Daily Clips for September 29, 2011

PROGRESS FLORIDA IN THE NEWS

Dean Cannon on returning money for redistricting lawsuit
By Adam C. Smith
St. Petersburg Times
Note: This effort is a joint project of Progress Florida and Florida Watch Action.
Progress Florida and its allies are launching a petition urging House Speaker Dean Cannon to scrub his lawsuit challenging the Fair Districts redistricting system approved by voters in 2010. They got Cannon on video dismissing the suggestion.

Progress Florida petition calls on House speaker to ‘drop’ legal action against Fair Districts
By Cooper Levey-Baker
Florida Independent
Progress Florida has launched a new petition calling for Florida House Speaker Dean Cannon to “drop” his chamber’s participation in legal action targeting Amendment 6, one of the two popular Fair Districts measures passed by Florida voters last fall.

FEATURED STORIES

E-mails deleted from Gov. Rick Scott’s iPad as more records requests go unfulfilled
By Michael C. Bender
St. Petersburg Times
For a second time, e-mails to and from Florida Gov. Rick Scott have been deleted in possible violation of state law.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott changes arithmetic on jobs pledge
By Sally Kestin
South Florida Sun Sentinel
Related editorial: Do you believe Gov. Scott's promise on creating jobs?
Gov. Rick Scott said this week that Florida is making progress attracting new business but changed his arithmetic on how many jobs the state must create to meet his No. 1 campaign pledge.

Former Florida Gov. Claude Kirk dies at age 85
Associated Press
Tampa Tribune
Claude Kirk, a flamboyant self-promoter who became Florida's first Republican governor of the 20th century even though he never held prior public office, died today.

Members of Congress condemn Stearns’ Planned Parenthood investigation
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Independent
Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., have joined a handful of members of Congress in condemning Rep. Cliff Stearn’s recently launched investigation into Planned Parenthood’s finances and policies.

FLORIDA POLITICS

Allen West’s smallest town hall ever
By George Bennett
Palm Beach Post
It’s sort of a throwback to the pre-tea party days when congressional town hall meetings were subdued affairs that attracted mainly the C-SPAN demographic.

Legislators Will Consider Caylee Anthony Child Protection Law
By Les Coleman
Public News Service
In the wake of the high-profile Casey Anthony case, several state lawmakers already have filed legislation that would put safeguards in place to protect Florida's children.

Rod Smith: court will decide redistricting maps, legislature will create the record
By Mary Ellen Klas
Miami Herald
Florida Democratic Party Chairman Rod Smith told a redistricting forum Tuesday night that reapportionment "is all I think about these days" and predicts the once-a-decade redrawing of political boundaries will veer off along an unprecedented path next year as lawmakers apply new guidelines imposed by voters.

Rigid State Leadership: Open Up Florida Legislature
Editorial
Lakeland Ledger
More than 40 years ago, the Florida Legislature was still adjusting to the big changes wrought by court-ordered reapportionment based solely on population.

POLITICAL RACES

Florida calendar blowback
By Maggie Haberman
Politico
The three traditional early states are not exactly thrilled with Florida this morning, and here is a sampling of reactions to their effort to push their primary up to Jan. 31.

Poll: Romney Leads Republican Field in Florida
By Caitlin Huey-Burns
Real Clear Politics
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney leads his Republican rivals in the critical battleground of Florida, a state that is expected to move its primary election up to Jan. 31, 2012.

PPP: U.S. Senate race still up in the air – which is bad news for LeMieux
By Bob Shaw
Orlando Sentinel
PPP, the Democratic-affiliated polling firm out of North Carolina, has produced a new poll of the Republican U.S. Senate race in Florida that doesn’t differ substantially from other recent polls.

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

Lawmakers warn against oil drilling off Cuba
By Erika Bolstad
Miami Herald
Thirty-four U.S. lawmakers, led by Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, on Wednesday asked the Spanish oil company Repsol to keep out of Cuban waters, saying the company’s pending offshore drilling plans would support the Castro regime and "bankroll the apparatus that violently crushes dissent."

Gulf of Mexico oil spill response should address overall ecosystem needs, scientists say
By Mark Schleifstein
New Orleans Times-Picayune
A panel of nationally recognized scientists and engineers recommended today that officials abandon their traditional methods of mitigating the impact of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and instead recognize that the spill is only one of a number of threats to the gulf ecosystem.

Oil spill isn't over
Editorial
Pensacola News Journal
The finding of deformed fish in Louisiana by scientists bolsters the fear that the lasting impact of last year's oil spill remains to be discovered.

Senate chairman says Legislature should address growth bill legal challenge
By Bruce Ritchie
Florida Current
The Legislature in 2012 may only want to make minor changes to growth management laws after the sweeping overhaul this year but should address an issue raised in a legal challenge, according to a key Senate committee chairman.

