Politics
Top 10 firms finish Q2 with $1.5M+
Lobbying compensation reports for the second quarter dropped earlier this month, and each of the state’s Top 10 shops held steady in the $1.5 million-plus range.
Here’s Florida Politics’ rundown of the No. 6 through No. 10 firms in the second quarter; check out the full lobby firm rankings and stay tuned for a closer look at how the Top 5 firms fared in Q2.
A reminder: Florida Politics estimates how much firms earn based on the middle number of the per-client ranges they list on their compensation reports. Firms report contracts in $10,000 increments. Compensation reports also include firm-level ranges, giving outsiders a rough idea of their minimum and maximum earnings.
Florida Politics ranks lobbying firm earnings based on the middle number of the per-client ranges listed on compensation reports. Contracts are reported in $10,000 increments. Compensation reports also include firm-level ranges, which can give outsiders a rough idea of a firm’s minimum and maximum earnings.
Florida lobbyists and lobbying firms faced a mid-August deadline to file compensation reports for the period covering Oct. 1 through Dec. 31. Compensation reports for the first quarter are due to the state on Nov. 14.
No. 6: Ron Book PA
The firm led by Ron Book, with partners Rana Brown, Kelly Mallette and Gabriela Navarro, reported $2.45 million in legislative revenues and $565,000 in executive earnings during the second quarter. Combined, that puts the firm’s median estimate at just over $3 million, with a top-end range suggesting it could have earned nearly $3.94 million. Book & Co. represented 111 legislative clients and 107 executive clients between April 1 and June 30.
The firm’s Q2 reports once again featured several standout contracts that broke through the $50,000 cap on range reporting, meaning the totals are exact. Performance Title Services led the way with $186,000 in payments, followed by Title Clerk Consulting Company at $160,000 and disaster management company Ashbritt at $100,000. Each was among the largest contracts filed by any firm statewide.
On the executive side, Ashbritt held the top spot with another $100,000 payment, while 7-11 added $51,000 and Hard Rock Stadium contributed $45,000. A handful of other well-known companies, such as Florida Power & Light and Related Ross Miami Project, also ranked among the firm’s major clients this quarter.
Book’s four-member team has long been a fixture in Tallahassee and with two quarters in the books, the firm has collected just over $6 million in 2025, affirming its long-held status as one of the state’s most consistently high-performing lobbying shops.
No. 7: Corcoran Partners
Michael Corcoran and the 12-member team at Corcoran Partners reported $1.66 million in legislative revenues and $788,000 in executive branch pay in Q2, for a combined $2.45 million.
Based on the upper ranges of its contracts, the firm could have earned up to $3.6 million last quarter. The client sheet counted 132 contracts in both the Legislature and the executive branch.
As in past quarters, several high-profile clients stood out. Fontainebleau Development, the luxury real estate developer behind Miami’s flagship resort, led the way with $136,000 in payments split evenly across both reports. The Florida Optometric Association also posted six-figure payments, sending $120,000 to the firm during the quarter. Both were among the top-paying clients statewide.
Beyond those marquee names, the firm’s Q2 client list features some of the most recognizable companies and institutions operating in Florida. Verizon, Walmart, Florida Crystals, Nova Southeastern University and the Philadelphia Phillies — one of several Major League Baseball teams to hold spring training in the Sunshine State — were all represented.
Besides Michael Corcoran, the second-quarter team included Jacqueline Corcoran, Noah Corcoran, Matt Blair, Brian Ford, Jeff Hawes, Helen Levine, Will Rodriguez and Andrea Tovar.
Altogether, Corcoran Partners has banked nearly $4.9 million through the first half of 2025. If that pace holds, the firm is on track to surpass $9.5 million for the year.
No. 8: The Advocacy Partners
The seven-member team at The Advocacy Partners turned in another strong set of reports, with $1.04 million in legislative earnings and $1.21 million in executive branch pay between April 1 and June 30.
Altogether, the firm’s Q2 median estimate came to $2.25 million, with a top-end range suggesting it could have earned as much as $3.13 million. The reports listed 97 legislative clients and 109 executive clients.
Several contracts stood out on the legislative side. Advocating for Seniors, TECO Energy and Phoenix Holding Company — the parent of disaster management firms Tidal Basin and Tidal Basin Caribe — each paid $35,000 for the quarter. The client sheet also included household names such as Walt Disney Parks & Resorts and autonomous driving technology company Waymo, both listed in the $25,000 bracket.
