Rick Scott

Rick Scott (2019)

Richard Lynn "Rick" Scott (* 1. December 1952 in Bloomington , Illinois ) is an American politician of the Republican Party . He was governor of the state of Florida from January 2011 to January 2019 ; In 2010 and 2014 he was elected with a lead of 1 percent. In the election on November 6, 2018 , he applied for a mandate in the US Senate . He won the election by about 0.12 percent (about 10,000 votes) over Bill Nelson . Scott has represented Florida in the US Senate since January 8, 2019.

Career

After finishing school, Scott served in the US Navy . He studied law at the University of Missouri and received at the Southern Methodist University to JD He then worked at the lawyers Johnson & Swanson in Dallas and became a partner.

In 1987 he co-founded Columbia Hospital Corporation . In 1989, the company merged with the Hospital Corporation of America to form Columbia / HCA , the largest for-profit healthcare company in the United States. In 1997, he was forced to resign from the company's board of directors when there was a scandal over Medicare business practices and billing ; Most recently, the company admitted to having committed fourteen crimes and agreed to pay the US federal government more than $ 1.7 billion.

In 2001 he founded Solantic in Jacksonville with Karen Bowling .

Political career

Candidate for governor in 2010

Scott is a member of the Republican Party . For the gubernatorial elections in Florida, his party nominated him as a candidate after incumbent Charlie Crist resigned from the party and sought an election for a US Senator instead of a second term . On November 2, 2010, Scott won the governor election against Democrat Alex Sink by a narrow margin of around one percent. He received 48.8 percent of the vote, while his challenger received 47.8 percent of the vote.

Florida Governor (2011-2019)

First term (2011-2015)

Rick Scott in 2012

On January 4, 2011, he took office as governor. Jennifer Carroll became his lieutenant governor , but she had to resign in March 2013 due to allegations of corruption . After confirmation by the State Legislature , Carlos López-Cantera has been the new Deputy Governor since February 2014 . Even after the 2014 gubernatorial election, López-Cantera will remain the governor's deputy. Scott introduced a grace period of five to seven years in 2011, during which ex-inmates are not allowed to vote. Only then can they submit an application that they can vote again.

In the context of the US presidential election in 2012 , Scott came under public criticism when he arranged for early voters to cast a maximum of eight instead of the previous 14 days before the actual election, which meant that long queues formed in front of the polling stations. Critics argued that it was an attempt to prevent voters from voting.

Re-elected in 2014

Rick Scott in a public appearance in July 2014

Back in October 2011, Scott announced that he would run again in the 2014 gubernatorial election . Although he had only been in office for a good six months at that time, his approval ratings in public polls had already fallen significantly. Even at the beginning of the election year, his confirmation in office was viewed as extremely uncertain. In the internal party primary of the Republicans on August 26, 2014 Scott was able to prevail with 87 percent of the vote, after there was no significant opponent. The Democrats nominated Scott's predecessor Charlie Crist, who joined the Democrats after he left the Republicans. In the polls, Crist was always ahead, in the final months of the election campaign everything seemed to be a neck-and-neck race. On October 15, Scott made headlines across the country when he manifestly refused to take part in the debate in a televised duel. He entered the discussion panel a little more than five minutes late after the audience had already received negative reactions. According to the moderator, the incumbent judged it to be a violation of the rules of the TV format after Crist was provided with a fan to cool off. It was later revealed that there was a misunderstanding as Scott took no notice of the fan backstage. Scott said he had been told that Crist had not stepped onto the podium and that he had not yet appeared himself. Political opponents of the governor took this as an opportunity to criticize Scott's behavior as inappropriate. The incident titled Fangate sparked widespread discussion, especially on social media .

Scott just won the election on November 4, 2014 with 48.2 percent of the votes cast. For Crist, 47.2 percent of the voters spoke out, which is a difference of about 64,000 votes. Media reports ^which? As a result, it was the most expensive gubernatorial campaign of all time in Florida. On January 6, 2015, Scott was sworn in for his second term.

Second term (2015-2019)

After entering into his second term, former state law enforcement director Gerald Bailey filed a lawsuit against Scott after the governor had previously suspended him from his post. While Scott justified his decision with a pure restructuring measure, Bailey accuses him of political motives. Bailey said Scott had asked senior officials from the agency to publicly support him in the 2014 election campaign, which Director Bailey denied, citing the agency's bipartisanship.

In January 2015, Scott suffered another political setback when the Republican party leadership in Florida rejected his preferred candidate for the state party chairman and named MP Blaise Ingoglia as chairman.

Scott is known for his support for the death penalty. Since taking office as governor, he has countersigned a number of death warrants and thus refused a pardon . Of the 90 death sentences carried out in Florida since 1976, 19 were passed between 2012 and February 2015.

Scott has denied the existence of man-made climate change . In March 2015 it was announced that it employees of the executive branch concepts such as climate change or global warming was prohibited the state from the Scott government to use in official documents. This decision met with heavy criticism from Democrats and the general public. Scott's positions on climate change had also previously been discussed controversially.

On May 15, 2015, Scott signed a bill to simplify voter registration. With the new legal situation, citizens entitled to vote can register online.

During the 2016 presidential campaign , Scott spoke out in favor of real estate entrepreneur Donald Trump . His endorsement came on March 16, 2016, one day after Trump won the Florida area code by a clear margin. Scott became chairman of the Super PAC , which supported Trump's presidential campaign. During Donald Trump's presidency in 2017, Scott often appeared by his side, in the White House , in Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate on the Florida coast and at Trump's golf club in New Jersey . It was only during his 2018 Senate election campaign that Scott heavily cut Trump's meetings and mentions.

