FSU PSAC: Koch Corruption, Climate Change Denial, Domestic Violence and Cocaine Trafficking

YOUR PRESIDENTIAL SEARCH ADVISORY COMMITTEE

The LOLigarchy

PSAC MEMBER FACT SHEET

Since May 21, 2014 FSU’s Presidential Search Advisory Committee has voted three times to continue forwarding Senator John Thrasher as a candidate for president despite the constant unanimous faculty/student combined votes to the contrary and an overwhelming faculty, student and community outcry against Senator Thrasher.

Why support a Koch funded, two-time ethics violator who has consistently supported higher education budget cuts in the Florida Legislature as FSU’s President?

The facts and affiliations list below tells its own story, but we thought you should also know that:

1)   In 2008 and 2013, FSU signed corrupt contracts with the Charles Koch Foundation giving Koch power over faculty hires, curriculum control and graduate assistant hires.  This power is unprecedented in public university – private donor funding agreements and stands against a legacy of academic freedom and shared governance at FSU and in the United States in general.

2) Chair Allan Bense and Gov. Rick Scott, like Sen. John Thrasher, are Koch funded.

3) American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which you will see referenced below, is a Koch funded political lobbying organization that pushes pre-packaged legislation like Stand Your Ground.

4) The Chair of the FSU’s Board of Trustees, Allan Bense was appointed by the Koch funded Rick Scott.

5) Senator John Thrasher is Rick Scott’s re-election campaign Chair.

6) Chair Allan Bense appoints the members of PSAC.

7) There are more Koch funded, and ALEC affiliated, PSAC members than there are faculty or students on PSAC.

Who is patting who on the back? Who is picking people for their own corporate and political interests?

Allan Bense – (“Board of Trustees”)

• Chair of FSU Board of Trustees (appointed by Rick Scott)
• Former Florida House speaker GOP
• Chairman of the Board of the James Madison Institute (JMI), which is:
  • Directly funded by the Charles Koch Foundation.
  • Involved in Koch funded climate change denial.
  • Houses a researcher and Koch affiliate professor who helped implement part of the controversial contract between FSU and Charles Koch Foundation.
  • A Member of ALEC’s Education Task Force.  ALEC is Koch funded.
• Co-owner of GAC contractors, Bense Enterprises, which:
  • Is a prominent member of Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) which has worked alongside ALEC to pass “paycheck protection” legislation to SPECIFICALLY undermine teachers unions.
    • This anti-teacher union legislation (SB 830) was sponsored by Senator John Thrasher.
  • Houses and funds L. Charles Hilton Jr. – co-owner of GAC contractors and Bense Enterprises
    • Hilton is the immediate past Chairman of The James Madison Institute
    • A Koch collaborator who sat on the board of Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE), which is a climate change denying, free market think tank founded by the Kochs and Richard Fink (President of the Charles Koch Foundation). CSE, the “brainchild” of Fink, would later become Americans for Prosperity and Freedomworks.
    • Past Chairman of Florida TaxWatch, member of the State Policy Network (a Koch funded network of free-market think tanks).
    • Charles Hilton Distinguished Professorship in Free Enterprise Studies was created by the 2014 Florida legislature.  It is a $600,000 recurring annual appropriation to fund a professor in the Koch created Markets and Institutions Group (all current professors have Koch ties).
    • In a particularly candid moment, Allan Bense admitted he was willing to give special political favors to his friends.  Of his business partner BENSE SAID: “He could have made a pile of money just from lobbying me”.

Ed Burr (Chair of PSAC, Board of Trustees)

• Personally donated to Sen. John Thrasher’s campaign
• President and CEO Greenpointe Holdings
• sued for nearly $2 million dollars in fraudulent transactions to himself, and nearly $300,000 in “discretionary bonuses” he received during a fraudulent transaction by Duke Energy netting Duke $1.187 Billion and bankrupting Crescent Resources, which Burr managed. The lawsuit resulted in a $13.4 million payout to the city of Jacksonville. In addition to fraudulent transactions, Burr was found to have “inflated” the value of some holdings, to his own advantage. (Urban Land Institute!)