On the executive side, Starbucks emerged as the top client with a $45,000 contract. It was followed by a diverse mix of consumer brands, technology firms and emergency management companies — notables at the $35,000 level included Eightfold AI, Entratus, Inktel Government BPO Services, MIS Security, PayIt and Tidal Basin Group.
The Advocacy Partners’ second-quarter team included Slater Bayliss, Christopher Chaney, Alex Poitras, Steve Schale, Stephen Shiver, Sarah Suskey and Jeff Woodburn.
With $4.25 million collected through the first half of the year, The Advocacy Partners is barreling toward an $8.5 million annual total. If the numbers remain consistent through the back half of 2025, TAG would be celebrating a nearly $1 million revenue bump year-over-year.
No. 9: Greenberg Traurig
National law and lobbying powerhouse Greenberg Traurig continued its run in the Top 10, reporting $1.16 million in legislative fees and $755,000 in executive branch revenues during the second quarter.
The combined total of $1.92 million places the firm comfortably in the ninth slot on Florida Politics’ rankings. Based on the upper ranges, GTLaw could have pulled in as much as $2.76 million between April 1 and June 30. Its Q2 reports listed 105 legislative contracts and 127 executive branch contracts.
The legislative sheet was topped by a set of six clients that each paid $45,000: Baptist Health South Florida, Guy Carpenter & Company, Heritage Property & Casualty Insurance, Moody’s Analytics, Slide Insurance Holdings and Slide MGA. Those same insurance and reinsurance interests carried over to the executive branch report, where Heritage and both Slide entities also ranked at the top with $45,000 apiece.
Other notable legislative clients included Apartment Income REIT Corp., Humana Medical Plan, the Seminole Tribe of Florida and EXP Global, each paying $35,000 for the quarter.
The Greenberg Traurig roster features Roger Beaubien, Christian Brito, Gus Corbella, Hayden Dempsey, Fred Karlinsky and Timothy Stanfield.
Through the first two quarters of 2025, Greenberg Traurig has reported about $4 million in revenues. If the firm maintains its current pace, it is on track to hit $8 million for the year — a performance consistent with its $7.81 million showing in 2024.
No. 10: Metz Husband & Daughton
The nine-member team at Metz Husband & Daughton held steady in the Top 10 with $1.24 million in legislative revenues and $535,000 in executive branch earnings during the second quarter.
Together, those reports place the firm’s Q2 median total at $1.78 million, with a top-end range suggesting it could have earned as much as $2.64 million. MHD’s filings listed 94 legislative contracts and 94 executive contracts.
Among its legislative clients, Amscot Financial led the way with a $51,000 payment, exceeding the cap on range reporting. General Motors and TikTok followed at $35,000 each, while more than a dozen other contracts landed in the $25,000 bracket.
On the executive side, The Everglades Trust topped the report with a $25,000 contract. Other clients included Adaptive Biotechnologies Corporation, Alteryx, Barron Collier Partnership, Bluebird Bio, Carr Riggs & Ingram, Curaleaf Florida and Ecosystem Investment Partners at $15,000 apiece. The remainder of the executive contracts fell into the up-to-$10,000 tier.
Besides named partners Warren Husband and James Daughton, the team includes Doug Bell, Leslie Dughi, Anna DePaolo, Allison Liby-Schoonover, Aimee Lyon, Andy Palmer and Karl Rasmussen. The group’s collective experience spans the Legislature, state agencies and private-sector leadership positions.
With $3.56 million booked through the first half of 2025, MHD is on pace to top $7 million by year’s end. That would top its performance in 2024, which saw the firm bring in $6.73 million.
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Last Call – A prime-time read of what’s going down in Florida politics.
First Shot
Did Christina Pushaw break the law by asking gubernatorial candidate James Fishback to delete text messages the two exchanged in recent months?
Maybe.
Pushaw, who earns a $179,000 tax-funded salary as a senior management analyst for Gov. Ron DeSantis, all but confirmed the authenticity of texts between her and Fishback in which she appears to have written, “I need you to confirm that you deleted everything with my name on it.”
The exchange has raised questions about whether she solicited the destruction of public records, which would be illegal if the messages involved her government duties, but likely not if they were strictly campaign-related, as she says.
Fishback posted a screenshot of the exchange following a public blowup between the two after they, according to Pushaw, spoke “frequently” since October about Fishback’s campaign.
