Lauren Book, Running Unopposed, Raises $1.3 Million Despite Criticisms

I LOVE the Broward County/Miami New Times. They seem to be the only ones with the guts to ask the hard-hitting questions about the Books. The Miami Herald used to, but even they have grown silent on this issue. Oh, and the New Times has even posted a link to this humble blog. This site is merely a repository for existing info already out there about the Books. 

http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/news/lauren-book-running-unopposed-raises-13-million-despite-criticisms-7673729

Lauren Book, Running Unopposed, Raises $1.3 Million Despite Criticisms

TUESDAY, MARCH 29, 2016 AT 9:58 A.M.

Plantation resident Lauren Book, 31, has raised about $1.3 million for her state senate campaign, though she's running unopposed. Her charity was also awarded a million dollars by the state legislature this session.  

Book is the daughter of powerful Florida lobbyist Ron Book, and after suffering horrific abuse by a nanny in her teen years, she founded Lauren's Kids, which raises awareness about childhood sexual abuse and advocates for legislation affecting sex offenders.

She has designed an educational curriculum and written two books, Lauren's Kingdom, and It's OK to Tell. Every year, Book walks across the state during an annual "hope and healing tour." The walk passed through South Florida this past week. During portions of it, Book was joined by Miami Heat staff and hundreds of survivors of sexual abuse.  

Despite the phenomenal support, Book has faced criticism that due to her father's influence, her charity and, in turn, her candidacy get "outsized" benefits not typically afforded to a small non-profit or novice candidate. The Florida Legislature this year awarded Lauren’s Kids $1 million for “school and instructional enhancements." In 2014 and again in 2015, the charity received $3.8 million from that part of the state budget, far more than most other groups that were awarded funds in that category.  Billboards with her face on them promote her charity but have the side effect of increasing her visibility as a candidate. 

Book had initially drawn an opponent, former Walmart worker Emmanuel Blimie, but due to redistricting she is now unopposed in District 32, which includes Cooper City, Coral Springs, Davie, Plantation, Southwest Ranches, Weston, and parts of Miramar, Pembroke Pines, and Sunrise. As of February 29, she had raised $529,484 via 735 small campaign contributions (up to $1,000 each), including donations from pro athletes Dan Marino, Alonzo Mourning and Shane Battier.  

In addition, a political action committee called Leadership for Broward had raised $761,950 for Book. That includes donations from major Florida companies (like $20,00 from Autonation and $10,000 apiece from U.S. Sugar Corporation and Florida Crystals), plus $100,000 coming from the Miami Dolphins and $65,000 from the GEO Group — her father’s former or current clients. In the past, some have expressed concerns that if she were elected, Lauren's votes would be influenced by her father's work. (He is president of Lauren's Kids, and the charity is headquartered in the same office building as his firm.)  

This year, Derek Logue, a convicted sex offender who runs a website critical of the Books, says, “I’d love it if someone challenged Lauren Book on collecting GEO Group money considering the fact GEO group’s track record of allowing rampant physical and sexual abuse within their walls. I guess Lauren doesn’t care about abuse when it is about juveniles in facilities.” (A Department of Justice investigation into the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility, which is run by GEO Group, found that it was “deliberately indifferent to staff sexual misconduct and inappropriate behavior with youth. The sexual misconduct we found was among the worst that we have seen in any facility anywhere in the nation.”)

Book's campaign manager, Steve Vancore, said Book was too busy to comment due to her annual walk. But in the past, she has deflected criticism with characteristic sweetness, saying she wished critics “would speak directly to me so I can show them the amazing work we are doing on behalf of children.”

Lauren's Kids boasts of having helped pass some two dozen laws to stop childhood sex abuse, such as mandating the placement of a red “P” on the driver’s licenses of sexual predators. Some groups have argued that laws created as a result of the zeal to punish sex offenders have had unintended consequences like breaking up families, and may not necessarily be effective in stopping abuse. A new documentary called Untouchable will explore how the Books’  efforts to regulate where sex offenders could live meant that some had nowhere they could reside legally except under a bridge (something Ron Book has publicly regretted). Filmmakers were not available this week, but promotional materials say the film "argues for a new understanding of how we think about and legislate sexual abuse." The film will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, April 13 to 24 in New York.