Candidate for the US Senate in 2018

On April 9, 2018, Scott announced his candidacy for the United States Senate . This was preceded by months of media speculation. Most recently, President Trump also spoke out in favor of Scott as a senator. Because of his popularity among Republican supporters, his financial resources, and an existing campaign organization, he was able to nominate his party in the primary election in late August without any problems. In the actual Senate election on November 6, 2018, Scott met the Democratic mandate holder Bill Nelson . On the same day there was also a vote on Scott's successor in the governorship, for which he was no longer allowed to run after two terms. Right from the start, Scott invested large sums of money in television advertising in Florida's expensive media markets and sought the support of Latinos, so polls and politicians gave him the lead over Nelson in May 2018. The first poll after the area code saw both politicians at 49 percent each. While Republicans pointed out that Scott received more votes in the primary than any previous Senate candidate in Florida, Democrats hoped that the nomination of African-American Andrew Gillum as gubernatorial candidate would mobilize minorities. On election night, Scott was slightly ahead, declaring his victory over Nelson; Scott sees the preliminary result, however, with a lead of 12,500 votes and a total of 8.1 million votes cast, so narrowly ahead (0.15 percentage points) that a recount of the votes was ordered on November 10th. The recount showed a victory for Scott by around 10,000 votes.

Rick Scott was originally due to be sworn in as the new Senator on January 3, 2019. However, since his term as governor did not officially end until January 7, 2019 and he could not hold both offices at the same time, he postponed his swearing-in as senator to January 8, 2019. Alternatively, he could have resigned and the remaining four days of Vice-Governor Carlos López -Cantera can be bridged until the newly elected governor Ron DeSantis officially takes office. With his delayed swearing in, however, he loses seniority in the US Senate.

Private life

Scott lives in Naples with his family . He has been married to his wife Frances since 1972 and has two daughters.

Web links

Commons : Rick Scott  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

• Web presence of the governor (English)
• The Official Website of Rick Scott (English)
• Rick Scott in the National Governors Association (English)
• Florida Governors' Portraits

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Scott defeats Nelson in Florida Senate race after bitter recount fight , November 18, 2018, The Hill
2. ↑ HCA is Said to Reach Deal on Settlement of Fraud Case. In: The New York Times , December 18, 2002; Davi Stires: Bringing HCA Back to Life After years of scandal, the hospital chain is healthy again - and might just be a buy. In: CNN.con , February 29, 2004.
3. ^ Ex-Columbia chief helps grow Solantic. In: Jacksonville Business Journal , April 17, 2006.
4. ↑ Life without a voice. In: sueddeutsche.de. November 6, 2016, accessed May 10, 2018 . 
5. ↑ Small newspaper: Long waiting time in front of polling stations in Florida from November 3, 2012
6. ↑ Real Clear Politics: Florida Governor: Rick Scott vs. Charlie Crist
7. ↑ Florida Governor Holds Up Debate Over Challenger's Fan , Time, Oct.15, 2014
8. ↑ Foreign shame in Florida: US politicians argue over fan , Der Siegel, October 16, 2014
9. ^ New York Times: Governor Election Results
10. ↑ ^{a b} Rick Scott Embroiled In Scandal At Start Of Second Term , Huffington Post Politics, February 5, 2015.
11. ↑ DeathPenaltyInfo.org .
12. ↑ Florida threatens to become chaos , Handelsblatt, March 18, 2015.
13. ↑ Gov. Rick Scott with 'some hesitation' signs online voter registration law , TampaBay, May 15, 2015
14. ↑ Gov. Rick Scott of Florida Endorses Donald Trump , New York Times, March 16, 2016.
15. ↑ Marc Caputo: Rick Scott plays 'keep away from Trump'. In: Politico , September 10, 2018.
16. ↑ Florida Gov. Rick Scott Announces Senate Campaign. ( Memento of the original from April 12, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Time , April 9, 2018. 
17. ^ Adam C. Smith: New Florida poll shows dead heat governors' races, Rick Scott edging Bill Nelson. In: The Tampa Bay Times , May 8, 2018; Adam C. Smith: Florida Insider Poll: Doubts about Bill Nelson beating Rick Scott grow. In: The Tampa Bay Times , May 10, 2018; Chuck Todd , Mark Murray, Carrie Dann: In Florida Senate race, Dems face down a daunting price tag. In: NBC News , May 15, 2018.
18. ↑ Ledyard King: Dead heat: Poll finds pivotal Florida Senate race between Rick Scott and Bill Nelson tied. In: USA Today , September 5, 2018; John Kennedy: Could Andrew Gillum victory give boost to Bill Nelson? In: The Daytona Beach News-Journal , September 1, 2018. See also poll compilation Florida Senate - Scott vs. Nelson. In: RealClearPolitics.
19. ^ John Kennedy: Florida's US Senate race headed for recount. In: Gainesville.com , November 7, 2018; Matt Dixon, Marc Caputo: Florida readies for massive recount. In: Politico , November 8, 2018; Gregory Krieg, Ryan Nobles, Ellie Kaufman, Dan Merica: Florida recounts begin as tensions escalate across state. In: CNN.com , November 10, 2018.
20. ↑ Reuters: Republican Scott secures Florida US Senate seat after recount , accessed November 19, 2018
21. ↑ Rick Scott Will Finish His Term As Governor Of Florida, Delays Joining US Senate For 5 Days , WLRN, December 4, 2018 (English)