SCOTT: Here’s what — here’s what we should be doing. We should have a legal process for the people who come to the country. We should have a work visa program so people know that they can come here for a period of time and our employers can get workers. All right. I believe over time that if we set up a process that works, the illegal immigration process problem will go away. And I believe that will happen.

KING: Miss Sink, I’m going to give you time to respond then we’ll take our first break. We’ll continue the conversation. But do you have a substantive disagreement with what he just said about having an Arizona-style law and then enforcing businesses and keeping watch? Do you disagree with what he just said?

SINK: Well, very quickly, because I have to go back to these charges that have been levied about me in the previous comment that he made. But let me tell you my plan for immigration. Florida is not Arizona. But I would have a plan that would call for increasing the fines and penalties on businesses that knowingly hire illegal workers and take jobs away from Floridians and from legal immigrants.

And I’ve been talking extensively with law enforcement about what they believe an effective immigration policy should be. And law enforcement tells me and they support me. I’ve been endorsed by the two largest law enforcement organizations in the state. The first time in 20 years that they’ve endorsed a Democrat because they know they can trust me.

And they are concerned about having their resources stretched so thin and not being able to adequately protect Floridians from serious crimes. So I’m going to confer with law enforcement when it comes to immigration policy.

KING: Looking back to this issue later, I’m certain. We’re going to take our first quick break. We have the two candidates for governor of Florida here. When we come back, the state has nearly 12 percent unemployment. Jobs are the number one issue in this campaign. Also the integrity of the next governor, as you can tell, these two don’t trust each other. We’ll pick up there when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We’re back in Tampa, Florida, at the University of South Florida. Let’s continue with our questioning of the two candidates for Florida governor, Republican Rick Scott and Democrat Alex Sink. Before the break, as you have throughout the campaign, you were both pretty blunt in questioning the integrity of the other. Mr. Scott, I want to start with you. You tell people as you travel the state you want to run Florida like a business. I want to look into a bit of what we know about your business.

When you were the chairman of Columbia HCA, you once gave a deposition, this is in January 1997, in which you were being asked questions about some letters that were keys to a fraud case. And you said you didn’t know if you had signed those letters, and you said, quote, “I sign letters all the time that I have not read.” If you were the chief executive of the state of Florida, is that the practice you will employ?

SCOTT: If you look at letters you sign, you’d sign a lot of letters when you’re a CEO of a company. It’s — you know, award letters and all sorts of things like that. So there’s a lot of letter that you sign. You trust the people around you.

KING: These were letters that were critical to trying to prove fraud allegations.

SCOTT: Yes, I don’t know that issue at all. But you know one —

KING: You don’t know the issue in which you gave a deposition that involves your company?

SCOTT: That was a long time ago. That’s what 13 years ago. But here’s what you do as CEO. All right? I mean we had 285,000 employees. And we had — you know, we had millions of contracts in that company.

So what you do as CEO is you surround yourself with the smartest people you can and you trust them. You know, you do what Ronald Reagan said, you trust and verify as much as you can. So I don’t know the factors in that case, but that’s what I will do, that’s what I did in that company and that’s what I’ll do as governor.

KING: If you read that deposition — I’m sorry. If you read through the depositions and many who have had said at times, you appear to be deflecting or trying to be evasive. And I understand some of these are lawsuits against the company, you need to protect proprietary information. I understand that completely, but in one of the depositions, this January 16, 1997. The same deposition. I don’t know what your definition or anybody’s definition of an agreement is or an offer is or promise is. I can read those words to you, but to say that it’s something else, I have no idea.

SCOTT: If you look at — it’s a lawsuit. Right? And they’re trying to get to you to define — make a legal definition of something, so that’s not what you do as a CEO.

SMITH: Six days before you announced your candidacy for governor, you gave a deposition. You’re running on your business record. You don’t really have a public record. People are asking you to release the deposition. Doesn’t that make sense?

SCOTT: No. It’s a– it was a legal dispute. It was settled. It has nothing to do with running for governor. Has nothing to do with anything that we were doing.

Look, this race is about one issue. This race is about jobs. When you go around the state, people care about jobs. That’s what I’m running on. I’m running because I have a history of building private-sector jobs and that’s what I’m running on.

KING: I want to jump in on that point because — and I want to get to Miss Sink in there. But you say this race is about jobs, but as someone who’s never held public office, people of Florida need to trust the person who’ll be at the statehouse in Tallahassee.

And I think one of the question is, do you favor full disclosure? As Adam said, just six days before you announced your candidacy, so you knew when you were giving that deposition, that you were going to be running for governor of Florida. You don’t think the people have any right — understanding again there could be sensitive information in there to know what it was about, to see a redacted version, nothing?

SCOTT: No. Look, here — all this comes up because my opponent doesn’t have a plan. She’s never created a private sector job in her life. Never put her money up at — put her money at risk. And so to change the debate she just attacks. The only reason we’re having this discussion is because she’s attacked me —

SCOTT: The only reason we’re having a discussion is because she’s attacked me over…

KING: You…

SCOTT: — this issue.

SMITH: You’ve campaigned sort of as a — as a watchdog, a fiscal watchdog. And yet, on your watch, we’ve had issues with a — with a very extravagant courthouse that you inspected after concerns were raised; concerns about how the pension has — has suffered.
It seems like there were a lot of cases where you weren’t speaking up ahead of time, you were more reacting.

SINK: Let me go back, because I cannot sit here and hear Rick Scott continue to tell lies about me. Rick, in my career, I was a banker. My whole career I spent making loans to small businesses. You’d better believe I understand what it is to create businesses. I…

SCOTT: Hey, putting up your money…

SINK: Excuse…

SCOTT: — is totally different.

SINK: How do you…

SCOTT: Putting up your money is totally different.

SINK: But let’s — let’s just get the facts here. I have put up my money. I’ve invested in a biotech company, a very small startup company. I did have my money at risk. I had to make payroll a couple of times. So Rick Scott does not know what the facts are. He’s run a campaign based on nine or 10 sound bites. And that’s all we’ve heard from him. And this is — I — I want the visitors to hear that he is levying these ideas of charges about me. He doesn’t know a thing about me.

He also doesn’t know very much about Florida. He hasn’t been here long enough to know much about Florida. And I think that’s what’s important is character and integrity. The people of Florida don’t want a governor who will sit and tell falsehoods and make statements about his or her opponent when he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And he says that…

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About The Author

John Guilfoil is the editor-in-chief of Blast: Boston's Online Magazine and the Blast Magazine Network. He can be reached at [email protected]. Tweet @johnguilfoil.

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