Lauren's Kids spokesperson Claire Van Susteren, said Book “is keeping a wall between her Foundation work and the campaign. Regarding the Untouchable film — neither Lauren nor Ron have seen the full version yet but I am sure would be able to comment once it’s officially been released.”

I look forward to hearing the reaction from the film. Below is the film trailer. 

UNTOUCHABLE - Festival Trailer from Meerkat Media on Vimeo.

GEO Group, one of Lauren Book's biggest PAC contributors, physically and sexually abused kids

Lauren Book took $50,000 from a group that allowed
juveniles to be sexually abused

We have recently reported that Lauren Book received $50,000 from GEO Group, the private prion industry, under her "Leadership for Broward" PAC. It is ironic that Lauren Book, whose entire political campaign platform is her desire to protect kids from sexual abuse while taking money from a private prison that allowed one of the worst cases of rampant physical and sexual abuse of juveniles in the history of the criminal justice system to occur under it's watch. 

GEO Group has been the subject of a lot of controversy over the years, but the Walnut Grove MS facility stands out among all of them. 

Lauren Book doesn't seem to care where the money for her campaign is coming from. There's a word for that-- HYPOCRISY!

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/24/151276620/firm-leaves-miss-after-its-prison-is-called-cesspool

Miss. Prison Operator Out; Facility Called A 'Cesspool'
Updated April 30, 20128:06 PM ET
Published April 24, 20124:15 PM ET

One month after a federal court ordered sweeping changes at a troubled juvenile prison in rural Mississippi, the private company managing the prison is out. A report by the Justice Department describes "systemic, egregious and dangerous practices" at the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility.

As those words imply, the official report is scathing.

Federal Judge Carlton Reeves wrote that the youth prison "has allowed a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions to germinate, the sum of which places the offenders at substantial ongoing risk."

Walnut Grove, located an hour's drive east of Jackson, is a 1,450-bed prison that houses inmates ages 13 to 22 who are minors convicted as adults. It is run by GEO Group of Boca Raton, Fla., the nation's second-largest for-profit prison corporation, which posted a profit of $284 million last year. The Mississippi Department of Corrections pays GEO to manage the prison.

Jonathan Smith is chief of special litigation in the civil rights section at the Justice Department, which spent two years looking into conditions at Walnut Grove.

"To have a prison that's chaotic, poorly run, dangerous, didn't provide services, highly sexualized and highly violent really limits the ability of the state to turn those folks around, and to ensure public safety upon their release from prison," Smith said.

Among the conditions described in the report released last month:

• Prison staff had sex with incarcerated youth, which investigators called "among the worst that we've seen in any facility anywhere in the nation."
• Poorly trained guards brutally beat youth and used excessive pepper spray as a first response.
• The prison showed "deliberate indifference" to prisoners possessing homemade knives, which were used in gang fights and inmate rapes.
• Some guards had gang affiliations — a finding confirmed to NPR last year by former inmate Justin Bowling.
• "A lot of times, the guards are in the same gang," Bowling said. "If an inmate wanted something done, they got it. If they wanted a cell popped open to handle some business about some fighting or something like that, it just pretty much happened."

A GEO spokesman said via email that the abuses documented by the government occurred before GEO took over Walnut Grove in late 2010. Another private prison company, Cornell Companies, ran the Walnut Grove facility until Cornell was purchased by GEO.

GEO Group also ran the correctional center when the Walnut Grove mayor used one of the inmates as his personal sex toy:

https://www.fbi.gov/jackson/press-releases/2012/former-mayor-of-walnut-grove-sentenced-for-federal-witness-tampering

JACKSON—William Grady Sims, 61, former mayor of Walnut Grove, Mississippi, was sentenced today in U.S. District Court to serve seven months in prison followed by six months of home confinement and two years of supervised release for federal witness tampering, U.S. Attorney Gregory K. Davis and FBI Special Agent in Charge Daniel McMullen announced. Sims pled guilty to the charge on February 14, 2012.