On X, Pushaw accused Fishback of deception, writing: “Thanks for proving my point that you have no qualms about lying and revealing private messages. I truly believed that we were friends, and I feel sickened and violated by this betrayal.”
Pushaw, who has worked for DeSantis as both a campaign and government staffer, says she was never paid for advising Fishback and never told the Governor about her communications with Fishback.
In a brief phone interview on Monday, she said none of her messages with Fishback touched her state job.
“I never talked to him about government business,” she said. She declined to explicitly confirm the authenticity of Fishback’s screenshots, including one that referenced her government position.
Read more on Florida Politics.
Evening Reads
—“Donald Trump ties Greenland takeover bid to Nobel Prize in text to Norway leader” via Ellen Francis and Steve Hendrix of The Washington Post
—”Trump’s letter to Norway should be the last straw” via Anne Applebaum of The Atlantic
—”Trump’s Greenland move is one of the dumbest political decisions I have ever seen” via Chris Cillizza of So What
—”The race to build the DeepSeek of Europe is on” via Joel Khalili of WIRED
—”Three maps tell a tale of the 2026 Midterms.” via Ashley Cai and Shane Goldmacher of The New York Times
—”Orlando Sentinel 150: Remembering MLK’s only visit to Orlando in 1964” via the Orlando Sentinel
—“Jeff Brandes: Six ideas Legislature can’t afford to ignore in 2026” via Jeff Brandes for Florida Politics
—”The Indiana-Miami CFP game is the Hollywood tangle we didn’t know we needed” via Steven Zeitchik of The Hollywood Reporter
—”‘It shaped my DNA’: The very Miami story of Mario Cristobal” via Andrea Adelson of ESPN
—”Two other Hoosiers from Miami are coming home, too — and could play a big role” via David J. Neal and Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald
Quote of the Day
“I didn’t vote for this weather.”
— Marc Caputo on a frigid morning in Miami.
Put it on the Tab
Look to your left, then look to your right. If you see one of these people at your happy hour haunt, flag down the bartender and put one of these on your tab. Recipes included, just in case the Cocktail Codex fell into the well.
Even though it’s booze-free, the Duval delegation could use a Cortisol Cocktail to calm their nerves after a bomb threat landed in their inboxes.
Disney and Universal are getting an Investigators Rite, courtesy of Central Florida Democrats, who are requesting they look into a company that operates independent restaurants on their properties.
Someone should’ve sent an Out of Office for Attorney General James Uthmeier, because he picked an odd day to drop his latest opinion.
Breakthrough Insights
Tune In
Miami plays for national title at home
The Miami Hurricanes try for the program’s first national championship since 2001 when they face top-seeded Indiana at Hard Rock Stadium tonight (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN).
Miami entered the College Football Playoff as the 10th seed and knocked off Texas A&M, Ohio State, and Ole Miss to reach the finals. The Hurricanes (13-2) have benefitted from a defense that has limited opponents to 14 points per game this season. Defensive end Rueben Bain Jr. was named the ACC defensive player of the year and is a likely Top 10 pick in the NFL Draft.
Indiana (15-0) has enjoyed the greatest season in program history. In the second season under Curt Cignetti, the Hoosiers have not only won more games than they ever have in a season, but also more than the program ever did in two consecutive seasons combined before Cignetti’s arrival.
The Hoosiers are led by Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza.
The two programs have met twice in history, with Indiana winning the first meeting in 1964 and the Hurricanes taking the return match in 1966. The two programs have not met since.
The last time a college football team won the national championship by winning a game on its home field was the Hurricanes, who won the Orange Bowl following the 1987 season to win the program’s second of five national championships.
___
Last Call is published by Peter Schorsch, assembled and edited by Phil Ammann and Drew Wilson, with contributions from the staff of Florida Politics.
Gubernatorial candidate James Fishback’s legal woes are deepening.
A federal magistrate Judge has ordered Fishback, the founder and CEO of Azoria Capital, to turn over company stock certificates and a slate of luxury purchases to the U.S. Marshals Service by the end of the month as payment on a $229,000 judgment to his former employer, Greenlight Capital.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Martin Fitzpatrick of the Northern District of Florida granted two unopposed motions by Greenlight after Fishback failed to respond by a court-ordered deadline.
It’s the latest escalation in a dispute between Greenlight and Fishback, a former analyst for the hedge fund who has made more headlines recently for his race-baiting rhetoric in the Governor’s race, allegations of grooming, multistate voter registration and public blowup with Gov. Ron DeSantis adviser Christina Pushaw.
