The party s publicly filed documents disclose spending for fundraisers such as a $71,000 Disney crui

As other politicians had done before and would do after, Scott was departing for historic King Ranch, one of North America s premier hunting grounds. The trips, used travel trailers for sale by owner records indicate, were financed all or in part with contributions from Florida s sugar industry, right down to the hunting licenses.
Scott won t answer questions about his trip. After weeks of requests from the Times/Herald, his campaign staff released a one-paragraph statement Friday saying he had gone to King Ranch in support of his political fundraising efforts.
Also keeping mum: state House leaders who have accepted similar trips in the past three years, ever since U.S. Sugar leased 30,000 acres at the ranch and built a hunting lodge amid its rolling hills.
The urge to keep details about the trips confidential is so strong among Florida s elected officials that Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam s press secretary shut a door in the face of a reporter asking about King Ranch.
used travel trailers for sale by owner A Times/Herald analysis shows that since late 2011, U.S. Sugar paid more than $95,000 to the Republican Party of Florida for at least 20 weekend trips destinations unspecified on public documents within days of more than a dozen Florida politicians registering for Texas hunting licenses.
By not disclosing their King Ranch trips, officials and sugar lobbyists have avoided any scrutiny of their private dealings with each other and whether their relations influence decision making on state agricultural issues, including the future of the Everglades.
Others, including House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, and incoming House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, have registered for Texas hunting licenses in the past three years. But they refused to say whether they had visited King Ranch. And all current elected officials deferred to political professionals, who refused to talk about the trips.
Legislators and hunting have long made a combustible mix in Florida. In 1992, when Democrats controlled the Legislature, two dozen lawmakers used travel trailers for sale by owner faced criminal charges after accepting free trips from corporate used travel trailers for sale by owner lobbyists, including some to hunt at game preserves in Georgia, Texas and Mexico.
used travel trailers for sale by owner Current law lets donors give unlimited contributions to parties and political committees, as long as the gift serves a vaguely defined campaign purpose. Parties can then turn around and bestow the gifts on politicians, who need not tell taxpayers what they received or who paid for it.
The sugar industry including not only U.S. Sugar but also King Ranch, which owns thousands of acres of sugarcane in Florida has frequently sought help from the politicians who accepted the Texas hunting trips. Just last year, for instance, the Legislature approved, and Gov. Scott signed, a bill that promises to save the industry millions on pollution cleanup in the Everglades.
It looks to me like they found a way around the gift ban, Leon County state attorney Willie Meggs, who prosecuted the 1992 case, said when told about the King Ranch trips. It may not be illegal, used travel trailers for sale by owner but there s probably something wrong with it because it s not transparent.
I have never attended events at King Ranch, said Lenny Curry, state party chairman from 2011 to 2014. Curry, who gave up his post to run for mayor of Jacksonville, would not discuss whether he authorized the hunting trips or even knew about them.
The party s publicly filed documents disclose spending for fundraisers such as a $71,000 Disney cruise to the Bahamas, $74,000 at Pebble Beach, Calif., and $81,000 at a New York Yankees game, all held last summer. The party even logs minor expenses like $6.41 at a Gainesville Chick-Fil-A in November and $2.31 at a Tampa Starbucks in February.
Even though six current or former elected officials confirmed to the Times/Herald that they attended what they called RPOF fundraisers at King Ranch since 2011, there s no mention of King Ranch as an expense, donation or location for fundraising in any party campaign documents.
It should be hard to miss. A two-day hog hunt for up to three hunters at King Ranch costs $3,200. A trophy deer hunt can range between $6,000 and $25,000, according used travel trailers for sale by owner to its website. Hunts for nilgai, the largest Asian antelope, cost up to $850 per day. Those prices don t include lodging or food.
A year after a spending scandal sent former Florida GOP chairman Jim Greer to prison for money laundering, party spokeswoman Susan Hepworth used travel trailers for sale by owner insisted the Republican Party is complying with all state and federal laws regarding its finances.
Hepworth said she was the only RPOF official who could answer questions about the trips. But when asked if anyone other than sugar lobbyists and executives used travel trailers for sale by owner joined the Florida politicians, Hepworth said, I don t know who went on these trips. I don t know what donors went.
In order to build good relationships with politicians, corporations will finance these trips with them, said Anthony Corrado, a Colby College government professor who has written extensively on campaign finance laws. Masking the favor by making it look like a party donation allows them to cultivate a relationship without it looking like a direct contribution.
