Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink said Thursday that Rick Scott’s past and character will be at the forefront of the governor’s race as she enters the arena, possibly foreshadowing a continuation of some of the same personal negativity that marked the primary.
Speaking to reporters following Thursday’s meeting of the governor and Cabinet, Florida’s Chief Financial Officer said she will continue to ask Scott to explain his leadership at health care giant Columbia/HCA and later at Solantic, a Jacksonville-based urgent care company he help found and in which he remains a primary investor.
Three years after he resigned as CEO, Columbia/HCA paid $1.7 billion to settle charges it defrauded Medicaid and Medicare. Scott wasn’t charged with any wrongdoing and left the company, but what he knew about the fraud was a major issue in the Republican gubernatorial primary. Rival Bill McCollum said Scott was culpable on some level, and at least had to explain to people why his company got in so much trouble while he was at the helm. Scott, for his part, has said the company made mistakes and if he had to do it over again, he would have had more control over other company officials and more of a finger on what was going on.
Scott has also refused to release a deposition in a lawsuit filed recently against Solantic by a physician who says the company was overbilling for some services.
“Floridians deserve to know about their candidate’s background and their record,” Sink said in her first informal meeting with reporters following her easy victory Tuesday in a perfunctory Democratic primary.
While McCollum was apparently unsuccessful in his attempts to use Scott’s business past against him, Sink said the issue would resonate more clearly among independent voters, whose support will be needed by either candidate to win.
“I have never been associated with any whiff of scandal or corruption or cheating the government,” Sink said. “The people of Florida need to know my record and they will.”
Meanwhile, McCollum, also speaking publicly for the first time since losing the primary, declined to endorse Scott on Thursday. He didn’t say he would back Sink, noting he has clear philosophical differences with her.
“I still have serious questions (about Scott) and I’ve had them throughout (the campaign),” McCollum said.
Earlier this month, Scott said he would not make public a deposition in the Solantic case, saying it is a private legal matter. Another deposition that Scott gave 10 years ago related to Columbia/HCA has been made public, leaked in the waning days of the governor’s race. In that deposition, Scott took the Fifth Amendment 75 times in the course of the deposition.
Sink has, in a sense, told voters that she won’t go negative, in an ad.
Sink’s first TV ad went up while McCollum and Scott were still slugging it out in the primary, and made fun of them for their negative campaigns. She says in the ad that the only fighting she’ll do is for Floridians.
By Michael Peltier
The News Service of Florida