Sims was the mayor of the town of Walnut Grove, Mississippi, having been elected to this position since 1981. In this role, he was one of the longest continually serving mayors in Mississippi, having served over 30 years. In October 2009, Sims became the administrator or warden of the Walnut Grove Transition Center in Walnut Grove. At the time, the Transition Center was a privately-owned and operated facility which had contracted with the Mississippi Department of Corrections to house state inmates. In November 2009, the Sims rented a motel room in Carthage, Mississippi; drove a female inmate in his custody from the Walnut Grove Transition Center to the motel room; and proceeded to have sex with her. During a federal grand jury investigation of the sexual encounter, Sims was recorded during several telephone calls with the female inmate instructing the inmate to lie to investigators by saying they had never had sex and had never been together in that motel room. Sims was subsequently interviewed by the FBI, and he admitted to having sex with the female inmate and instructing her to lie to investigators about their sexual encounter. Sims resigned as administrator or warden of the Walnut Grove Transition Facility in January 2010.

GEO Group also ran a juvenile facility in Texas that was run about as well as a third world country.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2007-10-26/554296/

The removal and firings came a week after two separate investigations into Coke: one by TYC investigators ordered by acting Executive Director Dimitria Pope after receiving a series of worrying reports, and a separate one by independent ombudsman Will Har­rell. In his report, Harrell describes inhuman conditions. Insects infested the dorms, where children slept on mats on the floor, and sheets were visibly dirty. His worst criticism is reserved for the security dorm. Calling it "malodorous and dark," he notes that inmates were only let out to shower, with no exercise or recreation. Education was a crossword or math puzzle shoved through the slot in the door. Bad as these conditions were, three inmates had voluntarily self-referred themselves to the security dorm to avoid gangs. Threats of inmate-on-inmate violence caused the greatest "sense of fear and intimidation" Harrell had ever experienced. Understaffing, long seen as one of the pivotal problems with TYC, was still unresolved: 44 of the 105 staff positions were empty, and the facility was having trouble finding new recruits because of negative publicity about earlier scandals.

However, Harrell inspected the facility on Sept. 24, and while Hurley applauded his report's content, he was concerned that he did not receive a copy until after his office's own investigation was complete. "If I'm the ombudsman, and I'm out there, I'm not going to go away, write a report, and then not send it to the one person who can actually make changes."

According to Hurley, the most worrying fact is that the on-site quality-assurance monitors had given the facility a clean bill of health. In his report, Harrell singled them out for criticism, writing, "With so many Q/A's assigned to this single facility, more than my staff for the entire state, why do these problems persist?" While Coke was the only privately run secure facility, TYC has now launched a full investigation into all its contract services. "We thought we had good reports," Hurley said. "The people who were a part of this were longtime TYC employees, but at this point we have no confidence in reports we have seen."

An audit of the Texas facility found:

• “The GEO Group does not ensure that the youth are provided with a clean and orderly living environment.”
• “Cells were filthy, smelled of feces and urine, and were in need of paint.”
• “[T]here are serious problems with insects throughout the facility and grounds.”
• “Plumbing chases were not secure at the time of the inspection. Contraband and pests were found in these areas.”
• “Water leaks are numerous throughout the facility, creating an unsanitary and unsafe environment for all youth and staff.”
• “There is racial segregation [in] the dorms; Hispanics are not allowed to be cell mates with African Americans.”
• “Youth sprayed with [Oleoresin Capsicum] pepper spray are not routinely decontaminated.”

Children at the facility told the Commission:

• They have “not received church services in over two months.”
• They are “disciplined for speaking Spanish.”
• They “are sometimes not allowed to brush their teeth for days at a time.”
• They “had been forced to urinate or defecate in some container other than a toilet.”

GEO Group also hired Ron Book among their collection of lobbyists

http://www.ozy.com/fast-forward/private-prisons-fight-back/66970

With bipartisan criminal-justice reform ramping up, which could drastically cut overall inmate populations, logic might suggest that the private-prison industry would be on its heels. It’s not. Because what does any good business do when its customer base shrinks? It widens its net, of course.

