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Progress Florida -- Progressive Solutions for Florida

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Daily Clips for March 23, 2010

FEATURED STORIES

Florida Republicans look to dismantle health care overhaul

By Marc Caputo

St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau

Related editorial: Making health care history

Hours after congressional Democrats passed a major health reform bill, Republicans in Florida's capital opened a broad assault Monday to dismantle the legislation at the ballot box and in the courts.


Senate Republicans, 30 states move against health measure

The Associated Press

Tampa Tribune

Related: Florida opt-out proposal might not last

Related: Map of state challenges

In a defiant last stand against a newly passed health care overhaul, opponents are trying everything they can to stop it from becoming the law of the land.


Waterloo

By David Frum

Frum Forum

Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.


Lavish party spending extends to Rubio's former chief of staff

By Adam C. Smith and Beth Reinhard

St. Petersburg Times

Days before he was sworn in as speaker of the Florida House, Marco Rubio and his top deputies hopped on a charter plane to Washington, checked into a $600-a-night hotel hosting a Republican Party conference and hired a chauffeur to squire them around the city.

LEGISLATIVE SESSION

In Tallahassee today, focus is education

By Steve Bousquet

St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau

As the fourth week of the legislative session shifts into high gear, the Senate and House will tackle major components of the 2010 agenda Tuesday.


Recognizing youthful folly, Florida House bill limits teen 'sexting' penalties

By John Frank

St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau

Florida lawmakers acknowledged Monday what teenagers know best: "sexting," as inappropriate as it seems, is not child pornography.


Contract for printing Florida driver's handbook resurfaces in bill, catches flak

By Steve Bousquet

St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau

The rocky relationship between the state and an entrepreneur who scored an exclusive deal to publish the official driver safety handbook may not be over.


Prayer bill moves forward

By Bill Cotterell

Pensacola News Journal

The principal, football coach and former student body president of Pace High School successfully urged a House committee Monday to approve a bill forbidding public school officials from interfering with student-led prayer.


Bill protecting children from abduction OK'd

By Sara Kennedy

Bradenton Herald

State Rep. Darryl Rouson hosted a group of citizens who were in Tallahassee Monday to testify before a House committee in support of a bill that would strengthen protections against child abduction.


Florida workforce boards bristle at bill to increase spending oversight

By Steve Bousquet

Miami Herald/St. Petersburg Times Tallahassee Bureau

Some Florida job-creation advocates are upset over a Senate proposal to intensify oversight of regional workforce boards following lavish spending on meals and insider dealing by a handful of boards.


Coley gets millions for employer's arts center, raise same year

By Matt Dixon

Panama City News Herald

At the July 2009 groundbreaking for Chipola College's new center for the arts, college president Gene Prough touted the planned 56,000-square-foot facility as "a showplace for the performing arts in the Panhandle."

POLITICAL RACES

Chances for GOP revenge in Florida may be few

By William March

Tampa Tribune

Nationwide, Republicans are vowing electoral revenge against congressional Democrats over Sunday's vote for a national health care reform plan.


Senate candidate Kendrick Meek takes issue with earmark criticism

By Lesley Clark

Miami Herald via St. Petersburg Times

At a time when his colleagues in Congress and rivals in the U.S. Senate race are spurning federal spending on earmarks, Rep. Kendrick Meek is asking House budget writers for nearly $238 million in projects.


Florida Senate: Rubio 45%, Meek 25%, Crist 22%

By Scott Rasmussen

Rasmussen Reports

Former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio for now runs well ahead in a three-way race for the U.S. Senate in Florida, should Governor Charlie Crist decide to run as an independent.


Fast-paced GOP campaign concludes Tuesday at polls

By Tom McLaughlin

Northwest Florida Daily News

Like many others, Rick Hord has been keeping a close eye on the special election for the state House District 4 seat.

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

Damage, restoration of Florida waters discussed by authors

By Bruce Ritchie

FloridaEnvironments.com

Florida needs to change the way it manages and uses water in the future as it repairs the mistakes of the past, a panel of environmental book authors suggested on Saturday.


Oil drilling off our shores: Dean Cannon, we've come to know ye

By Cathy Harrelson

Creative Loafing Tampa

After concluding the House's final workshop on the exploration of oil and gas drilling off Florida coasts on Friday, Rep. Dean Cannon (R-Winter Park) outlined three areas he expects the House bill to include when it is released in two weeks.

