Daily Clips for February 13, 2012

FEATURED STORIES

Halftime of the 2012 session: Bills are dying
By Gary Fineout
The Fine Print
House Speaker Dean Cannon warned prior to the 2012 session that there was "limited bandwidth" to take up a lot of contentious issues during this critical election year.

Legislature is leaving poor Floridians without a safety net, critics say
By Brittany Alana Davis
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
>From outside an Orlando Starbucks, 45-year-old Rudy Roberts powers up his laptop computer and uses the free wireless Internet to apply for retail jobs.

Start your redistricting clock: Bondi sends maps to court
By Mary Ellen Klas
Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times Tallahassee Bureau
Related: Voting shifts weaken Republican strength of Miami Dade's congressional seats
A day after lawmakers finished their legislative redistricting maps and sent them to Attorney General Pam Bondi, she has swiftly turn them around and certified them to the Florida Supreme Court.

New district boundaries need work
Editorial
Tampa Bay Times
They look prettier, but they are not significantly fairer.

Keep 'Florida Forever' alive
Editorial
Pensacola News Journal
Gov. Rick Scott put $15 million in his budget to keep the Florida Forever land conservation program alive.

Gov. Rick Scott brings familiar message to CPAC
By Angie Drobnic Holan
Tampa Bay Times
Florida Gov. Rick Scott brought his familiar message of more jobs, less government and lower taxes to Washington, D.C., on Saturday morning, making his speaking debut at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

FLORIDA POLITICS

Leon supervisor of elections says new elections law will cost county $112,000 more
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Independent
Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho warned advocates attending a State of Black Florida 2012 event today that last year’s elections law is costing Leon County money.

Dockery says private Florida prisons no cheaper than public ones
By Aaron Deslatte
South Florida Sun Sentinel
With the Florida Senate poised today to return to a contentious prison-privatization debate, one critic of the proposal to outsource prisons in 18 southern counties says the Department of Corrections' own calculations on incarceration costs show currently private prisons aren't necessarily cheaper than public ones.

Prison privatization going down on Tuesday?
By Dara Kam
Palm Beach Post
Sen. Mike Fasano insists he and opponents of a sweeping prison privatization measure slated for a Senate vote on Tuesday still have enough votes to kill the bill.

Fasano popular with constituents, but not with fellow Republicans
By Adam C. Smith
Tampa Bay Times
We'd be hard-pressed to name any Tampa Bay politician more popular with his constituents and less popular with leaders of his own party than state Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey.

Redistricting maps will spur big changes in Central Florida
By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
There is one undisputed fact in Florida's contested redistricting fight: The new legislative and congressional maps lawmakers have approved are destined to make changes large and small to politics across the map.

Texting-while-driving ban offered again
By James L. Rosica
Associated Press
Joyce Concklin has 10 good reasons why every state should pass a ban on texting while driving: That’s the number of bones she broke when a texting driver ran into her.

POLITICAL RACES

Police, judges, jails juggling schedules, staff for RNC
By Keith Morelli
Tampa Tribune
This town is no stranger to historical events that draw tens of thousands of outsiders. Tampa, after all, has been home to four Super Bowls, Guavaween and the Florida State Fair.

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

Senator ‘seriously considering’ matching House funding for Everglades
By Virginia Chamlee
Florida Independent
Despite the fact that a Senate budget draft distributed on Wednesday includes no money for either Everglades restoration or the Florida Forever program, Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander says he is “seriously considering” matching the House’s line item for Everglades restoration.

Everglades/environmental funding could dry up in budget talks
By Michael Peltier
Naples Daily News
Funding for environmental programs including Everglades restoration efforts appears tied up in the budget end game, according to budget documents that show a huge gulf in the position of House and Senate negotiators.

Capture of monkeys in Silver Springs sparks debate
By Craig Pittman
Tampa Bay Times
In a state that has everything from gator-gobbling pythons to house-destroying giant African snails, the oddest exotic wildlife story of all might be the one about how a troop of rhesus monkeys got loose around Silver Springs in the 1930s and never left.

LGBT

Florida gay-marriage advocates inspired by rights won on West Coast
By Robert Nolin
Orlando Sentinel
Related: Supremes should OK gay marriage
The past week saw two states, California and Washington, grant landmark marriage rights to gay couples through court ruling and legislative action, respectively.

