Ron Book is exploiting a loophole in the law to take kickback from a politician

 No surprise here to see the convicted criminal still engaged in questionable activity with another politician. 

https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/local/2024/11/01/lobbyist-ron-book-looks-to-clear-his-name-sue-pbc-ethics-commission/75940551007/

A lobbyist was cited by the ethics commission; now he's suing and wants to clear his name

Lobbyist Ron Book was cited in September for failing to cash checks from county Commissioner Sara Baxter for a ride on his private jet to Tallahassee to attend the inauguration of Gov. Ron DeSantis.

By Mike Diamond, Palm Beach Post, 11/1/2024

Lobbyist Ron Book has filed a lawsuit challenging the ability of the Palm Beach County Ethics Commission (COE) to take action against him based on an anonymous complaint.

Book was cited in September for failing to cash checks from county Commissioner Sara Baxter for a ride on his private jet to Tallahassee to attend the inauguration of Gov. Ron DeSantis in January 2023. Book's lawyer, Mark Herron of Tallahassee, argues in the lawsuit that a new state law should be applied retroactively, a move that would prevent the COE from pursuing the complaint even though it was filed well before the bill was considered by the Legislature.

The new law, SB 7041, adds time limits to the length of ethics investigations, requires sworn affidavits to launch complaints and bans second-hand knowledge from being used in investigations. Critics argued the law would limit the ability of ethics commissions to enforce county ordinances.

The law took effect Oct. 1; Book was cited three weeks earlier. The lawsuit says the statute says it can be applied retroactively. Should Book prevail, ethics investigations that were being pursued before the effective date of the new law could be jeopardized.

Ethics commissions across the state, including the Palm Beach County COE, called on Gov. Ron DeSantis to veto the bill as did newspaper editorials but DeSantis signed it into law in June.

Book argued in September when he was issued a "letter of instruction" that the commission had no right to follow up on the anonymous complaint because the action was taken after DeSantis signed the law. Much of what was alleged in the anonymous letter was confirmed through the COE investigation.

Book cashed the checks 18 months after they were written once a COE investigator asked him for verification. He also paid for Baxter to attend a pricey VIP dinner as well.

Sitting on the checks after 90 days of receiving them turned the trip and the dinner into gifts, according to COE, which meant Baxter had to report them as such, and she did not. The COE has not taken formal action against Baxter but Book's lawsuit discloses that a complaint, not yet made public, has been filed against her as well. Efforts to obtain comment from the COE as to the claim made in the lawsuit that a complaint against Baxter is pending were unsuccessful.

The COE has yet to file an answer to Book's appeal filed in Circuit Court. The case is not expected to be heard for several months.

Will the Ethics Commission cite Commissioner Baxter?

Book was cited for violating that part of the county’s ethics code that bars a registered lobbyist from giving a gift of more than $100 to an official of any governmental agency within Palm Beach County.

“Because the checks were not cashed, the value of the airfare and dinner may be considered a prohibited gift in excess of $100,” the COE concluded. Baxter said she never reported the trip and dinner as gifts because she reimbursed Book. She has said she was unaware that Book did not cash the checks.

The letter-of-instruction penalty for Book was one of the lower citations that could have been levied. He was told “to be more diligent in the future." Book's lawyer, Herron, said Book believes he did nothing wrong and is determined to clear his name. That is why he is asking the courts to nullify what the COE did, Herron added.

Although COE could not establish an exact value of admission to the VIP dinner, Investigator Mark Higgs said in his nine-page report that open-source reporting showed sponsorship packages for political donors ranged in cost from $25,000 to $1 million.

Precedent-setting lawsuit is months away from being resolved

The COE investigation began in August 2023 after the agency received the anonymous letter complaining that Baxter attended the inauguration on Book’s private jet and went to the dinner after the inauguration.

One of Book’s clients is BBX Capital, a real-estate holding company, that is currently building a major warehouse project in an unincorporated area west of Delray Beach. BBX made a $15,000 contribution to Baxter’s political action committee shortly after it was created on Nov. 15, 2022.

