Daily Clips for January 3, 2012

FEATURED STORIES

12 Florida Stories to Watch in 2012
By Michael Peltier and David Royse
News Service of Florida
Instead of rounding up the week's news, which again was in short supply this week — we look forward to next year with a roundup of the stories we think may be the biggest next year in state government and politics.

Scott's first year marked by retrenchment, recalculation
By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
Gov. Rick Scott has prided himself as Florida's first "CEO governor," a former profit-focused health-care executive tapped at a time when career politicians had failed to clamp down on government spending.

Leaders taking knife to budget
By Gary Fineout
Associated Press
It's almost an annual rite in Tallahassee: Another year, another billion-dollar plus budget shortfall.

Republican presidential candidates make final sprint in Iowa
By Alex Leary
Tampa Bay Times
Related: GOP race to Tampa starts with Tuesday's caucus in Iowa
Related: After putting Barack Obama in White House in 2008, Iowa Democrats re-examine choice
Ron Paul ended his speech abruptly, without as much as a fist pump on the final day before the caucuses.

EDITORIAL CARTOON OF THE WEEK

By Jim Morin
Miami Herald

FLORIDA POLITICS

Protest enters new phase
By Keith Morelli
Tampa Tribune
Tim Sommers, 23 and unemployed, thinks big business and a complicit government are ruining the country, so he joined up with Occupy Tampa at the fledgling group's first rally in early October.

Randolphs are Orlando's liberal power couple
By Mark Schlueb
Orlando Sentinel
The future strength of the Democratic Party in Florida just might live in a tidy bungalow in Orlando's downtown Colonialtown neighborhood.

Florida casinos bill a catch-all, addressing the lottery, dog tracks, jai-alai, and Internet cafes
By Dara Kam
Palm Beach Post
It's already tough enough to get conservative lawmakers behind the concept of three new casinos in Florida, no matter how swanky.

Senate tweaks redistricting maps in advance of January session
By John Kennedy
Palm Beach Post
The Senate Redistricting Committee released new proposed Senate and congressional district maps late Friday — a move staff director John Guthrie said will respond to issues raised at a legislative hearing earlier in December and a follow-up meeting with state elections officials.

Chris Dorworth: The wrong man for an important job
Editorial
Orlando Sentinel
During a 2010 pre-election interview with the Orlando Sentinel's editorial board, Chris Dorworth acknowledged his financial problems and promised to remedy them before taking the Florida speaker's gavel in 2014.

POLITICAL RACES

'Fragmented' GOP faces first test in Iowa caucuses
By John Kennedy
Palm Beach Post
Hard-hitting television ads, cross-state bus trips and small-town diner visits by the Republican presidential contenders mark the last weekend dash before the Iowa caucuses - finally, the nation's first nominating contest in an already volatile campaign.

Hopefuls put bull's-eye on education
By Bill Cotterell
Florida Today
Later this month, Florida Republicans will have an opportunity to register their feelings on federal education policy — and whether there should even be a national policy.

Locals expect good things of Tampa's Republican National Convention, poll says
By Richard Danielson
Tampa Bay Times
Good for Tampa Bay. Maybe not a big deal for you personally — unless you live or work downtown.

Jan. 3 is deadline to register for GOP presidential primary
By Steve Bousquet
Tampa Bay Times
Marcia Nisula, a loyal Times reader from Clearwater, sent me a thoughtful handwritten letter over the holidays.

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

What sprawl costs Northeast Florida
By Virginia Chamlee
Florida Independent
The dismantling of the Department of Community Affairs by Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Legislature has put more power into the hands of local governments — a good thing, argues the governor, for development and growth.

State: 440 manatee deaths documented in 2011
Associated Press
Tampa Tribune
Officials are reporting 440 manatee deaths throughout the state by mid-December, the second-highest number on record.

Groups seeks end to rock-mining plans
By Andres Viglucci
Miami Herald
Three residents of rural Southwest Miami-Dade and three leading environmental groups have sued the county to stop an expansion of rock mining on agricultural land outside the urban development boundary that the plaintiffs say was approved in violation of state law.

Florida agriculture seeking to enter ethanol business
By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
Florida policymakers have squabbled for years over ways to develop more energy alternatives, with nukes, solar plants, offshore oil-drilling, biomass and coal all getting their turn in the legislative grinder.

EDUCATION

What's coming up in Florida education?
By Jeff Solochek
Tampa Bay Times
Some Florida lawmakers have said they want to give the schools a breather in 2012 so they can implement all the new rules put in place during 2011.

Florida's school program soon to be under department of agriculture
By Susan Salisbury
Palm Beach Post
Florida's school food and nutrition program transfers to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services from the Department of Education, effective Jan. 1.

For-profit virtual schools a bad deal for kids
By June Girard
Gainesville Sun
Gov. Rick Scott’s movement to “reform” public education is a laboratory experiment for the rest of the nation.

Don't tell us what to study, Daddy Scott
By Cary McMullen
Tampa Tribune
Question: What do novelist Kurt Vonnegut, Animal Planet host Jeff Corwin and evangelist Billy Graham have in common?

Some Florida Prepaid owners must pay $21,000 more
By Scott Travis
South Florida Sun Sentinel
If you prepaid for college a few years ago, there's a good chance you'll need to shell out a lot more money for your child's tuition and fees.

A progress report on the New Florida program
By Kim Wilmath
Tampa Bay Times
The announcement came in 2010 with a promise to transform Florida's economy.

JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY

Gov. Rick Scott's jobs agency gives itself good grades
By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
A new report on Florida's corporate tax breaks says the state is facing stiffer competition to lure companies to expand, and the hundreds of millions in tax dollars given to businesses to create jobs in recent years have been largely successful.

Employees, Employers and the Unemployed Face Changes in 2012
By Whitney Ray
Capitol News Service
Employees, employers and the unemployed will all face changes in 2012.

2012 Session Outlook: Transportation
By Gray Rohrer
Florida Current
Gov. Rick Scott highlighted Florida’s transportation system this summer as a key factor in jumpstarting the state economy.

Wikileaks: Fanjuls among 'sugar barons' who 'muscled' lawmakers to kill free trade deal
By Michael LaForgia and Adam Playford
Palm Beach Post
The cables read like a political thriller: In the Dominican Republic, a "small, powerful coterie of infuriated sugar barons" was trying to sabotage a top American priority, a free trade agreement.

Sinkholes become Florida's latest insurance disaster
By Susan Taylor Martin and Dan DeWitt
Tampa Bay Times
It's the Great Florida Sinkhole Lottery and the payouts are big in Hernando County.

HEALTH AND SENIORS

State keeps funding dangerous ALFs
By Michael Sallah and Carol Marbin Miller
Miami Herald
When Florida regulators found that a 71-year-old man with mental illness died from burns after he was left in a tub of scalding water at a Hialeah assisted-living facility, they could have cut off thousands in state dollars sent to the home each year.

Aging America: Get ready for Medicare changes
By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar
Associated Press
Baby boomers take note: Medicare as your parents have known it is headed for big changes no matter who wins the White House in 2012.

CIVIL RIGHTS, PEACE AND SOCIAL ISSUES

FBI joins probe of abortion clinic fire
By Thyrie Bland
Pensacola News Journal
The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have joined the investigation into a fire that gutted a Pensacola abortion clinic early Sunday.

JUSTICE AND THE COURTS

Don't give guvs sole power to pick judges
Editorial
Orlando Sentinel
It was open season on judicial independence in Florida during the 2011 legislative session.