Daily Clips for September 28, 2011

FEATURED STORIES

Florida will likely hold Jan. primary, threatening presidential calendar
By Peter Hamby
CNN
Florida is now expected to hold its presidential primary on the last day in January 2012, a move likely to throw the carefully arranged Republican nominating calendar into disarray and jumpstart the nominating process a month earlier than party leaders had hoped.

Former employee wants to impeach Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll
By Michael C. Bender
Miami Herald
Carletha Cole, who lost her job after going public about squabbles inside Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll's office and is now involved in an FDLE investigation over an possibly illegal audio recording, sent a press release this morning calling for the impeachment of her former boss.

Scott grilled on auto and home insurance
By Julie Patel
South Florida Sun Sentinel
Gov. Rick Scott was grilled at a Sun Sentinel editorial board meeting today on a range of issues, including home and automobile insurance.

Revised state economic forecasts cloud local government revenue expectations
By Travis Pillow
Florida Current
State forecasters issued revised estimates this week that show the recovery in property tax revenue for local governments could be slower than they had expected.

Postal workers deliver message: Don’t downsize us
By Wayne K. Roustan
South Florida Sun Sentinel
Organizers estimated thousands of postal workers gathered at more than 440 congressional offices across the country on Tuesday to send a message to Washington D.C.: Don't downsize the U.S. Postal Service.

FLORIDA POLITICS

Gov. Rick Scott’s office revives scrutiny of state contracts
By Katie Sanders
St. Petersburg Times
Gov. Rick Scott's office has resumed its review of state agency contracts of $1 million after a months-long break, according to an internal memo obtained by the Times/Herald.

Florida’s political climate cool to in-state college fees for immigrants, as issue becomes hot
By John Lantiuga
Palm Beach Post
Texas Gov. Rick Perry has created a hornet's nest of controversy in conservative circles by defending his Texas policy of offering in-state tuition to undocumented students.

Florida blasts away at local gun rules
By Dave Berman
Florida Today
Kate Latorre’s law firm, which represents a dozen Central Florida cities and towns, has been scrambling in recent weeks.

More laws than we need
Editorial
Tampa Tribune
When the Florida Legislature passed its infamous gag law preventing doctors from talking to patients about the risks posed by firearms in the home, it was generally taken for granted that the vote was a bow to the gun lobby.

POLITICAL RACES

Orlando state Rep. Scott Randolph says Democrats shouldn’t put Crist on 2014 ballot for Governor
By Janelle Irwin
WMNF Community Radio Tampa
State Representative Scott Randolph gave some insight into what it’s like being a Democrat in a Republican-heavy legislature.

Romney announces Florida staff
By George Bennett
Palm Beach Post
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney‘s campaign announced its Florida staffers this morning with Molly Donlin, a veteran Republican operative who worked on Rudy Giuliani‘s 2008 Florida campaign, serving as Romney’s state director.

GOP insiders: Tom Lee, Rick Baker could perk up Senate race
By William March
Tampa Tribune
Not satisfied with their current U.S. Senate primary candidates, some Republican insiders are seeking to recruit new ones, possibly including popular Tampa Bay area political figures Tom Lee and Rick Baker.

Christie says he’s still not running for president
Associated Press
Tampa Tribune
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie hasn't changed his mind: He reaffirmed in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Tuesday that he's not running for president.

Perry immigration strategy may help woo Hispanics
By Kasie Hunt and Laura Wides-Munoz
Associated Press
Rick Perry is calling his Republican rivals "heartless" and using ethnically charged language to defend moderate parts of his immigration record.

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

Lawmakers envision advertising along state trails, on school buses
By Gray Rohrer
Florida Current
Depressed tax collections resulting from a deep recession and sputtering recovery, combined with pledges from Republicans not to raise taxes or fees has sent lawmakers scrambling to find revenue for favored projects in more unorthodox areas.

State agency back to basics with new, old name – Florida Forest Service
By Dan Scanlan
Florida Times-Union
Florida's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services' Division of Forestry went back to its roots Tuesday, reviving its original name as the Florida Forest Service.