It obtained final approval for its project in June 2023 despite opposition by county planners. County Mayor Maria Sachs was the only commissioner to vote against the project.

Ron Book's "mission from God" makes me question which "God" he's referring to

Recently, the Miami Herald published an article entitled, "Get with him or get out of his way: Ron Book’s on a mission from God to end homelessness." (Max Klaver March 20, 2025 5:00 AM), where Ron Book claims he's on some kind of divine mission to end homelessness:

"Ending homelessness in Miami-Dade is his 'mission,' he says, given to him by 'the big guy upstairs,' and he wants to make good on it before he’s no longer here."

Kudos to Max Klaver for at least making a passing mention of the unique homeless crisis Ron Book and his daughter created, though more should have been mentioned about this issue:

"...Book took to the warpath, lobbying hard throughout Miami-Dade and Florida to punish child sex offenders with restrictions on where they could live. The limitations were great enough that many fell into homelessness and formed an infamously squalid encampment — which they christened “Bookville” — under the Julia Tuttle Causeway.

For Book the lobbyist, and for Book the understandably vindictive father, the restrictions were a win. But Book the Trust chairman found himself responsible for placing those same homeless offenders in housing. The Homeless Trust spent months negotiating fervent NIMBYism as it scoured Miami-Dade for lodging options, limited by the same sex offender housing restrictions for which Book had previously fought so ardently."

Yes, "Bookville", the unique, terrible homeless camp formed under the Julia Tuttle Causeway, created by the Book Crime Family (at least in the sense of passing the laws that made the camp necessary), was dismantled about 15 years ago. The Miami-Dade County Ordinance nullifies all municipal codes to create a unified countywide ordinance that applies to all municipalities equally, which at least made a unified standard across the county and opened up a nominal amount of housing.

BUT, homelessness in Miami-Dade County has not gone away. Far from it, in fact. 

Miami-Dade Co. has the second highest percentage of Registered Persons who are homeless (514 of 1,642, or 31%), behind Broward Co., according to the 2024 Triennial Report by Florida's Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA). Both counties were among the first to pass residency restriction ordinances beyond the state's1000 foot rule, and both have a far higher percentage of homess persons forced to register than any other county in Florida.

Ronald Lee Book and his daughter Lauren CREATED a unique homeless crisis in South Florida, a crisis that continues to exist even as the convicted criminal continues to operate as the head of the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust (until at least the end of 2027, according to the Miami-Herald article).

This crisis is on a whole new level. While this video is from 2016, the homeless registrants that are stuck in Miami-Dade County continue to live like this:

I feel this with all of my heart--Ron Book and his entire family of assorted ruffians and criminals should be sitting in a prison cell, and if they're ever released, then they should be homeless and forced to llive under a bridge.

What kind of a "God" would allow a missionary of the faith to INCREASE homelessness and force people to live in squalor? If his "god' is "upstairs," then Ron Book and his dauther must walk on their hands. 

Carpetbagging Lauren Book exploits loophole in Florida election law to run for State Senate seat in a different district

Too bad Bimbo Book
can't get a brain
enhancement to match
her boob enhancement

Definitions from Oxford Languages: car·pet·bag·ger /ˈkärpətˌbaɡər/

noun derogatory informal

1. A political candidate who seeks election in an area where they have no local connections.

2. A person perceived as an unscrupulous opportunist.

"the organization is rife with carpetbaggers"

Both definitions describe Lauren Book to a T. A deacde ago, she moved to Broward County to run unopposed for state Senate & won by default. While she timed out of her current district, a loophole in the law allows her to simply move to a new district and run again. 

