{"id":42826,"date":"2019-05-13T21:36:48","date_gmt":"2019-05-14T01:36:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=42826"},"modified":"2019-05-13T21:36:58","modified_gmt":"2019-05-14T01:36:58","slug":"lobbyist-is-michael-welch-breaking-the-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2019\/05\/lobbyist-is-michael-welch-breaking-the-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Lobbyist: Is Michael Welch breaking the law?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Welch lists on LinkedIn<\/a> account\nthat he does local and state lobbying in the State of Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Is Welch a registered lobbyist in the State of Florida? NO\nas of 5\/13\/2019 and never has been! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Has Welch been paid to do lobbying activities YES, is he\nregistered NO, has he ever done a full disclosure of activities when lobbying\nNO \u2026\u2026. Has he broken the law YES \u2026.. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welsh list himself as the Managing Partner of Building Industry Issues of Southwest Florida, LLC is a multi-facet organization that specializes in diverse areas:
1) Business development for commercial construction with a special interest in senior living communities. Special emphasis on non-profit\/Catholic\/religious sponsored projects
2) Business development for several companies and entities in South Florida.
3) Local and state lobbying in the State of Florida<\/strong>
4) Managing and advising local and state political campaigns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should the membership and the board of the Greater Lehigh\nAcres Chamber of Commerce be worried about Mr. Welch lobbying activities since\nhe is the current Chairman of the board? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should the board\u2019s members of the Lehigh Acres Municipal\nServices Improvement District and voters of Lehigh Acres wonder why this man is\nbreaking the law?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If an individual qualifies as a “lobbyist” or an\nactivity counts as “lobbying” based on the definitions of these\nterms, a whole host of laws may come into effect. Registration, disclosures,\ngift restrictions and prohibitions – all of these and more depend on the\ndefinitions of lobbying and lobbyist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

States generally define lobbying as an attempt to\ninfluence government action through either written or oral communication. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

State of Florida defines lobbying and Lobbyist as the\nfollowing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLobbying\u201d means influencing or attempting to influence\nlegislative action or nonaction through oral or written communication or an\nattempt to obtain the goodwill of a member or employee of the Legislature. Fla.\nStat. Ann. \u00a7 11.045.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLobbyist\u201d means a person who is employed and receives\npayment, or who contracts for economic consideration, for the purpose of\nlobbying, or a person who is principally employed for governmental affairs by\nanother person or governmental entity to lobby on behalf of that other person\nor governmental entity. Fla. Stat. Ann. \u00a7 11.045.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does not include (1) an attorney who represents a client in\na judicial proceeding or in a formal administrative proceeding or any other\nformal hearing before an agency, board, commission, or authority of this state;\n(2) an employee of an agency or legislative or judicial branch entity acting in\nthe normal course of his or her duties; (3) a confidential informant providing\nconfidential information to be used for law enforcement purposes; a person who\nlobbies to procure a contract less than $20,000. Fla. Stat. Ann. \u00a7 112.3215\n& 287.017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welch lists on LinkedIn account that he does local and state lobbying in the State of Florida. Is Welch a registered lobbyist in the State of Florida? NO as of… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":42827,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42826"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}