While state and federal prison statistics show a recent decline in the number of Americans who are behind bars, there are still roughly 5 million people under correctional supervision. Many more are in rehab and mental-health hospitals, while hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants are shuffled through detention centers – potentially big markets for private facilities. So the correctional industry is diversifying. “The scope of how big this is hasn’t even been anywhere near made clear,” says Caroline Isaacs, who closely tracks the private-prison industry for the American Friends Service Committee, an advocacy group that opposes corrections privatization.

Though the services may be evolving, the concerns remain much the same. As with many for-profit entities, the top priority is the bottom line, which is often at odds with the purpose of community corrections. Rehabilitation – whether in a prison or half-way house – is not typically in the operator’s best interest, because that means fewer clients. As such, some private prisons have been found cutting corners on training and dangerously understaffed, even leading to riots. And you may remember the kids-for-cash scandal, where two Pennsylvania judges received kickbacks for sentencing juveniles to time behind bars.

But there’s still money to be made. In October, Corrections Corporation of America – the largest proprietor of the for-profit bunch – purchased Avalon, adding to its growing network of halfway houses. GEO Group, the second largest in this field, several years ago purchased BI, an electronic monitoring company, and is now moving into health care. Such companies are even targeting contracts in the purely mental-health sector. Opponents have dubbed the latter the “treatment-industrial complex.” Around 90 percent of incarcarees are eventually released; however, mental health hospitals have the potential for lifetime confinement. The fear, some say, is that we’ll simply start funneling people from prisons to alternative care institutions and surveillance programs that will perpetuate many of the same issues — and, in some cases, be even more harmful to those who end up stuck in a vicious cycle.

As in any competition for government contracts, lobbying plays a role in the industry’s flexibility and resilience. Official, on-the-books lobbying numbers have gone down across the board over the decades, though CCA hired 199 lobbyists in 32 states over the past decade, while GEO employed 72 lobbyists in 17 states, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics. But many believe that lobbying activity has simply gone underground. Lee Drutman, a lobbying expert with New America and professor at John Hopkins University, says to tell the story of a $3 billion industry fighting for legislative survival, you have to look at the indirect ways it lobbies, from unlikely alliances to innovative media strategies.

CCA Director of Public Affairs Jonathan Burns points out the company has a longstanding corporate policy not to lobby for or against any policy that would determine the basis or duration of an individual’s incarceration or detention. Plain speak: The corporations are not supposed to influence the length of sentences or what counts as an offense punishable by prison. GEO, meanwhile, noted in a statement that it doesn’t advocate for or against any specific criminal-justice policy. Still, federal lobbying disclosure statements show that over the past decade the industry has spent almost $10 million on state persuasion efforts and close to $22 million lobbying Senate and House representatives, and it has contributed more than $3 million directly to candidates and PACs. “With the election coming, 2016 should be a very interesting year,” says Paul Ashton, a research associate at the Justice Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., which aims to reduce incarceration.

Yes, $3 million in contributions to candidates like Lauren Book and PACs like Leadership for Broward. The Books lobby for stricter sentencing, which means more business for the Boca Baton-based GEO Group. Also, GEO Care, GEO Group's health subsidiary, donated an extra $15,000 in addition to the $50,000 donated to Leadership for Broward.

The bottom line is Lauren's alleged concerns on preventing sexual abuse does not extend to juveniles behind bars.

Lauren Book's 'Leadership For Broward"-- Just what is a "leadership PAC"?

We've already discussed the obscene amount of money raised by Lauren Book's "Leadership for Broward" PAC ($765,000 to date, which is on par with big-name pols like Jeb Bush, John Boehner, and Paul Ryan). That's a lot of money for a district in the Everglades. That is extremely shady.

But just what IS a "leadership PAC"? This is the OpenSecrets.org explanation of the shadowy practices of the Leadership PAC:

"Leadership PACs: Background

A leadership PAC is a political action committee that can be established by current and former members of Congress as well as other prominent political figures. Leadership PACs are designed for two things: to make money and to make friends, both of which are crucial to ambitious politicians looking to advance their careers.

