Daily Clips for December 30, 2009

FEATURED STORIES

Florida attorney general questions legality of health reforms, but faces complaints of grandstanding

By Michael C. Bender

Palm Beach Post

A proposal to require Americans buy health insurance or pay a fine to the federal government amounts to a "living tax" and could violate the federal and state constitutions, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum said Tuesday.

Major GOP donors call for Jim Greer to step down

By Adam Smith

St. Petersburg Times

This may be the biggest shoe to drop yet against Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer: A host of the most veteran and accomplished GOP bundlers in Florida are calling on Greer to resign now or be ousted.

Crist and Sansom made headlines

By David Royse and Michael Peltier

News Service of Florida

As a year bookended by special sessions comes to a close, we take a look back at a difficult year marked by the worst sustained economic downturn in decades and the highest unemployment since Reubin Askew was governor.

Tackling corruption

Editorial

St. Petersburg Times

A year ago, Florida House Speaker Ray Sansom was stubbornly defending his new high-paid position at Northwest Florida State College, his reward for quietly steering millions in public money to the school.

Indiscriminate tax cuts not the answer

Editorial

Miami Herald

Facing an 11.5 percent unemployment rate and a home foreclosure crisis, Floridians are desperately seeking a long-term fix to this stubborn recession.

FLORIDA POLITICS

Top 10 list of things that didn't happen in the Sunshine State

By Mark Lane

Daytona Beach News-Journal

Everybody's running lists this week of things that happened in 2009.

2010 RACES

Crist off his game

By Michael Putney

Miami Herald

Charlie Crist is off his game. Way off his game, which was spectacular when it was good.

Cuba critical of all 4 Florida Senate candidates

The Associated Press

Miami Herald

Cuba's official media lashed out at all four main candidates to become Florida's next senator - Democrats and Republicans alike - saying Tuesday they will do nothing to improve relations between Havana and Washington.

CIVIL RIGHTS, PEACE AND SOCIAL ISSUES

Collier, Lee counties helping state restore voting rights to felons

By I.M. Stackel

Naples News

Southwest Florida elections officials are working to update their voter records.

JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY

State's top court orders foreclosure mediation program

By Duane Marsteller

Bradenton Herald

Florida will create a state-wide "managed mediation" program designed to help more homeowners avoid foreclosure, the state's top court said Monday.

Tampa Bay nation's worst in October home price index

By James Thorner

St. Petersburg Times

Tampa Bay's housing market relearned a hard lesson in October: Foreclosures may be good for bringing out home buyers.

Florida consumers said to be gloomy

By Michael Peltier

News Service of Florida

Consumers in Florida remained wary this past month despite a growing optimism nationally, according to separate measures of consumers' moods released Tuesday.

Obama has NASA's future on short-term agenda

By Bart Jansen

Ft. Myers News-Press

President Barack Obama will chart a course for NASA within weeks, based on the advice of a handful of key advisers in the administration and Congress.

EDUCATION

Proposal for federal school funds is flawed

By Andy Ford

Orlando Sentinel

Mike Thomas has an opinion, and he isn't shy about sharing it. He's passionate, humorous and typically examines all sides of an issue.

Fewer Central Florida teachers try for national certification

By Denise-Marie Balona

Orlando Sentinel

The number of Central Florida teachers earning prestigious national certification plummeted last school year because of budget cuts.

HEALTH AND SENIORS

Fla. AG may challenge health-care bill

By Bill Cotterell

Tallahassee Democrat

Attorney General Bill McCollum called on other state legal officers Tuesday to review a "tax on living" in the pending federal health-care proposals.

Klein faces tough crowd on health care overhaul

By Kathy Bushouse

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

The congressional debate on overhauling the nation's health care system may have taken a break for the holidays, but U.S. Rep. Ron Klein faced some pointed questions about the plan on Tuesday.

Fla. child abuse deaths rise in bad economy

By Kelli Kennedy

The Associated Press

About 200 children were fatally abused in Florida in 2008, a roughly 20 percent increase from 2007.

Local elderly lose services in county, state squabble

By Will Hobson

Panama City News Herald

Some elderly people in Bay County who fall and can't get up can't call for help through their Health Watch monitoring units anymore because of a discontinued grant.

South Florida pain-clinic doctors also treat drug addicts

By Scott Hiaasen

Miami Herald

State regulators stripped Dr. Michael I. Rose's power to write prescriptions two months ago, after health officials found that the pain-clinic doctor had prescribed enough painkillers to put one patient ``at risk of death from overdose.''

JUSTICE AND THE COURTS

Suit seeks $3.8 million from Rothstein colleague

By Tonya Alanez

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

In the first lawsuit targeting a former Scott Rothstein colleague, a bankruptcy trustee on Tuesday sued attorney Steven N. Lippman, asserting he pocketed $3.8 million in bonuses, unpaid loans and reimbursements for home furnishings, country club fees and other expenses he wasn't entitled to.