We are still seeking a lawsuit against the years of threats and abuse Lauren Book inflicted upon us. She's seeking power out of desperation to stay relevant. I suspect she'll switch parties if it suits her to do so because she's a career politician with no marketable skills and an aging body. 

https://flvoicenews.com/democrat-lauren-book-seeks-to-return-to-the-florida-senate-in-2028/

Democrat Lauren Book seeks to return to the Florida Senate in 2028

By Amber Jo Cooper, Published Nov. 27, 2024, 12:00 p.m. ET | Updated Nov. 27, 2024

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Former Democratic Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book has filed to run for state Senate District 37 in 2028, according to the Division of Elections.

Book was unable to run in the last election cycle due to term limits in the Florida Senate, where she served since 2016. So far, she is the only candidate to file for the District 37 seat.

Sen. Jason Pizzo currently holds the District 37 seat after winning reelection in November. Book previously represented District 35. 

https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/politics/2024/12/05/florida-term-limits-congress-state-lawmakers/76702809007/

"...Term limits were approved by Florida voters in 1992, but some lawmakers bounce from chamber to chamber when their time in a seat is up, extending their tenure long past the constitution’s restrictions, which only apply to consecutive terms in one seat.

Supporters argue term limits undercut special interests’ control of legislative bodies and give citizens more power, since voters return incumbents to office the vast majority of the time. Moreover, the greater churn of seats provides more diversity of ideas and prevents one person from maintaining a leadership role for decades at a time.

Opponents, however, generally argue that politicians with long tenures are beneficial, because they have stores of institutional knowledge from their experience in the process and are insulated from pressures from the executive branch. Otherwise, influence just shifts to others with longevity in the process, namely lobbyists....

A history of term limits in Florida

US Term Limits has pushed for term limits at all levels of government for decades. The group’s president, Philip Blumel, helped collect signatures for the Eight is Enough campaign that put the amendment on the 1992 ballot in Florida.

The leader of that campaign was his father George, who helmed the movement to pass term limits for the Palm Beach County Commission and in several other states.

Once term limits were put in place in Florida, efforts to push back on them have flopped. A bill by former state Rep. Baxter Troutman in 2005 to expand the cap on legislative terms to 12 years fizzled. A similar bill in 2014 by former state Rep. Keith Perry also failed to gain traction.

Meantime, some state lawmakers of both parties have made a habit of shifting chambers or districts to remain in the Legislature.

For example, former Rep. Thad Altman, an Indialantic Republican, moved from the House to the Senate and back to the House, and Sen. Geraldine Thompson, a Windermere Democrat, is on her second stint in the Senate, having previously served two separate times in the House since 2006.

More recently, lawmakers have sought to impose term limits on local governments.

In 2022, the Legislature approved 12-year limits on school boards. The following year they lowered it to eight years. Perry, as a state senator, voted for the bills.

Term limits have long been popular with the public and remain so today. A Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults last year found 87% of respondents favor putting limits on the number of terms a member of Congress can serve.

“Anything that limits politicians’ power is always popular with the people,” said Kathryn DePalo-Gould, a professor of politics and international relations at Florida International University in Miami.

The reality of term limits, however, doesn’t always match their promise of removing special interests’ control.

DePalo-Gould wrote a book in 2015, “The Failure of Term Limits in Florida,” concluding special interests and their lobbyists still enjoy outsized sway.

New lawmakers “don’t have the institutional memory; they don’t necessarily have the policy chops. So you have power in the lobbyists, you have power in the staff that are not turned over at the same rate,” she said.

“Most of the idea (of term limits) was, ‘Let’s get rid of these professional politicians because they’re too entrenched in Tallahassee with special interests and interest groups.’ And now the interest groups … they really have the center of power. So it didn’t really achieve that goal, at least that many had hoped” it would.

Tomboulides, though, disagrees with that critique. He says Florida and other states with term limits on their legislatures are superior to others without it.

“When you compare how Florida operates with some of these other states that are dominated by career politicians, like your Mississippis and your New Jerseys, for example – it’s like night and day,” Tomboulides said. “In these other states the power is so centralized and the members are not open at all to new, fresh ideas.”