Leadership PACs are used to fund expenses that are ineligible to be paid by campaign committees or congressional offices. Those costs can include travel to raise a politician's profile, for instance. Democratic leadership PACs are also used to fund fellow Democrats' campaigns, especially threatened incumbents or challengers trying to win seats that were previously held by the GOP. Politicians often use their PACs to donate to other candidates because they are considering seeking a leadership position in Congress, a higher office, or leverage within their own party as they show off their fundraising ability.

Both Democrats and Republicans operate these PACs, which can accept money from other PACs and from individuals. Individuals can contribute up to $5,000 per year to a member's leadership PAC, even if they have already donated the maximum to that member's campaign."

Leadership PACs are, simply put, a way for pols to circumvent restrictions on collecting campaign funds and how those funds are spent. It is that simple.

ThinkProgress points out the potential for abuse:

For years, current and former elected officials have created leadership PACs, political action committees they can use to raise money to help elect like-minded candidates. But with no law preventing politicians from using the funds raised by their leadership PAC for personal use, some operate these committees more as an expense account than a political action committee.

A ThinkProgress review of Federal Election Commission (FEC) PAC data found that four leadership PACs have spent a paltry amount of their funds so far this election cycle on actual political candidates, while vasts amounts went to pay staffers, cover overhead, and cover travel, meals, parking, and even highway tolls.

While the politicians are rarely involved with the day-to-day operations of these leadership PACs (or their own campaign committees), they frequently headline fundraising events for the committees and they are largely free to spend the raised money as they wish. Donors seeking to earn lawmakers’ gratitude or help boost the politician’s political standing often donate to both their campaign account and their leadership PAC.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, leadership PACs are “considered separate from a politician’s campaign committee, providing donors with a way around individual campaign contribution limits.” They “provide a way for candidates to fund their travel, office expenses, consultants, polling and other non-campaign expenses,” though ostensibly their purpose is to advance the political view points of their owner.

Interestingly, Leadership for Broward has only two expenditures:

11/10/2015     5,000.00 MIAMI DOLPHINS, LTD.    EVENT TICKETS                          
11/12/2015     4,240.00 ROBERT WATKINS & COMPANY, P.A.  ACCOUNTING SERVICES
                           ------------
                               9,240.00
2 Expenditure(s) Selected

But didn't the Miami Dolphins giver her $100,000 for her PAC? Five grand to watch the Charlie Tunas choke in football and $4290 for accounting services is all she has spent.

Why is no one investigating this?

Lauren Book is married for a second time. Shall we take bets to see how long this one lasts?

Smeagol and her "Precious"

Welcome to the Jerry Springer portion of Floridians For Freedom. It seems that Lauren Book can't even manage her love life, so how can we expect her to manage the 32nd District? So if this piece sounds more Springeresque, I'm just trying to set the mood.

Personally, I'm not all that concerned with her "love life," but it seems daddy Book didn't want to shell out another million bucks for his princess. (I reckon one literal "million dollar wedding" was enough even for daddy longbucks.) So apparently Lauren was so frigid to her first hubby (semi-pro golfer turned car guy Kris Lim) that he allegedly found a little warmth in Lauren's best friend (and apparently his put a little of himself in Lauren's best friend, according to Lauren herself).

So anyways, Smeagol (or "Buggie B" as her douchebag friends call her) found herself a new precious named Blair Jacob Byrnes. Apparently he's a computer and security chump working for Microsoft, a company almost as synonymous with glitches as Lauren Book. Apparently this schmuck also works as a campaign manager. How convenient. Gee, I wonder how much money this asshat gets from Lauren's "Leadership for Broward."

http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/blog/lauren-book-quietly-remarries-check-out-gift-registry

Lauren Book Quietly Remarries (Check out the Gift Registry)
Submitted by Nancy Smith on July 14, 2015 - 6:47am
Apparently we missed a major wedding in Plantation Saturday -- the second marriage of Lauren's Kids' founder Lauren Book, 30, this time to Blair Byrnes. 

You might remember seeing Byrnes in February, walking with his fiancee as the Lauren's Kids entourage arrived in Tallahassee to wrap up the Walk in My Shoes charity event.