Annual assessment blasts conditions at reform school that houses Northeast Florida Youth

By Jim Schoettler

Florida Times-Union

Breakdowns in security and inadequate medical treatment for students at a troubled high-risk reform school in Marianna are among the many criticisms leveled against the state-run facility in an annual assessment of the program.

Overtime served: Reforming Florida's violent incarceration mentality

Editorial

Daytona Beach News-Journal

Like other law enforcement officials in the state, Volusia County Sheriff Ben Johnson is sowing undue fear and misinformation about legislative proposals that would reform the state's overly harsh and unsustainably costly prison system.

Daily Clips for December 29, 2009

FEATURED STORIES

Did political donations grease path to lucrative Florida legal bid?

By Sydney P. Freedburg

St. Petersburg Times

Fort Lauderdale lawyer Scott Rothstein was a Republican ATM.

Can Crist Survive a Right-Wing Uprising in Florida?

By Tim Padgett

Time Magazine

A new voter poll was released a couple of weeks ago that showed Florida Governor Charlie Crist dropping into a tie with former state House speaker Marco Rubio -- an underdog Crist had led by more than 20 points last summer -- in next year's Republican primary race for the U.S. Senate.

Tea party movement grows

By Anthony Man

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Fueled by anger at politicians and distrust of the government, the rapidly growing tea party movement could upend the political establishment in the 2010 elections -- ultimately becoming a permanent, game-changing force in American politics.

Health Lobby Takes Fight to the States

By David D. Kirkpatrick

New York Times

Like about a dozen other states, Florida is debating a proposed amendment to its state constitution that would try to block, at least symbolically, much of the proposed federal health care overhaul on the grounds that it tramples individual liberty.

Facts sink new drilling technology

Editorial

Tampa Tribune

It is becoming increasingly evident that the shadowy group promoting oil drilling immediately off Florida's shores is playing fast and loose with the facts.

FLORIDA POLITICS

6-figure salaries most common at USF, Legislature, Swiftmud

By Dennis Joyce

Tampa Tribune

A visit with the highest-paid government employees would take you from the University of South Florida, to the state Legislature in Tallahassee, to the Southwest Florida Water Management District in Brooksville.

Getting a Florida driver's license is about to get more complicated

By Steve Bousquet

St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau

Do you know where your birth certificate is?

2009 in review: Indicted speaker tops news

By Paul Flemming

Pensacola News Journal

The year began with a special session in the first days of January to deal with state budgets swimming in red ink and ended with a December special session to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on rail projects.

Strange? Odd? Weird? Bizarre? That's Florida!

By Brendan Farrington

The Associated Press

You know you're living in a weird state when the governor promotes a pay-per-minute sex chat line.

Bad business

Editorial

Gainesville Sun

Given Florida's embarrassing showing in the 2000 presidential election, the last thing this state needs is to become a captive market for a single voting machine vendor.

BALLOT INITIATIVES

Gerrymandering Petitions May Have Enough Signatures

By Scott Finn

WUSF Public Radio Tampa

A group that wants to end gerrymandering says it has enough signatures to put the issue before Florida voters in November.

CIVIL RIGHTS, PEACE AND SOCIAL ISSUES

Unit targets Broward hate

By Joel Marino

Miami Herald

The shooting death of a cross-dressing teenager in Fort Lauderdale; black swastikas spray-painted on a Parkland synagogue; anti-gay graffiti on Wilton Manors homes.

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

Ocean Foundation makes dubious claims in sea grass proposal

By Craig Pittman

St. Petersburg Times

A Washington-based foundation has teamed up with a controversial local company to propose a radical change in the way Florida deals with the destruction of its sea grass beds.

New South Florida water rules dodge appeals, but face test in Tallahassee

By Andy Reid

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Opponents of South Florida's new year-round watering rules are taking their fight to the Legislature, opting for legislative muscle over courtroom battles.

EPA proposes new greenhouse gas regulations

By Joshua Lee Holton

WMNF Community Radio Tampa

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a rule change in the Clean Air Act, such that only the biggest polluters will be subject to regulations for greenhouse gas emissions.

EPA: UF will pay a $175,000 fine

By Thomas Stewart

Gainesville Sun

The University of Florida has agreed to pay a fine of $175,000 for alleged environmental violations that include illegally disposing of hundreds of gallons of a toxic chemical on campus over almost two decades, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday.

JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY

Top state court gives homeowners chance to fight foreclosure

By Aaron Deslatte

Orlando Sentinel

Facing one of the worst foreclosure crises in the nation, Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Peggy Quince ordered judges statewide Monday to starting sending foreclosure cases to a new "managed mediation" program in which financially strapped homeowners can try to negotiate a way out of losing their homes.