Free Market Florida unveils new clip it says ‘unmasks Sierra Club as enemy of American prosperity’
By Virginia Chamlee
Florida Independent
Free Market Florida, the group that has long decried a set of federally mandated water pollution standards, has unveiled its latest video, this one aimed at two environmental groups: the Sierra Club and Earthjustice.

What will water management’s mission be?
By Tom Palmer
Lakeland Ledger
Water management districts have been under fire lately.

LGBT

Florida Together Conference: Inspirational Event Leading the Way
By Norm Kent
South Florida Gay News
Last weekend, the Florida Together organization hosted an all day seminar at Florida International University. The theme of the conference was “Different Paths, Same Directions.”

National Organization for Marriage attacks Ros-Lehtinen over same-sex marriage
By Sofia Resnick
Florida Independent
In its latest appeal for donations, the National Organization for Marriage is calling on supporters to fund a new campaign that targets U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, for her recent decision to co-sponsor the Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.

EDUCATION

From Minnesota to Miami: The History of Florida Charter Schools
By John O'Connor
State Impact
Related: The Three Types of Florida Charter Schools
Charter schools are an idea dreamed up by an obscure education professor in the 1970s that are now the primary alternative among public schools.

Florida scores an A in civil rights education
Associated Press
South Florida Sun Sentinel
Florida has received an A for education about the civil rights movement — one of only three states given the top grade in a nationwide study.

JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY

Obama Jobs Plan Prevents 2012 Recession in Survey of Economists
By Timothy R. Homan
Bloomberg Business
President Barack Obama’s $447 billion jobs plan would help avoid a return to recession by maintaining growth and pushing down the unemployment rate next year, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

State retirement system remains well-funded
By Travis Pillow
Florida Current
Changes made during the 2011 legislative session helped shore up the state's retirement system, and will also affect the retirement decisions made by employees who participate in the state retirement system, according to a preliminary report on the state of the system issued this week.”

To the bottom
Editorial
Gainesville Sun
Florida appears to be in a rather bizarre "race to the bottom" with Nevada and Virginia to see which state can recapture the lowest return on their federal tax dollars.

HEALTH AND SENIORS

Wasserman Schultz lashes back at Planned Parenthood probe
By William Gibson
South Florida Sun Sentinel
South Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz accused Republican colleagues on Wednesday of launching a “burdensome and politically motivated, big-government investigation” of Planned Parenthood.

26 states, Obama ask U.S. Supreme Court to settle health-care law debate
By Dara Kam
Palm Beach Post
Twenty-six states led by Florida, a business group and President Obama's administration on Wednesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to settle a landmark case on the federal health care law, including resolving opposing decisions by two federal appellate courts.

Studies: Medicaid vital to kids, seniors
By David Gulliver
Bradenton Herald
More than a half-million Floridians rely on Medicaid to pay for cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other illnesses, and that federal safety net may be crucial as private health insurance costs rise far faster than wages.

Budget cuts threaten long-term care
By Emmett Reed
Sarasota Herald Tribune
As economic conditions remain unstable for Florida and the nation, both Congress' deficit-reduction supercommittee and the White House have proposed yet another round of cuts to skilled nursing Medicare/Medicaid benefits for Florida's seniors.

UCF students vote for medical amnesty policy
Associated Press
Miami Herald
Students at the University of Central Florida are overwhelmingly in favor of the school creating a policy to encourage them to report alcohol-related emergencies.

CIVIL RIGHTS, PEACE AND SOCIAL ISSUES

Three out of four Floridians on food stamps did not have earned income in 2010
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Independent
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, about 1.4 million Floridians relied on food stamps in 2010, and 76.2 percent of those recipients did not have an earned income.

An offer state lawmakers can’t refuse?
Editorial
Tampa Tribune
Gov. Rick Scott's crusade to drug-test cash welfare applicants is turning out to be another thickheaded scheme that's backfiring on Florida taxpayers.

The fallout of failure
Editorial
Miami Herald
The longer America delays fixing its broken immigration system, the harder it becomes to deal with the fallout.

JUSTICE AND THE COURTS

Manuel Valle executed for 1978 killing of Coral Gables police officer
By Patricia Mazzei
Miami Herald
Manuel Valle was executed by lethal injection Wednesday at Florida State Prison for fatally shooting a Coral Gables police officer and wounding another one 33 years ago during a traffic stop.

ICE detains nearly 3,000 with criminal records
By Alfonso Chardy
Miami Herald
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced Wednesday detentions nationwide of nearly 3,000 foreign nationals with criminal convictions in the largest operation of its kind since the agency was created in 2003.

Doing before Knowing: Easy Steps to Privatizing Prisons in Florida!
By Aaron Deslatte
South Florida Sun Sentinel
Florida's former prisons chief, Edwin Buss, was asked to sign off on a "business case" for privatizing 29 South Florida prisons more than two months after the Legislature had already mandated the move, according to a deposition of the ousted corrections secretary.