Maybe press attended Saturday's wedding, but if any journalists were on hand, the write-ups are hiding in plain sight. My only clue was a link to the bride and groom's wedding registry at Bloomie's. Have a look for yourself. (Nice taste, you two.)

The wedding probably wasn't a patch on the party that launched Book's first marriage to golfer Kris Kim in 2008, a splashy, $1 million affair involving 600 guests at Fairmont Turnberry Isle Resort in Aventura. No kidding, a $1 million wedding.

It was filmed as Season 3, Episode 25 in the WEtv series "Platinum Weddings" and billed with this: "A half-million dollar budget gets blown out of the water when Daddy’s Princess gets every wedding wish she ever desired."

But, back to Saturday.

At almost the same time as Lauren and Blair were tying the knot, Buddy Nevins in BrowardBeat.com told us Lauren's Dad, lobbyist Ron Book, had just bought his daughter a steal of an apartment at The Plaza Condominium in Tallahassee -- perhaps looking forward to Lauren's Senate run to replace Eleanor Sobel who is term-limited in 2016.

Gag me with a spoon.

Editorial: Lobbyist equations just don't add up

A lot of money goes into a job paying below the median yearly wage so you know there are major kickbacks being passed along.

http://staugustine.com/opinions/2016-02-25/editorial-lobbyist-equations-just-dont-add#.VudNEuIrI_M

Editorial: Lobbyist equations just don't add up
Posted: February 25, 2016 - 8:57pm  |  Updated: February 26, 2016 - 1:04am

The tattered performance and arrogant self-interest of Florida’s uber-partisan legislature this year seems to prove that, at least in state politics, you do get what you pay for.

Ask the lobbyists.

Lobbying firms working in the state are required to file compensation reports each quarter. Exact amounts are not known because they’re not available, because the law does not require them to do so ... possibly because our lawmakers make the law.

Lobbying firms, instead, report a compensation “range” of sorts. A couple of the bigger firms, for instance, reported getting paid between $500,000 and $999,000 in the fourth quarter of 2015. And that’s as much as we know. But the state’s top four lobbying firms — Ballard Partners, Capital City Consulting, Ronald L. Book PA and Southern Strategy Group — each reported making at least $1 million for work done in that quarter, the last report released earlier this month.

Ballard Partners is the big dog, headed by Republican fundraiser Brian Ballard. He started his firm in 1998 with his father-in-law, Jim Smith, who was a former attorney general as a Democrat and secretary of state as a Republican. The Palm Beach Post reports that Ballard’s sister, former Palm Beach County Commissioner Mary McCarty, spent two years in prison on corruption charges. Coming in second is Southern Strategy, the former lobbying firm of former Sen. John Thrasher, now the president of Florida State University.

Ronald Book’s clients, The Post reports, include Ashbritt, a rapid-response recovery firm from Book’s South Florida stomping ground. It was awarded a no-bid contract by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for cleanup efforts following Hurricane Sandy. Book was paid $204,000 for his efforts.

Among the big spenders in Florida are FPL, U.S. Sugar and the Seminole Tribe, which has a $3 billion deal with Florida currently on the table.

(Nationally, the top five spenders annually are the U.S. Chamber of Commerce at $85 million; the National Association of Realtors, $38 million; the American Medical Association, $29 million; Blue Cross/Blue Shield, $23 million; and Boeing, $22 million.)

In all, Florida lobbyists were paid $30 million in the last quarter of 2015. The cumulative total in 2105 was $131.5 million — up $12 million over 2014. (But they earned that, having to work through the regular session, plus the three special sessions.)

One might wonder how to put this all in perspective. Certainly there are more ways than one. But, if we agree that all the money spent by lobbyists is intended to directly influence votes of our lawmakers, here are a couple of equations to ponder:

■ 40 senators plus 120 representatives = 160 Florida lawmakers.

■ 131.5 million divided by 160 = $821,875 spent on each lawmaker.

State senators and representatives are paid $29,687 annually, plus per diem. Do the math. If you can make the rest of that equation add up, send that answer to the Florida Commission on Ethics: P.O. Drawer 15709, Tallahassee, FL 32317.