LGBT

West Palm Beach votes in support of allowing gay adoption

By Andrew Abramson

Palm Beach Post

The city commission took a stance against the state's ban on gay adoption, voting unanimously today to support a repeal of the ban.

EDUCATION

Miami-Dade kids, parents oppose education cuts

By Kathleen McGrory

Miami Herald

It doesn't take a math geek to know that a state facing a deficit of more than $1 billion has to make cuts somewhere.


$10.5 million needed to comply with state class-size rules

By Linda Trimble

Daytona Beach News-Journal

More combined-grade classes, larger classes for gifted students and elective subjects, more high school teachers traveling from room to room.


Jeb Bush, Sharpton slated for MSNBC town hall in Tampa

By Walt Belcher

Tampa Tribune

MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program, featuring former Florida congressman Joe Scarborough, plans to originate live Thursday from Tampa.


Board withdraws from suit against Fla. Legislature

By Bill Kaczor

The Associated Press

The Board of Governors agreed Monday to withdraw from a lawsuit against the Florida Legislature over which body can set university tuition and other governance issues.

JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY

Homestead owners may get hit hardest as property taxes likely to soar

By Derek Catron

Daytona Beach News-Journal

Property owners with homesteads made out pretty well during the real-estate boom, with the state's Save Our Homes amendment protecting them from sizable tax increases even as those went up for other properties.


House panel OKs foreclosure bill

By Bill Cotterell

Tallahassee Democrat

A House committee gave swift approval Monday to Rep. Tom Grady's "user-friendly" foreclosure bill, which he said will protect homeowners who fall on hard times and unclog courts flooded by a wave of bad mortgages.


Florida's appliance rebate program could save you money next month

By Kevin Turner

Florida Times-Union

Floridians who need a new dishwasher, room air conditioner, clothes washing machine, refrigerator, freezer or water heater and want 20 percent off the price courtesy of the federal government should start planning to act quickly on April 16.

HEALTH AND SENIORS

Fla. Republicans take aim at Obama's health care bill

By Michael C. Bender

Palm Beach Post

Related: McCollum will sue to overturn health care overhaul

Related editorial: A most historic House call: Democrats choose change: Republicans go with hype

Florida Republicans took aim today at President Obama's health care bill by threatening a lawsuit and a constitutional amendment they hope will block the federal changes.


How Floridians stand on historic health care plan: Depends on what side you are on

By William E. Gibson and Bob LaMendola

South Florida Sun-Sentinel via Orlando Sentinel

Related editorial: Health care bill's passage is only the beginning

Uninsured patients in Florida breathed a little easier. South Florida Democrats proclaimed victory. State Republicans vowed vengeance at the polls.


Seniors in region will feel impact, phased in over time

By Kevin McQuaid

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Related: Hospitals wait for specifics

For Southwest Florida's 184,000 seniors on Medicare, the passage of historic federal health care legislation is expected to significantly trim prescription medication costs -- though it may erode overall care for those on the government program.


Secession, robocalls, freedom: Day 1 after health care reform

By Gary Fineout

The Fine Print

Within 24 hours of health care reform passing in Washington D.C., we had here in Florida:


State testing finds gamma radiation levels normal in Acreage homes

By Mitra Malek

Palm Beach Post

Radiation levels are normal in the homes of families whose children have developed brain tumors or brain cancer in The Acreage, the state Department of Health said today as part of its ongoing study of an unsolved cancer cluster in the semi-rural community.


Historic step toward health care for all Americans

Editorial

Daytona Beach News-Journal

It was 20 years between the time Harry Truman proposed a health insurance program for the elderly and the day Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into law in 1965, with Truman at his side.

JUSTICE AND THE COURTS

Florida's big growth trend: new prisons

By Fred Grimm

Miami Herald

It was a startling confluence of similar findings from dissimilar outfits.


Political operative: Rothstein aspired to U.S. Senate but acted like Rodney Dangerfield

By Peter Franceschina

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Veteran Republican political operative Roger Stone took his turn on all things Scott Rothstein during a Monday deposition session, likening the Ponzi schemer to the Rodney Dangerfield character in "Caddyshack" who threw money at everyone around him.

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