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A Moderate, Yet Adventurous Man Forget party labels, lobbyist Justin Day supports people who ‘get stuff done’ BY MITCH PERRY 138 | INFLUENCE WINTER 2016 PHOTO: Benjamin Todd To prove his talk to “drain the swamp” wasn’t just empty campaign rhetoric, Donald Trump’s transition team quickly announced in the immediate aftermath of his shocking victory for president that, to work for him, all incoming officials would need to terminate their lobbying activities and agree not to lobby again for five years after leaving the administration. Shortly after that announcement, Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran tweeted, “Fl goes one better w/#6 year ban. But reform is catching on!” Corcoran’s call for banning elected officials from lobbying the legislative or executive branch for six years is just one of his panoply of wide-ranging proposals to reform the lobbying industry that will be a key storyline of the upcoming 2017 legislative session in Tallahassee. Justin Day wasn’t prepared to address Corcoran’s manifesto when he sat down with INFLUENCE in early November, but he did want to speak up for himself and his industry. Day, director of the Advocacy Group at Cardenas Partners, is proud of his lobbying efforts in Tallahassee for government agencies like Tampa International Airport, Port Tampa Bay, and the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority. “It’s a shame that, because of a few bad apples, the whole industry gets taken down,” he says when asked generically about the reputation lobbyists have in some — maybe a lot — of circles. “Ninety-nine percent of lobbyists are really good, down-to-earth people trying to get their clients a voice in state government.” Speaking to this reporter at Daily Eats, a favorite hangout of his in Tampa’s Hyde Park District on a Friday afternoon a week and a half before Election Day, he acknowledges he’s come a long way since growing up in St. Cloud, some 26 miles southeast of Orlando in Osceola County. “It was the kind of place where we were very excited to get our Walmart,” he says about growing up there in the 1980s. “We had a couple of stoplights, and a McDonalds,” he says, exaggerating for comic effect. The Tampa-based Day may not be geographically that far away from St. Cloud these days, but he’s definitely flying at a higher altitude in his role as a lobbyist with his agency in South Tampa and Tallahassee — as well as a premier fundraiser for Democratic candidates. The 36-year-old grew up with politics, literally. His father, Bob Day, was elected property appraiser for Osceola County when he was just two years old, and served in that capacity for more than two decades before his career ended abruptly in 2006. That’s when Bob Day was removed from office by then-Gov. Jeb Bush, after he was found guilty of two felony grand theft charges and 10 misdemeanor counts for having his employees do personal work for him on two of his re-election campaigns. In response, Justin Day says, “I love my dad,” and says the family has moved on from the incident. Day graduated from Florida State University with a degree in international affairs, and then went back and received his Master’s Degree in political science. Upon graduating in 2004, he began working immediately on Betty Castor’s U.S. Senate race against Mel Martinez as her “wheelman,” driving the candidate in her Chrysler Sebring convertible from one end of the state to another. >> POWER PLAYER


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