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Inside
Southern Strategy, connections help Series:
MONEYWORLD: A
SPECIAL REPORT ON STATE LOBBYISTS
LUCY MORGAN. St. Petersburg Times. St.
Petersburg, Fla.: Mar 7, 2004
In 1996, when Republicans took over the state
Legislature, Paul Bradshaw lobbied for just three clients: Advanced
Drainage Systems of Orlando, the Annuity Board of the Southern Baptist
Convention and St. Philip Towing of Tampa.
David Rancourt was a $63,000-a-year lobbyist for the
secretary of state, and John Thrasher was working his way up the
leadership ladder in the House.
Today the three sit atop Southern Strategy Group
Inc., a Tallahassee lobbying firm not 5 years old that illustrates how
fast wealth can accumulate for lobbyists with connections. Their 80-plus
clients include AT&T, Time Warner, Tampa Electric, the Tampa Bay Devil
Rays and Walt Disney World.
Bradshaw, Rancourt and Thrasher are tight with Gov.
Jeb Bush, a fact nobody in need of a lobbyist fails to notice.
Competitors complain that Southern Strategy flaunts
its ties to the governor and poaches their clients. Their name for the
firm: the House of Ego.
Thrasher said Southern Strategy doesn't steal
business. "We pick up clients on the reputation of being
business-Republican oriented lobbyists."
Southern Strategy got into the lobbying business
about the time Gov. Bush started pushing to have private business take
over an array of government functions. Businesses that hire Southern
Strategy have fared well getting state contracts, including:
Bearing Point, which got a share of a $150-million
state technology contract; BlueCross BlueShield, $2.7-million a month to
manage a state employee health care contract; Caremark, $153- million
last year for prescription drug services for state employees; Infinity
Inc., $13.3-million last year for computer software; Capital Health
Plan, some $12.7-million a year to provide an HMO for state employees.
Bush acknowledges that some friends and staffers
turned lobbyists use their relationships as "a marketing tool" to get
clients. "But it doesn't help them get through to me. They have to
succeed on the merits."
Bradshaw met Bush in September 1994, the day former
Attorney General Jim Smith dropped his campaign for governor and threw
his support to Bush. Bradshaw had been helping Smith.
A lawyer, Bradshaw was issues coordinator for Bush's
1998 campaign. He helped craft Bush's education policy and helped write
Bush's second inaugural address - the one in which the governor stressed
family values and envisioned state government buildings empty of state
employees.
Working on the 1998 campaign, Bradshaw met campaign
manager Sally Harrell, who would become the governor's first chief of
staff. Both divorced, then married each other.
In 1998, in documents filed in his divorce, Bradshaw
reported his assets: $4,500 in the bank and a bright-yellow '74 Bronco.
His net worth: negative $2,000.
The next year, Bradshaw started Southern Strategy
Group. By 2002, his lobbying income topped $300,000; income from other
sources topped $1.1-million. Goodbye '74 Bronco, hello vintage Porsche.
Though Sally Bradshaw left the administration late in
2000 to have a baby, she still participates in many of Bush's decisions;
last year she screened candidates to replace Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan.
The Bradshaws live in the woods in Gadsden County, on
a 19-acre estate they call Blue Dog farm, valued at about $600,000. Last
year they bought a $1.5-million vacation home in Montana from Florida
State University President T.K. Wetherell. Their third home, rented to
Mrs. Bradshaw's parents, is on a golf course at Sandestin in the
Panhandle.
David Rancourt's ties to Bush date to 1998, when he
joined the governor's transition team. As deputy chief of staff in the
first Bush administration, Rancourt screened appointees for jobs.
He left in late 1999 to join Southern Strategy. Many
of the governor's staff and agency heads that Southern Strategy
lobbyists call on every day owe at least part of their success to
Rancourt.
Rancourt's own success has become a bit
controversial: His neighbors are in an uproar over the home he just
built in Tallahassee. It's four times the size of others in the area,
ringed by a tall concrete wall that neighbors blame for flooding
problems.
Assessed at $2-million, it has 10,000 square feet of
living space - the master bedroom alone is 2,700 square feet - a
two-story circular turret, a personal gym and a five-car garage.
Rancourt also is building a barn on a $300,000 piece
of property he owns east of town.
Since leaving the governor's staff in 1999, Rancourt
has become something of a land baron: He bought a home for his parents
in Lakeland, bought and sold an interest in a South Florida development
company and bought and sold an $800,000 beachfront lot on St. George
Island.
Southern Strategy's vice president is John Thrasher,
the governor's close friend and sometime golf partner. As House speaker
in 1998-99, Thrasher delivered votes during Bush's most accomplished
period as governor.
A Jacksonville lawyer with close ties to the state's
medical community, Thrasher divides his time between an $80,000 townhome
in Tallahassee, a $660,000 home on the St. Johns River and a $394,000
mountain home in North Georgia.
Together Thrasher, Rancourt and Bradshaw own Southern
Strategy Group Assets, which has bought more than $2-million worth of
prime property in downtown Tallahassee.
Bradshaw owns interests in Red Hotel LLC and Blue Dog
Investments, which own several commercial tracts in Tallahassee.
The third color in the trio, White House Fellows LLC,
is owned by Bradshaw, Rancourt and former Bush communications director
Cory Tilley. White House Fellows LLC owns an $800,000 office building in
the historic area downtown.
Since leaving government, the three top men at
Southern Strategy have received gubernatorial appointments. Bush named
Bradshaw to head the committee that studied the state's controversial
growth management law. He appointed Rancourt to the Florida Elections
Commission and Thrasher to the FSU board of trustees. Bradshaw also
represents Florida in the state pension fund's lawsuit against Enron.
Other Southern Strategy lobbyists are Tom Herndon,
former chief of staff for Gov. Lawton Chiles; Chris Dudley, former chief
of staff for Brogan; and James T. Moore, former director of the Florida
Department of Law Enforcement.
Nine days ago, the state awarded a $13-million
contract to Motorola for a system that links public safety radios across
the state. While running the FDLE, Moore asked the state to budget money
for the contract; after joining Southern Strategy, he lobbied for
Motorola.
Rancourt and Bradshaw would not discuss their
business.
Thrasher said Southern Strategy's clients don't gain
much from his close friendship with the governor.
"I talk to him when I can, but I try not to abuse the
relationship," Thrasher said. "Occasionally he will ask me about
something. But I don't take a list over and say, 'Governor, can you do
this?' He would kick me out."
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