Wednesday, April 18, 2012

GEO's Deep Pockets in Florida

After spending 80% of the 1 million dollars the private prison industry poured into Florida's 2010 election cycle, the GEO Group watched with dismay as the biggest prison privatization effort in human history was narrowly defeated in the state legislature.  Republicans tried (again) to sneak the privatization effort into the budget as a last-minute amendment, an action that the state Supreme Court had chastised them for in the past, but that also failed to pass.

So after the legislature defeated the privatization push three times, the GEO Group appears to have not gotten the message.  A PAC that supports quasi-criminal governor Ric Scott has already raised nearly $500,000 for the coming election, with nearly a quarter of that coming from the GEO Group.  I imagine this is just the beginning of what will be a tidal wave of political spending by the company in its home state.  Which will probably be shortly followed by yet another proposal to privatize half the state's prison system.

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