• “Actively involved” with the National Association of Homebuilders (ALEC affiliate) – ALEC is Koch funded.
  • National Homebuilders Association has sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to block 251 animal species from being placed on the endangered species list. They along with Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy and ABC); sued the EPA to repeal regulations on stormwater run-off from construction sites.
  • Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy is a Koch run government agency with a history of trying to disempower the EPA, and pursuing litigation with Koch for increased access to government contracts.

Jimmy Patronis (“Community” representative)

• ALEC State Chair (2009-present).  ALEC is Koch funded.
• James Madison Institute member, which pushed anti-environment legislation and is Koch funded.
• Florida House of Representatives (GOP) in Allan Bense’s home District (6).

John Mckay (“RINGLING CENTER FOR THE ARTS” representative)*

• ALEC legislator (ALEC).  ALEC is Koch funded.
• Received funding from Koch owned Georgia Pacific
• Former Florida Senate President (GOP)
• Created Fraudulent  Voucher School program (quick explanation)(ALEC)
• Has had alleged domestic violence issues.

Al Lawson (“Community” representative)

• On the Corporate Board of, and is an active lobbyist for Step Up for Children which is an ALEC affiliate, funded by ALEC affiliates (ALEC). ALEC is Koch funded.
• Mr. Lawson is currently employed by Chair Bense, which neither of them seems to constitutes a “conflict of interest”.

 

Devoe Moore (“Seminole Boosters” representative)

• Founded Devoe Moore Center at FSU, which is a Koch-funded and ALEC affiliated think tank.
  • Houses Bruce Benson who wrote the infamous Koch-FSU memo exposed in a recent report by Center for Public Integrity.
• Among 9 Seminole Boosters that had to abstain from voting on Collegetown land deal because of a conflict of interest.

• Outspoken anti-government advocate.

Ash Williams (“FSU Foundation” representative)

• Executive Director of the State Board of Administration (SBA).  In that role he:
  • Oversees the $120 billion pension fund.
  • Made false statements about, and actively resisted, transparency in Florida’s Pension fund investments with old partners, including a $100 million deal using FL pension funds with corrupt former business partners.
    • was reappointed by a vote of Gov. Rick Scott, CFO Jeff Atwater and Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Kathryn Ballard (GOP, ALEC)

On the Board of Trustees:

• Served on Rick Scott’s Inaugural Committee.

• Her husband Brian Ballard is a:
• Lead fundraiser for Gov. Rick Scott’s re-election campaign,

• Prolific Lobbyist for:
  • Verizon, which is Koch affiliated.
    • ALEC member, which is Koch funded.

• Private Enterprise Board
• Communications and Technology Task Force
• Donor to John Thrasher’s campaign
• CCA (Private Prison Corporation, ALEC member, donated to John Thrasher’s campaign)
• Geo Group (Private Prison Corporation, ALEC member, Donated to John Thrasher’s campaign)
• Corizon Private Prison Healthcare service
  • (In 2013, was awarded a five-year, $1.2 billion contract to provide medical services to state prisoners in north and central Florida)
  • (sued 660 times for malpractice in the past five years, charges including fraud, negligence, and covering up sexual abuse)
• MHM Private Prison mental health services, co-defendants with Corizon in negligence lawsuits
• U.S. Sugar corp
  • “epic” polluter and developer of the Everglades
  • under scrutiny for “hunting trips” to backchannel with Governor Rick Scott and other FL lawmakers (including Speaker Weatherford),
  • donated more than $534,000 to Scott’s re-election campaign

• Ballard’s clients landed $938 million in state contracts this year alone

Delores Spearman (“Community” representative)

• Husband is lobbyist Guy Spearman

• Contributed to John Thrasher’s campaign
• Anheuser-Busch (ALEC member). ALEC is Koch funded.
• AT&T (ALEC member). ALEC is Koch funded.
  • Commerce, Insurance, and Economic Development Task, active in anti-worker, Paycheck Protection scheme and ‘Right to Work’ legislation
    • Paycheck Protection is the same anti-labor legislation Thrasher sponsored.
• PRIDE enterprises (ALEC affiliated prison labor).  ALEC is Koch funded.
  • found denying prisoners minimum wage

Drew Weatherford (”Community” representative)

• Current Florida House speaker’s brother (who is Chair Bense’s son-in-law!)