Greenlight told the court that Fishback still owes it money under a June 2025 court order. The firm asked the court in late November to compel Fishback to surrender his stock or share certificates in Azoria Capital, Inc., a Delaware corporation Greenlight described as founded by Fishback and controlled by him at “75% or more.”
Because Fishback did not oppose the request, the court granted it and directed him to “locate, obtain, and turn over” all Azoria stock and/or share certificates to the U.S. Marshals Service by Jan. 30.
The Marshals Service, in turn, is ordered to sell the stock for the benefit of Greenlight as the judgment creditor. Fitzpatrick warned Fishback that federal courts have inherent authority to enforce orders and cautioned that ignoring the directive could place him “in danger of being held in contempt of court.”
Fitzpatrick also granted a second motion by Greenlight seeking the turnover of personal property belonging to Fishback. The firm alleged that Fishback claimed he lacked means to pay the $229,000 judgment while making more than $37,000 in debit card purchases over 16 months through a previously undisclosed JPMorgan Chase account.
The court summarized transactions at retailers including eBay, Nordstrom, Burberry, Bucherer and others, but noted it did not know what exactly Fishback purchased. Still, Fitzpatrick described the spending as “extravagant” and found that Fishback, by not responding by the deadline, waived his chance to argue the items were exempt or not personal property.
Under the order, Fishback must turn over 43 items listed in the motion paper, along with a list, to the Marshals Service by Jan. 30. The Marshals must hold the items for 30 days, allowing Greenlight’s lawyers to retrieve and sell them as partial satisfaction of the judgment.
Fishback worked at Greenlight from 2021 to 2023, after which he and the company became embroiled in a very public dispute over how he described his role there. He said he was “head of macro” for Greenlight, while the New York hedge fund insisted no such title ever existed and that the loftiest role Fishback held was as a research analyst.
Greenlight alleged that Fishback misrepresented his position to boost credibility and attract investors for Azoria. Fishback, meanwhile, argued Greenlight’s denial harmed him with potential backers and pointed to internal communications he says support his version of events.
He did, however, admit to sharing confidential Greenlight portfolio information and agreed to pay costs to resolve a separate lawsuit.
Trustees of a white-label exchange-traded fund (ETF) under Tidal Financial Group also voted in October to liquidate two Azoria ETFs — SPXM and TSLV, which together held about $40 million in assets — after Fishback admitted to sharing the information.
Between when he launched his campaign on Nov. 24 and Dec. 31, when fourth-quarter bookkeeping closed, Fishback reported raising less than $19,000 through his campaign account and nothing through an affiliated political committee.
Fishback is seeking the Republican nomination for Governor. The race’s poll-tested front-runner, U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, amassed $45 million last quarter.
Rep. Anna Eskamani says she has raised more than $1 million so far as she tries to become the next Orlando Mayor.
The Orlando Democrat says she hit the milestone last week as lawmakers returned to Tallahassee for the start of the 2026 Legislative Session.
Term-limited in the House, Eskamani is running in 2027 to replace Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, who is not running for re-election.
“This campaign is powered by everyday Orlandoans who believe our city can be more affordable, more connected, and safer for everyone,” Eskamani said in a statement.
“Raising over one million dollars from thousands of grassroots donors sends a clear message: people are ready for leadership that listens, leads with integrity, solves problems, and puts community first. Together, we’re building a movement that reflects the heart of Orlando and delivers real results for working families.”
Her campaign has given out 900 yard signs and knocked on more than 33,000 doors in the city, according to a press release.
So far, no other established candidates have filed to run against Eskamani, although she has drawn her first competitor on the ballot: Abdelnasser Lutfi.
Lutfi, who filed to run for Mayor in late December, was not immediately available when reached for comment Monday afternoon.
Eskamani and Lutfi are running to replace Dyer, the longest-serving Mayor in Orlando’s history. Dyer was first elected in 2003.
Eskamani also said she is launching a podcast called “Twinning with Anna and Ida” with her twin sister.
“Every episode will unpack economic public policy issues that are critically important to everyone, but aren’t always well understood by the vast majority of people — often because they have been made intentionally opaque by politicians and the corporations who fund them to benefit from the complex system,” a press release said.
“But they will also have some fun along the way, from exposing a ‘grift of the month’ in Florida politics to exploring the punk rock scene in Orlando.”
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