Limbaugh’s Contract Touting Orange Juice Won’t Be Renewed

The state’s 12-member Citrus Commission said Thursday that it will not renew talk show host Rush Limbaugh’s $1-million contract when it expires in mid-August.

Some state lawmakers, women’s rights groups and Gov. Lawton Chiles, a Democrat, said Limbaugh should not have gotten the six-month contract because of his politically conservative views.

But commission member Rex McPherson said criticism had nothing to do with the decision and that the panel had only planned to use Limbaugh for six months.

Nonetheless, the National Organization for Women claimed victory. The group’s boycott of Florida orange juice and its letter-writing campaign “sent a message that hate and intolerance will not be tolerated by thinking consumers,” said Kim Gandy, NOW executive vice president.

Gandy criticized Limbaugh for “spewing bigotry and hatred and calling feminist rights supporters ‘feminazis.’ ”

Limbaugh representatives did not return a telephone call late Thursday to his New York TV studio.

Limbaugh’s contract represented 6% of the citrus department’s $17.1-million industry-funded marketing budget. Under the contract, he plugs orange juice on his TV and radio shows.

The department also spent $600,000 on Larry King’s daytime program and $200,000 on a health-advice talk show hosted by Dr. Dean Edell. Citrus officials said Thursday that those contracts also were not being renewed.