Daily Clips for November 14, 2011

PROGRESS FLORIDA IN THE NEWS

November 7th Weekly Show
By Gayle Andrews
The Blu Vu: Florida’s Political Reality Show
The Governor and Republican lawmakers are losing in the Florida courts and costing taxpayers a bundle, and the nation is sending conservatives a message about abortion and union busting as the tide turns on the GOP.

FEATURED STORIES

State workers' health care may be next target for cost savings
By Lloyd Dunkelberger
Ocala Star-Banner
After forcing state workers to help pay for their pensions this year, lawmakers and Gov. Rick Scott may turn to employees' health insurance to save money next year.

Florida forgave $110.5M in taxes, fines in FY11
By Gary Fineout
Associated Press
For the second year in a row, Florida is giving up on collecting more than $100 million in taxes, fees and fines owed the state.

GOP’s new voting law in Florida now punishes teachers, too
By Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Miami Herald
As if Florida teachers haven’t had it hard enough under Gov. Rick Scott’s deep cuts in education, now teachers are actually facing fines for helping high school students register to vote.

Is Gov. Scott at war with academia?
By Michael Mayo
South Florida Sun Sentinel
Laying the groundwork to revamp higher education in Florida, Gov. Rick Scott has questioned the value of liberal arts degrees, dissed anthropologists, proposed ending tenure for professors and posted salaries of all state university employees on the Internet.

GOP voters 'still trying to shop around'
By George Bennett
Palm Beach Post
Palm Beach County Tea Party member Patti Uhlenhake says she'd vote for Mitt Romney over President Obama. But she doesn't sound especially fired up about it.

EDITORIAL CARTOON OF THE WEEK

By Clay Bennett
Chattanooga Times Free Press

FLORIDA POLITICS

Voters rate Scott's performance poor
By Ledvard King
Florida Today
The bad news for Florida Gov. Rick Scott is that half of voters in the Sunshine State disapprove of his job performance.

Floridians Not Happy With Any Party
By Lloyd Dunkelberger
Lakeland Ledger
Florida voters are not happy.

Dockery's latest ethics bill faces long odds
Staff Report
Florida Current
Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, recognizes the long odds of passing SB 552, her fifth attempt to create stronger ethical requirements for Florida lawmakers.

Bondi has wrong priority
Editorial
Palm Beach Post
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi's effort to play catch-up and clear her name following the revelation that her office fired two highly praised foreclosure fraud attorneys suggests that she is more concerned with her image than her job.

POLITICAL RACES

Mack poised to dominate GOP Senate primary
By William March
Tampa Tribune
Florida Republican insiders and political experts say U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV probably will become the frontrunner in the party's U.S. Senate primary.

Connie Mack IV starts strong in U.S. Senate poll
By Adam C. Smith
St. Petersburg Times
U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV is blowing away his rivals in the GOP U.S. Senate primary and is in a statistical dead heat with incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, according to a new Quinnipiac poll.

Mitt Romney's retooled 2012 campaign learning from past mistakes
By Alex Leary
St. Petersburg Times
A week after losing the 2008 presidential primary to John McCain, Mitt Romney called one of his top supporters in Florida.

Altamonte Springs race previews what's in store for 2012 campaign
By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
So what do President Barack Obama, Gov. Rick Scott, Tallahassee political consultants and the national debt have to do with a mayoral contest in Altamonte Springs?

Democrats look to Florida in hopes of retaking House
By Ledyard King
Pensacola News Journal
The congressman leading Democratic efforts to retake the House next year is counting on the Sunshine State to play a pivotal role.

BALLOT INITIATIVES

Move to define 'personhood' causes divide
By Anthony Man
South Florida Sun Sentinel
Christian conservatives are planning a campaign to amend the Florida Constitution to define a fertilized human egg as a person.

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

South Florida water managers delay vote on making land-lease policy transparent
By Christine Stapleton
Palm Beach Post
Drastic changes quickly proposed after the South Florida Management District was accused last month of leasing land without seeking competitive bids or publishing notice were put on hold Thursday.

State agency eases up on recommended pollution levels for Naples Bay
By Eric Staats
Naples Daily News
The state Department of Environmental Protection has loosened a proposed pollution limit for Naples Bay amid criticism that the original proposal was based on faulty data.

Fasano wants Progress to explain botched nuclear plant job
By Ivan Penn
St. Petersburg Times
State Sen. Mike Fasano wants Progress Energy to explain to lawmakers and the public what went wrong at the broken Crystal River nuclear plant.