Why would a candidate running unopposed even need a million bucks for a PAC running out of her own home?

Welcome to the Corporate HQ for "Leadership For Broward"!

OK, maybe it isn't a million bucks yet, but it will be a million before the election is over.

First thing I'd like to mention is it appears Lauren Book is running her PAC from her own house (NW 108th Way, Plantation FL), or at least someone's private residence bought for $530,000 in January 2014, according to the Zillow real estate site. It seems a bit odd for someone running a PAC out of a private residence like that, especially when Lauren's Kids has an office in Aventura,18851 NE 29th Ave Suite 1010, Aventura, FL 33180  (which is also the same address as Ron Book's corporate offices, 18851 NE 29th Ave #1010, Aventura, FL 33180). What's the deal?

(It is also interesting to note that the congressional districts were changed, and Emmanuel Blimie, who was going to run against Book, is still in District 33, but Book was REZONED to District 32, so NOW Book is TRULY running unopposed!)

Thankfully, you can keep tabs on this "PAC" at the FL Dept. of State website. Lauren Book is actually running as a Democrat. This may the first time in my life I vote Republican!

http://dos.elections.myflorida.com/committees/ComDetail.asp?account=64349

Committee Tracking System
 
Leadership for Broward

Type: Political Committee
Status: Active
Address: 101 Northwest 108th Way
Plantation, FL 33324
Phone: (305)360-6422
Chairperson: Lauren Book
Treasurer: Nancy H. Watkins
610 South Boulevard
Tampa, FL 336060000
Registered Agent: Lauren Book
101 Northwest 108th Way
Plantation, FL 333240000
Purpose:
Affiliates:

You can use the Dept. of State website to look at the list of contributors. Here are a couple of notables:

2014   M11      11/26/2014    $25,000.00 THE GEO GROUP, INC. (Private Prisons)
2015   M3       03/10/2015     $5,000.00 RAI SERVICES COMPANY  (Big Tobacco)
2015   M7       07/23/2015    $10,000.00 GOLD COAST BEVERAGE, LLC (Beer)
2015   M7       07/30/2015     $1,000.00 TRUTH IN POLITICS, INC. (An "inactive" org has donation funds? Hm)
2015   M9       09/18/2015     $1,000.00 BEER DISTRIBUTOR'S COMMITTEE FOR GOOD GOV'T (the Beer Lobby)
2016   M2       02/11/2016    $25,000.00 THE GEO GROUP, INC. (Again, that makes $50k)

Lauren Book for Senate-- Private prisons, beer and smoking for EVERYONE!

There are over 13.400 untested rape kit in FloriDUH. While FL can't find money to pay for the tests...

... Lauren Book still got $3.8 MILLION dollars. The standard rape kit costs between $1000 and $1500 on average. I'd say that would a sizable dent in that backlog, wouldn't you say? That would be between 2500 and 3800 tested kits. Millionare bimbo Lauren Book damn sure does not need the money!

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-rape-kit-testing-state-report-20160104-story.html

More than 13,400 rape kits, including some that could prove critical in the prosecution of sexual assaults, remain untested and sitting on the shelves in Florida police and sheriff's departments, according to a statewide survey released Monday.

Of those, more than 9,400 kits containing possible DNA evidence should be submitted for analysis but have not been, according to the findings of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

But hey, why waste millions on rape kits when you can buy a powder blue and hot pink tour bus for millionaires, right?

It appears Lauren F'ing Book will have a road named after her after all...

..and I'm willing to bet it will be filled with potholes in need of covering up. Much like Lauren's ugly face.

http://static.lobbytools.com/bills/2016/pdf/AS0114A1611.pdf

Lauren F. Book Boulevard

The portion of U.S. 1/S.R. 5/N. Federal Highway between S.R. 842/Broward Boulevard and S.R.
838/Sunrise Boulevard in Broward County is designated as “Lauren F. Book Boulevard.”

And by the way, here it is in March, and I have yet to see a SINGLE piece about Lauren's political stance on ANYTHING but her victim industry propaganda. I'm willing to bet the apple hasn't fallen far from the tree that was convicted of illegal campaign contributions in the 1990s.