Bertica Cabrera-Morris, Derek Bruce, and Jason Searl are three members of the Orange County Redistricting Committee. These three individuals are also Florida lobbyists who have principals with SeaWorld Parks, the New York Yankees, and have contributed major money to the political campaigns of Sandy Adams and Karen Diebel.
Mr. Bruce, the chairman of the committee, currently lobbies in the Florida State Legislature for Advanced Disposal Services, an environmental services company, Moore Stephens Lovelace, an accounting and consulting firm, and Petra Solar, a clean energy technology company. Bruce’s lobbying firm, Edge Public Affairs, contributed $250 to Protect America’s Future PAC, the political action committee founded by former Republican U.S. Senator George LeMieux.
Bruce is also a registered lobbyist in Orange County where he services SeaWorld and the Allegiance Security Group just to name a couple.
Next there’s Bertica Cabrera-Morris. Mrs. Cabrera-Morris is a member of the Valencia College board of trustees and she also owns Bertica Cabrera Consulting, which is a “public relations and governmental affairs consulting firm that represents Fortune 100 and 500 companies” according to Valencia’s website.
Mrs. Cabrera-Morris’ firm contributed almost $1,000 to Republican Karen Diebel’s campaign in 2010 when she ran for Congress. She was recently hired by Baseball Enterprises and the New York Yankees to lobby for a new minor league baseball stadium to be built on International Drive right next to the Orange County Convention Center.
Unfortunately for the Yankees and Cabrera-Morris, Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs turned the proposal down.
Attorney Jason Searl is a registered lobbyist but works for a firm with a principal list that includes Wal-Mart, University of Central Florida, and the Central Florida Sports Commission. Mr. Searl may not have lobbied for any of the aforementioned companies as they may well be clients of his law firm, Gray Robinson.
While the members of the committee may have the best intention to create politically fair districts it still makes the waters murky when three members of the board are political lobbyists.
Are these individuals really attempting to serve the needs of the people or just the wants of their corporate affiliations?
The general point of a lobbyist is to influence legislation for special interests. What’s the special interest of the lobbyists who sit on this board?
At the end of the day I hope it’s the people.
-JH
