Daily Clips for January 26, 2012

PROGRESS FLORIDA IN THE NEWS

11,000 Floridians Petition Against Voter Suppression Act
WCTV-TV
Related: Progress Florida submits more than 11,000 petition signatures in opposition to GOP’s so-called Voter Suppression Act
Progress Florida has submitted a petition signed by 11,289 Floridians in opposition to HB 1355 – the “Voter Suppression Act of 2011.” The petition was made part of the official record of the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on Florida’s elections law to be held Friday in Tampa.

FEATURED STORIES

Pain eases to Florida school budgets under House plan, but needy to suffer more cuts
By John Kennedy
Palm Beach Post
A House panel approved a $1 billion boost in public school spending Wednesday, backing Gov. Rick Scott's push to begin replenishing dollars for classrooms which suffered even deeper cuts last year. The proposed, election-year increase looks certain to force sharp cuts in health and social service programs for the poor, elderly and disabled.

At local stops, Mitt Romney draws applause, but Newt Gingrich gets cheers
By Scott Powers
Orlando Sentinel
Related: GOP hopefuls face delicate dance with Florida Hispanic voters
Related: UNF debate rivals' last chance to sway Florida voters
The two leading Republican presidential candidates came to Central Florida on Wednesday, and their events — and reception by voters — couldn't have been more different.

Senate disregards perils of privatization
Editorial
St. Petersburg Times
Florida Senate leaders claim their end run around a judge's ruling in an effort to quickly privatize South Florida prisons is all about saving money.

FLORIDA POLITICS

Americans Elect Makes Florida Ballot
By Whitney Ray
Capitol News Service
Florida’s presidential primary is Tuesday, but voter upset with the outcome will get another shot. The first ever nationwide online primary will be held in April.

Closing schools, Closing prisons, It's all politics
By Scott Maxwell
Orlando Sentinel
Today we're talking about partisan foolishness — on both sides of the aisle. We start with delusional GOP voters, specifically those in Seminole County.

Obscure House subcommittee exists to make political points
By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
Hours before President Barack Obama took to the airwaves Tuesday night to blast partisan intransigence in Congress, state legislators in Tallahassee were huddled in a basement committee room lambasting the president's federal health-care reform and deficits.

Fla. could allow random testing of public workers
By Gary Fineout
Associated Press
The Republican-led Florida Legislature is pushing ahead with a bill that would allow random drug testing of state workers and other public employees every three months, despite ongoing questions about the legality of the plan.

Florida Legislature: College Professors Need Not Apply
By Ralph De La Cruz
Florida Center for Investigative Reporting
Triangulate this story and you’ll find it falls somewhere between laughable, maddening and ironic: A bill moving forward in the Florida Senate would ban state college and university employees, such as professors, from serving in the state legislature.

POLITICAL RACES

Poll: Romney and President Obama even in Florida
By Brent Kallestad
Associated Press
President Barack Obama's popularity among Florida voters appears on the upswing as Republican candidates fight it out for in hopes of a victory Tuesday that would propel them closer to their party's nomination.

Domino to trying returning to state House by running for Snyder's seat
By Jonathan Mattise
TC Palm
Former Rep. Carl Domino, R-Jupiter, will take a shot at returning to the state House by running for Rep. William Snyder's soon-to-be-vacant District 82 seat.

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

Bill to encourage oil exploration and drilling on state lands passes committee
By Bruce Ritchie
Florida Current
A House panel on Thursday approved bills that are intended to encourage oil exploration and drilling on state lands and the development of a solar energy project in Southwest Florida.

Proposal would change public/private boundaries on Florida's lakes and rivers
By Craig Pittman
Tampa Bay Times
It seems like little more than bureaucratic tinkering. Bills now filed in the Florida House and Senate would change the definition of where something called the "ordinary high water line" is measured on waterways across Florida.

House subcommittee advances fertilizer regulation loophole
By Virginia Chamlee
Florida Independent
A Florida House subcommittee this morning advanced House Bill 421, a measure that would allow those who have obtained a “limited certification for urban landscape commercial fertilizer application” to be exempt from local fertilizer regulations.

Lawmakers bag ‘Ag Gag’
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Independent
A state House criminal justice committee unanimously voted for an amendment today that would strike the controversial “Ag Gag” measure from an omnibus agriculture bill.

EDUCATION

Parent trigger bills are half-cocked ideas
Editorial
Orlando Sentinel
It's understandable that parents who have seen little improvement in their children's poor-performing Florida schools would have itchy trigger fingers.

Hispanic Students Ask Lawmakers for Instate Tuition
By Whitney Ray
Capitol News Service
Hispanic students who came to Florida as teenagers are asking lawmakers for instate college tuition.

JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY

House committee proposes $73 million tax incentive package
By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
House budget-writers are proposing to give Gov. Rick Scott more flexibility to dole out tax dollars to companies that promise to create jobs -- but less than half the $230 million he wanted to award.

State weighs whether to tax Amazon's online sales or cut jobs deal
By Toluse Olorunnipa
Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Amazon's state-by-state strategy to score lucrative tax-exemption deals in exchange for creating jobs has landed in Florida.

Tax Foundation: Florida is the fifth-best state for business
By Roger Bull
Florida Times-Union
Florida is one of the best states to do business, as least as far as taxes are concerned, according to the Tax Foundation's annual report. The foundation looks at a property tax, unemployment insurance tax, sales tax, individual income tax and corporate tax to come up with its overall rankings.

HEALTH AND SENIORS

Hospitals, nursing home and state employees cut in House health care budget
By Christine Jordan Sexton
Florida Current
Hospitals, nursing homes and state employees are cut in an early spending plan floated by House Health Care Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Matt Hudson, R-Naples, on Tuesday.

Anti-abortion bills get Fla. House panel approval
By Bill Kaczor
Associated Press
The onslaught of anti-abortion legislation is continuing in the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature, less than a year after lawmakers took the most significant steps to curtail the procedure since passing a parental notification law in 2005.

House forfeits $170M from feds
Health News Florida
Today House health budget chief Matt Hudson presented his proposed budget, which would include cuts of more than $290 million in Medicaid fees to hospitals for next year.

CIVIL RIGHTS, PEACE AND SOCIAL ISSUES

Anti-shackling bill passes unanimously in House committee
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Independent
A bill that would create uniform and humane rules for the shackling of incarcerated pregnant women in Florida has been moving along quickly through the many committees it was referred to this session.

JUSTICE AND THE COURTS

Florida's courts need reliable funding
Editorial
Florida Times-Union
The Florida Legislature needs to provide the third branch of government in this state with consistent, reliable funding. Revenue is currently provided from foreclosure filing fees. Even then, the courts receive only two-thirds of the revenue.