Environmentalists and hunter agree on no bear hunting now
By Bruce Ritchie
FloridaEnvironments.com
Representatives of environmental and hunting groups say they agree that now is not the time to talk about resuming hunts for Florida black bears.

Expert: Massive Garbage Patches of Plastic Destroying Oceans
By Les Coleman
Public News Service Florida
Plastic is everywhere today: plastic bags from the grocery store, clothing store, pharmacy; plastic bottles for water; and now, there are five huge, Texas-sized, garbage patches in the world's oceans, consisting of discarded plastic.

EDUCATION

Collier schools case could push Florida Supreme Court to better define 'education record'
By Aisling Swift
Naples Daily News
The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida calls it a "quibble" over two words: education records.

Cheer, cheer for old, above-average Florida
By Randy Schultz
Palm Beach Post
If the Legislature tries any harder to run higher education in this state, Florida will have a university system as mediocre as the Legislature.

School prayer back before lawmakers in 2012
By Regan McCarthy
WFSU Public Radio Tallahassee
For the second year in a row, lawmakers are pushing legislation that would give school districts the option of allowing student led prayer at certain school events.

Board of Governors student member recounts face-off with Sen. J.D. Alexander
By Kim Wilmat
St. Petersburg Times
A collective gasp swept across the room.

University lobbyists dodge cuts
By John Kennedy
Palm Beach Post
University students who rail against tuition hikes, program cuts and administrator salaries that they say are better suited to corporate boardrooms are finding an unlikely ally: Republican Gov. Rick Scott.

JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY

Florida economists: Casino revenue would be mild boost to state coffers
By Mary Ellen Klas
Miami Herald/St. Petersburg Times Tallahassee Bureau
Related: Seminoles blast resort-gambling bill
Related column: Gambling industry is selling an illusion
Resort casinos would boost state coffers next year by about $155 million, mostly from licensing fees, but the net benefit to the state once the resorts are in full swing in 2015 would be only between $4 million and $102 million a year, according to state economists.

Destination casinos said to be price of gambling regulation
By Scott Powers
Orlando Sentinel
Florida's latest gambling proposals boiled down to this in a debate Friday: Is the creation of comprehensive gambling regulation in Florida worth three new South Florida mega-casinos that go with it.

Prominent politicians dine on $4.50 a day
By Anthony Man
South Florida Sun Sentinel
They make a comfortable $174,000 a year. But in recent days, each spent just $4.50 a day on food — and found out it wasn't too easy.

Workforce Central Florida almost loses $1 million for needy
By Jim Stratton
Orlando Sentinel
The region's embattled jobs agency almost lost more than $1 million in grant money intended to help needy families because of an accounting error.

North Florida Broadband Authority: Feds continue investigation
By Stew Lilker
Columbia County Observer
The North Florida Broadband Authority, a coalition of 15 North Central Florida rural counties and 8 cities is funded by the American People.

Financial regulation remains weak
Editorial
Miami Herald
Even as the Occupy Wall Street movement begins to stall, the reasons to protest abuses in the financial industry continue to accumulate, beginning with the spectacular, $41-billion collapse of Jon Corzine’s MF Global Holdings in October.

HEALTH AND SENIORS

Feds say clinics paid off South Florida ALFs
By Jay Weaver and Michael Sallah
Miami Herald
A Miami couple sent to prison for decades could never have carried out one of the nation's biggest healthcare scams without assisted-living facilities and halfway houses supplying them scads of residents covered by Medicare, authorities say.

Legislation would allow veterans to get therapy instead of jail
By Kathleen Haughney
Orlando Sentinel
A year ago, Palm Beach County Judge Ted Booras helped open the county's first veterans court, a docket for veterans affected by mental-health and substance-abuse issues related to their military service.

Affirmation of Health Care Reform
Editorial
New York Times
A federal appeals court in the District of Columbia endorsed the constitutionality of health care reform this week in an opinion as notable for its authorship as for its legal reasoning.

JUSTICE AND THE COURTS

Peterman travel investigation ruling in hands of administrative law judge
By Steve Bousquet
St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Nearly a year after leaving office, Frank Peterman is still fighting to clear himself of charges that he misused his position as head of Florida's juvenile justice agency through excessive travel paid for by taxpayers.

Experts examining Florida death penalty
Associated Press
South Florida Sun Sentinel
Legal experts are taking a look at Florida's death penalty and preventing the execution of innocent people.

Florida set to execute Oba Chandler for deaths of mother, daughters
By Tamara Lush
Associated Press
For the seasoned detectives who investigated the murders of Joan Rogers and her teenage daughters Christe and Michelle in 1989, the case had a profound effect on the rest of their lives.