Neither state nor federal law requires political parties to specifically describe contributions made as gifts of goods and services, otherwise known as in-kind contributions. It s acceptable to report, for instance, used travel trailers for sale by owner a flight worth $4,200 as air travel without specifying the destination.
From November 2011 to March 2014, U.S. Sugar made in-kind contributions for air travel, lodging and meals to the RPOF valued used travel trailers for sale by owner at more than $95,000 for at least 20 weekend used travel trailers for sale by owner trips. Each one was scheduled within used travel trailers for sale by owner days of more than a dozen Florida politicians registering for Texas hunting licenses, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife Department records.
On Feb. 11, 2013, someone registered Gov. Scott for his Texas hunting license. Four days later, the RPOF paid U.S. Sugar $1,029 for travel, meals and a hunting license, the only time in the past four years the party paid the company back. Records don t explain used travel trailers for sale by owner the one-time payback, and Hepworth would not answer questions about it.
State travel used travel trailers for sale by owner records show that also on Feb. 15, agents from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement who guard Scott at all times were deployed in Kingsville, the town created to service King Ranch, but the agents did not have to pay a dime for their stay. FDLE officials said they couldn t explain why the agents did not have to pay.
Putnam confirmed he has gone to King Ranch but refused to furnish details, insisting the RPOF could answer those questions. Putnam s campaign finance reports list a $275 expense for air fare on Feb. 27, 2014, to a Fort Lauderdale private air charter company called Sky Limo. Putnam s campaign, however, lists the address for the company as the Clewiston used travel trailers for sale by owner address of U.S. Sugar. Party documents show that U.S. Sugar gave the party a $260 in-kind contribution for air travel on the same day.
The party did report spending $5,464 on Texas hunting licenses between October 2012 and January 2014 but didn t say who got them or where in the state they were used. Since 2011, Texas records show that 10 leading Florida legislators and a top House staffer registered for hunting licenses and permits that cost a total of $7,147. Derek Whitis, a U.S. Sugar lobbyist, and Malcolm Bubba Wade, a U.S. Sugar senior vice president, also received Texas hunting licenses during this period.
U.S. Sugar gave the party an in-kind contribution of $1,797 for air travel and food for a trip no destination specified used travel trailers for sale by owner from Nov. 3 to Nov. 6, 2011. The weekend trip came 10 days after Weatherford obtained his first Texas hunting license, two weeks after McKeel s first and six weeks after Crisafulli s first.
On Nov. 4, that Friday, Weatherford, McKeel and Kris Money, who serves as deputy chief of staff for Weatherford, registered for Texas permits that allowed them to kill migratory birds. That same week, Crisafulli s political committee paid $86 for a meal at Linda s Main Street Cafe, which is a quarter-mile from King Ranch.
On Dec. 6, 2012, the party paid $1,371 used travel trailers for sale by owner for Texas hunting licenses, according to expenditure reports. On the same day, U.S. Sugar contributed $14,209 to the RPOF for travel expenses and food for a weekend trip. Just 10 days before, Weatherford and Stephen Precourt, then the House s majority leader, registered for Texas hunting licenses.
On April 25, 2013, Rep. Matt Hudson, the chair of the House s health care committee and whose Naples district includes the Clewiston home of U.S. Sugar, had his campaign committee report a $600 expense at Hibler Wild Game, a taxidermist near King Ranch. Three months before, Hudson registered for his first Texas hunting license. Neither Hudson nor a Hibler official would answer questions.
The role that King Ranch itself plays in all this remains unclear. used travel trailers for sale by owner Established in 1853 as Texas first ranch, it is also the largest member of the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida, cultivating 12,500 acres of sugar cane. It s also part-owner of American Sugar Refining, which markets its products under the Domino and C H brands. used travel trailers for sale by owner Its partner is another sugar company, Florida Crystals.
Often what the sugar industry is concerned about most is pollution. used travel trailers for sale by owner In 2003, 42 industry lobbyists persuaded lawmakers used travel trailers for sale by owner to delay the deadline for cleaning up sugar s phosphorous pollution of the Everglades by at least a decade.
In 2008, a judge ruled that the sugar industry s long-standing practice of dumping polluted water into Lake Okeechobee was illegal, and a state agency voted to forbid the practice. U.S. Sugar lobbyists went to see then-Gov. Charlie Crist seeking his help.
Crist proposed the state buy all the company s 187,000 acres and various assets and use it for Everglades restoration projects. But in 2010, amid the economic meltdown, the state bought just 26,800 acres from U.S. Sugar for $197 million, with an option to buy the rest later.
U.S. Sugar has one of Tallahassee s most formidable lobbying cor