LGBT

A Misguided Lesson on Student Bullying and Teachers’ Boundaries
By Nadine Smith
Huffington Post
Many years ago I had a teacher who assigned our class the task of answering the question: "How has slavery benefited black people by bringing them to the New World?"

LGBT students lack protection
By Jorge Rodriguez-Jimenez
The Famuan
I was shocked and disgusted when I heard that Florida A&M does not provide students protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Census: Florida home to nearly 6,800 wedded same-sex couples
By Andres Viglucci
Miami Herald
The U.S. Census Bureau for the first time put a number on married same-sex couples in the United States -- 131,729 -- even as it corrected previously issued figures for the overall number of same-sex couples that revised the totals significantly downward.

EDUCATION

More Orange County teachers will get low ratings under new evaluation plan
By Lauren Roth
Orlando Sentinel
A new evaluation system mandated by state law and negotiated with the teachers union will result in a slight increase in the number of Orange County teachers who will get "unsatisfactory" ratings this school year.

Palm Beach County School District hurries to hire teachers, obey class-size limits law
By Jason Schultz
Palm Beach Post
The Palm Beach County School District is spending millions more to staff 132 new positions, including moving up to 34 teachers to fill some of those posts, in a race to meet state-mandated class-size limits by next month.

Florida needs to do more to curb student loan default rates
Editorial
South Florida Sun Sentinel
Gov. Rick Scott and state legislators are pondering big changes in higher education, including limits on tenure for professors at public universities. But there's another issue that's begging for attention: the rising rate of student loan defaults at universities and colleges in Florida.

Bringing common sense to school accountability
Editorial
St. Petersburg Times
When a school can earn an A from the state and yet be given failing marks by the federal government, there should be no doubt that school accountability has gone awry.

JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY

Census report: Florida received third least amount of federal aid in 2010
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Independent
According to a recently released report by the U.S. Census Bureau, Florida received the third least amount of aid per capita from the federal government in 2010.

Congress dodges shutdown after disaster aid fight
By Andrew Taylor
Associated Press
In agreeing to an emergency spending bill to avoid a government shutdown, Congress achieved a limited goal while postponing a fight over whether emergency disaster aid ought to be paid for with cuts elsewhere in the budget.

Construction job losses mount in South Florida
Staff Report
South Florida Business Journal
Some parts of the country are starting to add construction jobs, but Florida is not among them.

Consumer confidence in Florida improves
By Travis Pillow
Florida Current
Florida consumers are more confident than last month and feel better about their personal financial situations than the economy as a whole, according to a survey released Tuesday.

Our take on: Connie Mack’s “penny plan”
Editorial
Orlando Sentinel
Give Connie Mack credit. The Republican congressman from Fort Myers, not content just to bicker over the federal budget, has proposed a plan to balance it.

HEALTH AND SENIORS

Report points out large role Medicaid plays in care for chronically ill
By Marcos Restrepo
Florida Independent
A report released today by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the American Diabetes Association, the American Lung Association and the health care consumer group Families USA shows that Medicaid plays a vital role in providing health care to Floridians with chronic illnesses.

Florida Health Care Administration trying to recoup $4 million from firm managing Medicaid mental-health services
By Jim Saunders
News Service of Florida
Contending that not enough money was spent on patient care, the state Agency for Health Care Administration is trying to recoup $4 million from a firm that manages Medicaid mental-health services.

Florida congressman moves forward with Planned Parenthood investigation
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Independent
Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Ocala, is moving forward with his plans to launch an investigation of Planned Parenthood, a national chain of women’s health clinics.

CIVIL RIGHTS, PEACE AND SOCIAL ISSUES

Dead foster children are a preventable tragedy
By Scott Maxwell
Orlando Sentinel
When talk turned to protecting children last week in Tallahassee, there was a lot of righteous indignation.

JUSTICE AND THE COURTS

Execution set for man convicted of killing officer
Associated Press
Miami Herald
A Florida man convicted of shooting a police officer to death during a traffic stop in 1978 is scheduled to be executed Wednesday.