupiter Community High School this year and is headed to Seminole Land, FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY, to major in business and entrepreneurship looking forward to a career in product development. She attended the Florida Sunshine Summit in Orlando witnessing 14 presidential candidates which supported her goal to be a strong conservative leader for the Republican Party on a local or national level.

In 2015, our new winners were Aaron Mejias, who is studying Political Science and History at PBAU and Ryan Walker, a political science major at the University of Florida.

In 2014, our previous undergraduate recipients kept up their grades to receive additional scholarship: Dylan Brandenburg, John Clark, Jason Ferrara, and Daniel Kozell. Because of the generosity of our club members, we were able to add a fifth recipient, Hanna Matry, a junior at UF majoring in Aerospace/Mechanical Engineering and a member of the University’s Rocket Team in the NASA Hybrid rocket competition.

2013 was an expansive year for our scholarship program, with 6 recipients. They went to Elizabeth Cayson, a county employee who is attending Walden University in Illinois remotely, and Danielle Madsen, who recently graduated from Palm Beach Atlantic and is working at a TV station. Three Florida State students received grants including John Clark (3rd year), Dylan Brandenburg (1st year) and Daniel Kozell (2nd year), and Jason Ferrara who is attending the University of Alabama received his third year scholarship.

In 2012, there were 5 scholarships awarded: James Schackelford in his 3rd year at Florida Atlantic University and Daniel Kozell entering Florida State University. We continued to follow John Clark, Jason Ferrara and Shirley Schaff.

In 2011, there were four scholarships awarded. John Clark attending Florida State University, Jason Ferrara attending University of Alabama, Shirley Schaff attending Northwood University and Kimberly Twoey attending Palm Beach Atlantic University.

In 2010, one scholarship was awarded to Cindy Morris, mother of 5, in her final year with 3.7 GPA at Palm Beach Atlantic College School of Education with endorsements in special education and English and a second language.

The second 2010 scholarship was awarded to James Shackelford, majoring in accounting at Florida Atlantic University. With his passion for politics, he is active in student government and volunteered for Allen West and Marco Rubio campaigns. After receiving his masters in Finance, James plans to attend law school.

The 2009 recipient, Nicole Vega, from Berean Christian High School, aspired to be a civil engineer. After much mentoring by several Club members, Nicole has changed her studies to major in Communications with a minor in Political Science at Palm Beach State College.

RCPB Scholarship application 2017

PBG Candidate Forum Video

Municipal Candidates at February Lunch

February’s lunch featured PBC GOP Executive Director Ryan Hnatiuk in support of the Republican candidates this March at the city and town level.

Municipal elected officials are the key to keeping Florida a “red state” – it is the farm team for filling spots at higher levels. Just next year for example, district 4 County Commissioner Steven Abrams and FH89 Representative Bill Hager are both term limited and both districts will be challenging to hold. (Abrams CC4 seat is D+1, and Hager’s seat is R+2). Good candidates for both of these races are needed.

Ryan is working with candidates in Palm Beach Gardens, Jupiter, Highland Beach and Lake Worth this cycle, but cautions he cannot help if there are Republicans competing against each other (as in the Gardens group 5 race which includes Joe Russo and Kevin Easton).

Since municipal races are typically about non-partisan issues like roads, taxes, capital budgets, development, etc. – there is really no rationale to discourage anyone from running, but Republican voters should at least know which of the candidates are on our side. For this, Ryan directs you to the county GOP website at www.palmbeach.gop.

Present at the meeting were some of the Palm Beach Gardens candidates who are Republicans:

RCPB Co-hosts Palm Beach Gardens Candidate Forum 2/28

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