• Co-founder and partner at Strategos Public Affairs, management-consulting firm
  • A Strategos employee (and former FSU student) was recently involved in the redistricting controversy surrounding the Florida Republican Party’s efforts to gerrymander the state.
  • Strategos partner Jim Horne is Gov. Bush’s appointed Commissioner of Education, President of the Florida Charter School Alliance, funded by the Walton Foundation (ALEC member).
  • Among their clients
    • ACT aspire: an academic testing system created by Pearson (which has extensive ALEC ties and to corporate education reform).
    • AMIkids, a youth correctional institution currently being scrutinized by systemic child sexual abuse scandals.
    • Cargill (ALEC private sector member) (largest privately owned corporation in U.S.) to “build confidence” in their “pink slime” or finely textured beef.
  • Lists Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and Sun Tzu’s Art of War in their “Library of Success”.

Bob Sasser (“FSU Foundation” representative)

• CEO of Dollar Tree

• Currently in a class action lawsuit for unfair labor practices
• Sued this year by the Department of Labor for systemically unsafe working conditions

Susie Busch-Transou (“Community” representative)

• Daughter of Augustus Busch III, owner of Anhauser-Busch (ALEC member)
  • Co-owns a distribution wholesaler of Anhauser-Busch Brewing, which serves the Tallahassee area.
  • Was involved in dismantling FSU’s alcohol abuse prevention efforts in 2000
• Was Vice Chair of the FSU Board of Trustees as recently as 2012, during which time she was allowed to vote when the BOT approved leasing university land to the FSU Boosters to build Collegetown, where Busch-Transou would do considerable business.
• Busch-Transou is no longer a Trustee, because she has established an “Official Partnership” between Tri-Eagle Sales and Seminole Athletics.

Mike Harrel (“Seminole Boosters” representative)

• corporate lobbyist for
  • Verizon (ALEC member). ALEC is Koch funded.
  • U.S. Sugar (Rick Scott/Weatherford/King’s Ranch, etc)
  • Florida Medical Association (who donated to John Thrasher, Rick Scott and Jimmy Patronis campaigns, and who John Thrasher was lobbying for when he incurred his ethics violation)
• Governor Rick Scott’s friend and frequent golf partner

Gordon Sprague (“Alumni Association” representative)

• Appointed by Rick Scott to multiple boards.
• Made Senior partner in 2000 (later became Global Partner) for AMVESCAP Group (worth $291 billion as of Sept. 30, 1999).
  • (Interestingly, a branch of AMVESCAP group (Invesco Perpetual) was fined $31.3 million dollars in the UK for not telling clients about the use of derivatives as leverage in their funds.)

Brian Swain (“Real Estate Foundation” representative)

• One of 9 Seminole Boosters that had to abstain from voting (along with Devoe Moore) on the Collegetown project because of their financial interest in the matter.

Ed Morton (“Board of Governors” representative)

• Rick Scott appointment to the Florida Board of Governors
• Former President & CEO-Healthcare Network of Southwest Florida
• Former CEO, CFO, COO of NCH Healthcare System
• Principal and Managing Director of the ($4.52 Billion) investment firm Wasmer & Schroeder & Co.)
• Praised Governor Scott’s healthcare practices
• Served on “Healthcare Round table” with Governor Scott

Monk Bonasorte (“Athletics” representative)

• Convicted on cocaine trafficking charges

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