Dem Fla. Senator helps pass bill to give her charity $1.5 mil, GOP Gov. approves it

A Democrat Florida state lawmaker helped pass a bill that allocated $1.5 million to a nonprofit that she founded and pays her a six-figure salary and the state's Republican governor approved it. The legislator, state Senator Lauren Book, represents south Florida's Broward county and in 2007 she founded a charity called Lauren's Kids to educate adults and children about sexual abuse prevention through school curricula, awareness campaigns and speaking engagements. [...]

As chief executive officer of her charity Book receives a generous $135,000 annual salary, according to a nonprofit investigative journalism conglomerate that broke the story about this outrageous conflict of interest. Since 2012 Lauren's Kids has received north of $10 million in taxpayer money because the senator’s father, Ron Book, is a prominent lobbyist who happens to be the group's chairman. [...]

A follow-up story by the same investigative journalism outlet reveals that the senator's charity paid Sachs Media Group $3.1 million between 2012 and 2015 as well as a yet-to-be-disclosed amount in 2016. "Millions of taxpayer dollars flowed through the nonprofit to Sachs Media as it both promoted Lauren's Kids and cultivated Sen. Book's public persona as a survivor of child sex abuse," the article states. "Critics say the domination of Lauren's Kids by the senator and her lobbyist-father raises concerns that the work Sachs Media does is more about making her look good, not raising awareness about unreported cases of child sex abuse."

source: Article 'Dem Fla. Senator Helps Pass Bill to Give Her Charity $1.5 Mil, GOP Gov. Approves it'; www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2017/07/dem-fla-senator-helps-pass-bill-give-charity-1-5-mil-gop-gov-approves/; Judicial Watch; 5 July 2017