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.

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.

Lauren Book collected over $100,000 from her own charity, funded by taxpayer money

Consider this-- Lauren's Kids raked in $1.5 MILLION last year, and nearly 10% alone went to Lauren Book alone. And yet the politicians who voted for the funding don't even know where the money is going? Hint-- check Lauren's bank account. 

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fl-laurens-kids-funding-20150626-story.html

Nonprofit gets outsized state $$ to fight sex abuse
Dan Sweeney
Sun-Sentinel
June 26, 2015

There's a stereotype of pedophiles – creepy strangers lurking at the edge of city parks, cooling their heels in public bathrooms. Lying in wait.

But 90 percent of child sexual abuse comes at the hands of someone whom the child knows, and 95 percent of it is preventable through education, according to Broward County's rape crisis and child advocacy center. That's where the nonprofit organization Lauren's Kids is trying to make a change, by teaching PreK through third graders to recognize signs of danger so they can tell someone.

"The biggest challenge is battling the stigma of child sexual abuse – it's an issue that thrives in darkness, silence and secrecy," said Lauren Book, who founded the Aventura-based charity in 2007. Book, the daughter of prominent lobbyist Ron Book, was sexually abused by a nanny for six years beginning at age 11.

The state this year is giving Lauren's Kids $3.8 million – almost twice as much as any other group in its budget category, which includes organizations such as the YMCA and the Girl Scouts. It is the second year in row it received that much.

Book said Lauren's Kids' $3.8 million is "a direct result of a growing recognition by the Florida Legislature of the pervasive and costly problem that is child sexual abuse and a strengthening commitment to end it in Florida."

Tax records show Book's organization had $438,357 in total revenue in 2010 – that number tripled the next year. By 2013, Lauren's Kids took in $1,810,495, buoyed by $1.5 million in state funds. At the same time, Book's salary as CEO of the organization went from $67,596 to $103,540.

The next year, state funding for the group went up to $3.8 million for the first time. No other organization in that budget category has seen such a meteoric rise.

Local lawmakers who sit on the House and Senate Appropriations committees, which are responsible for setting funding levels, were mystified.

"I've not quite understood why there's been such exponential growth in Lauren's Kids as a budget item," said state Sen. Dwight Bullard, D-Miami. "We understand that the organization's doing the work providing counseling and other programs for young adults that have been victimized. But we do need to know where those dollars are being spent. … I've made the inquiry and have not really received an answer that's substantive."

Lauren Book's father, Ron Book, is the president of Lauren's Kids – she is the CEO and she acknowledges her lobbyist dad certainly doesn't hurt her organization's bottom line.

But she maintains state funding couldn't be going to a better purpose.

She points to a 2012 study by the Florida Council Against Sexual Violence that found a pilot program of Lauren's Kids' curriculum resulted in a 77 percent increase of children's knowledge regarding sexual abuse awareness.

Book said her organization had identified an unaddressed problem – preventative education rather than simply going after perpetrators of crimes.

With the Lauren's Kids educational tools expanding to more grades – fourth and fifth grade are in development and should be available for the 2015-2016 school year – Book's next role may be in the very legislature that has bestowed more than $9 million on her organization in the last three years.

Last September, Book opened a political action committee, Leadership for Broward, which is a fundraising first step when running for office. More than $570,000 has been contributed to the PAC since then. The biggest donations include $100,000 from the Miami Dolphins, $25,000 from Vitas Hospice Care, and $25,000 from the GEO Group private prison company – all clients of Ron Book.

dsweeney@sunsentinel.com, 954-356-4605 or Twitter @Daniel_Sweeney