New Florida law spurs rush to get mortgage broker licenses

By Kimberly Miller

Palm Beach Post

Florida's Office of Financial Regulation has received 4,600 mortgage broker licensing applications since July, more than double the amount requested for all of last fiscal year.

Online Sales Increase

By Whitney Ray

Capitol News Service

Holiday sales rose 3.6 percent overall this year with online sales seeing the largest increase in traffic.

Pension fund reforms stall over politics.

Editorial

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

With more than $100 billion in investments, Florida has the nation's fourth-largest pension fund.

HEALTH AND SENIORS

Miller to host town halls on health care

By Tom McLaughlin

Northwest Florida Daily News

U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller will host town hall meetings next week to discuss health care.

JUSTICE AND THE COURTS

Overtime served: Reforming Florida's violent incarceration mentality

Editorial

Daytona Beach News-Journal

Like other law enforcement officials in the state, Volusia County Sheriff Ben Johnson is sowing undue fear and misinformation about legislative proposals that would reform the state's overly harsh and unsustainably costly prison system.

Daily Clips for December 28, 2009

PROGRESS FLORIDA IN THE NEWS Local group aims to obtain, hold onto funding for teachers By Joe Callahan Ocala Star-Banner Excerpt: At age 23, University of Florida graduate Ray Seaman decided to rally educators early this year throughout Marion County...Seaman works for Progress Florida, which launched the Stop the Cuts campaign this year aimed at protecting Florida Forever, Medicaid and education. FEATURED STORIES 2010 set to be momentous year for Florida By Paul Flemming Tallahassee Democrat It's always a big year in Florida politics, but rarely can you see the import so clearly lined out for a coming 12 months. Florida politics had lots of no-brainers in 2009 By Steve Bousquet St. Petersburg Times Related AP story: Weak economy, high unemployment Fla.'s top story As the year draws to a close, editors like to compile lists of the biggest stories of the year. In that spirit, here are my favorites of 2009. FLORIDA POLITICS The finagling's begun for added House seat By Bill Cotterell Ft. Myers News-Press The process to determine how Florida slices up its 26 congressional seats has started. Legal woes continue to swirl for former Republican Party of Fla. finance chair Harry Sargeant By Dara Kam Palm Beach Post Since 2004, the U.S. government has paid Boca Raton-based International Oil Trading Co. $1.4 billion to deliver jet fuel through Jordan to U.S. troops and their allies in Iraq, according to federal contracts. Greer to Critics: You can talk -- but that's it By Aaron Deslatte Orlando Sentinel Embattled Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer will grant his critics a hearing next month to discuss his performance -- but they won't be able to vote him out of the job just yet. Document damaging to Sansom By Alex Leary St. Petersburg Times As the Florida House prepares for an unrivaled investigative hearing in January into its former leader, new information undercuts key parts of Rep. Ray Sansom's defense. Wexler's legacy: Loyal constituents, bipartisan bonds and passionate critics By Anthony Man South Florida Sun-Sentinel Virtually every politician in America fantasizes about achieving what Robert Wexler has attained: Constituents who love him so much that he could cruise to an easy congressional re-election until he's ready for retirement. An unhealthy monopoly on voting machines Editorial Miami Herald The only people who benefit from monopolies are their owners. 2010 RACES Fla. gov hopeful McCollum: It's not about Crist By Brendan Farrington The Associated Press It's not hard to find policy areas where Republicans Bill McCollum and Gov. Charlie Crist have differences. Banking ties an issue in race By Jeremy Wallace Sarasota Herald-Tribune Democrat Alex Sink and Republican Bill McCollum have significant ties to the banking industry, yet that has not stopped either candidate for governor from attacking the other for their connections to the industry. Rubio vs. Crist: Close race shows concern among voters By Kingsley Guy South Florida Sun-Sentinel Marco Rubio apparently has closed the gap in the race for the Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate seat. Can it be? Charlie Crist, Marco Rubio agree bill raises taxes By Aaron Deslatte Orlando Sentinel "The plan will cripple state economies and add half a trillion dollars in new taxes on top of half a trillion dollars in Medicare cuts," the U.S. Senate candidate said last week as the health-care bill approached a final vote in the Senate. In South Florida, a political squabble, investigation over campaign mailer By Marc Caputo St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau Miami-Dade School Board member Renier Diaz de la Portilla is under investigation for allegedly skirting bidding rules to pay for a mailer that could help his brother in a political campaign to succeed their other sibling as state senator. BALLOT INITIATIVES Florida redistrcting has national implications for the next decade By Bill Cotterell Tallahassee Democrat Suppose you had a big baking pan shaped like the state of Florida and had to pack it with 26 clumps of cookie dough that contained the exact same amount of sugar, flour, red sprinkles and blue icing while dozens of powerful people and thousands of regular folks try to tell you how to do it. CIVIL RIGHTS, PEACE, AND SOCIAL ISSUES Legislation would bar benefits for undocumented immigrants By Brandon Larrabee Florida Times-Union Undocumented immigrants would be ineligible for some of the most basic government services, including public education, under a measure sponsored by a pair of Republican lawmakers. ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY Florida's future bright with clean energy By Eric Draper South Florida Sun-Sentinel Whether the goal is economic recovery or environmental protection, investing in energy efficiency is one of the most important actions a business can take. Everglades once again will make headlines By Kevin Lollar Ft. Myers News-Press During last year's look-ahead series, The News-Press said Everglades restoration would be a big story in 2009, and it was with the South Florida Water Management District's plans to buy 73,000 acres of U.S. Sugar land. Feds Under Fire from Three Environmental Groups to Protect Panthers By Kate Spinner Lakeland Ledger While the state's largest cats teeter on the edge of extinction, federal regulators are accused of hastening the Florida panther's demise over the past few years by allowing some of their best habitat to be bulldozed. Rock mine expansion proposed for panther habitat in west Broward By David Fleshler Orlando Sentinel The Seminole Tribe has applied for a permit to expand a rock mine in a remote corner of northwest Broward County, in a proposal that could generate opposition from environmentalists concerned about the Florida panther. Report finds pollutants lurking in S. Florida tap water By Curtis Morgan Miami Herald More than 100 pollutants, from farm herbicides to factory solvents, have shown up in Florida tap water during the last five years -- many barely detectable, but more than a quarter exceeding federal standards at least once, according to a report compiled by an environmental group. FPL can live with less, report advises By Mary Ellen Klas Miami Herald/St. Petersburg Times Tallahassee Bureau Florida Power & Light should be allowed to raise its base rate $357 million next year, not the $1.3 billion the company seeks, the staff of the Public Service Commission recommended Wednesday in a report that also says the utility should be forced to cut its executives' pay. Protect Florida coast. Again Editorial Palm Beach Post Great. If the Senate tries to rekindle its romance with bipartisanship, there might be no love for Florida. JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY Will Florida's growth-a-holic tendencies change with new reality? By Jim Stratton Orlando Sentinel In a state hooked on development, Flagler County became a junkie. Florida still low in per-capita stimulus funds By Duane Marsteller Bradenton Herald Florida continues to get the smallest bang from federal economic stimulus bucks, according to a recent analysis of government figures. More leaving Florida than moving in By Jeff Kunerth Orlando Sentinel More people continue to leave Florida than move in from other states, reversing a decades-long trend of population growth fueled by retirees and job seekers, according to estimates released Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. Florida taking part in federal program to get residents back to work Staff Report Tallahassee Democrat Florida is participating in a new federal stimulus program aimed at putting jobless people back to work by subsidizing their pay and benefits through Sept. 30. New rules to take effect on sinkholes, property taxes By Catherine Whittenburg Tampa Tribune The start of 2010 brings with it the enactment of new state rules and regulations relating to sinkhole insurance and property taxes. EDUCATION How the decade changed education By Tiffany Lankes and Christopher O'Donnell Sarasota Herald-Tribune The big theme in education for the past decade: accountability. Budget crisis guts teacher-certification program By Denise-Marie Balona Orlando Sentinel The number of Central Florida teachers earning prestigious national certification plummeted last school year because of budget cuts. States race to finish federal grant applications for billions in school money By Iricka Berlinger Tallahassee Democrat The January 19 deadline for states to apply for the federal Race to the Top grant is drawing near. HEALTH AND SENIORS Nelson says health bill not perfect but has good elements By Alex Leary St. Petersburg Times Florida Sen. Bill Nelson joined fellow Democrats in voting for the health care reform bill. Comparison looks at House, Senate health care proposals The Associated Press Tampa Tribune A comparison of the health care bills before Congress. Senate health care bill also has benefits for Florida seniors By John Dorschner Miami Herald The Senate's version of health care reform approved Thursday has a provision to protect Florida seniors from losing a rich benefit package they have as members of Medicare Advantage Plans. Fla. specialists oppose possible Medicare cuts The Associated Press Panama City News Herald Cardiologists across Florida are organizing protests and opposition to Medicare cuts they say could cause delays in treatment. JUSTICE AND THE COURTS Some Scott Rothstein victims were repaid By Amy Sherman and Scott Hiaasen Miami Herald In the weeks before his $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme was revealed, lawyer Scott Rothstein repaid hundreds of millions of dollars to the investors he had swindled, according to records filed in bankruptcy court this week. Florida's Stand Your Ground law vexes courts By David Ovalle Miami Herald No one disputes that Maurice Moorer fired more than a dozen bullets to kill a rival sitting in a car in West Little River last year.