EDUCATION

Poverty, Homelessness Rising Sharply Among Florida Students
By Mc Nelly Torres
Florida Center for Investigative Reporting
Since the economy collapsed in 2008, Florida’s student population has become poorer each year — with almost all school districts in the state experiencing spikes in the number of kids who qualify for subsidized meals.

Don't rob reeling school districts to pay charters
Editorial
Orlando Sentinel
In 1996, Florida began a grand experiment in education reform. Charter schools were placed in a statewide Petri dish.

Fewer dollars flowing into statewide school repairs fund
By Kathleen McGrory
Miami Herald
What do landline telephones have to do with school repairs?

It’s Gov. Rick Scott vs. state officials in effort to raise tuition rates
By John Kennedy
Palm Beach Post
After months of pushing for out-of-the-box thinking, Gov. Rick Scott is getting a familiar answer from universities asked to help students develop new skills for a changing economy.

Faculty Seek Halt To Plan
By Mary Toothman
Lakeland Ledger
The Faculty Senate of the University of South Florida Polytechnic voted Saturday to ask for removal of a state senator's new proposal to immediately liberate USF Poly, keep the money and equipment and leave faculty behind.

JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY

Fla. Senate spending plan much larger than House
By Gary Fineout
Associated Press
With less than a month left to wrap up their work, Republican lawmakers are split over how much money the state should spend in the coming year - and what programs ought to be cut.

Tallahassee tax cuts leave local governments in the lurch
By Toluse Olorunnipa
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
The Florida Legislature is eyeing even more tax cuts this year, celebrating its free-market ethos by slashing business taxes and allowing consumers to "keep more of their own money."

Florida lawmakers tread carefully with deregulation of professions this time
By Katie Sanders
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Rather than reignite a bitter debate over whether to remove from state oversight a series of professions including hair braiders and interior designers, lawmakers in 2012 are treading lightly in their quest to create jobs and spur the economy.

Lawmakers' budget maneuvers often aren't transparent
By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
Florida's Republican legislative leadership has made a point the last two years of touting the transparent nature by which they do the difficult work of telling people no. No money for affordable housing.

End gravy train of tax dollars to chamber
By Scott Maxwell
Orlando Sentinel
Enough already. It's time to turn off the government spigot.

HEALTH AND SENIORS

Michelle Obama visits Longwood church, Disney for 'Let's Move!'
By Ludmilla Lelis
Orlando Sentinel
First lady Michelle Obama toured Orlando on Saturday to preach a gospel of healthy eating at a Central Florida church and to motivate some 500 kids to exercise at Disney World.

Healthcare reform has netted Florida $119 million
By John Dorschner
Miami Herald
While Gov. Rick Scott has made news by rejecting several grants funded by the federal healthcare reform act, a study by an independent nonprofit group finds that Florida organizations have quietly received $119.6 million in reform act funds over the last two years.

FL Women Speak Out Against Repeal of Affordable Care Act: “Being a woman is not a preexisting condition”
By Leslye-Ann Bravin
Columbia County Observer
Late last week, Know Your Care, Service Employee International Union (SEIU), and Florida’s Community Health Action Information Network (CHAIN) jointly sponsored a teleconference to discuss the importance of all women having affordable access to comprehensive health care, including preventive health care services and contraceptives.

Feds deny part of Fla. Medicaid proposal
By Kelli Kennedy
Associated Press
Republican lawmakers’ quest to expand a Medicaid privatization program statewide was dealt a blow this week after federal health officials said the state could not impose $10 monthly premiums on Medicaid beneficiaries.

U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns adamant about Planned Parenthood inquiry
By Alex Leary
Tampa Bay Times
The young woman visited U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns last spring and what she showed him triggered a controversy that has brought abortion roaring back into the national political discourse.

State's health insurance may soon get less attractive
By Nathan Crabbe
Gainesville Sun
University of Florida employees might be reluctant to change their health insurance because they like the state program, but that might not be the case if changes proposed by the state come to pass, university officials say.

CIVIL RIGHTS, PEACE AND SOCIAL ISSUES

Democrats slam GOP legislator for ‘racially inflammatory statements’
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Independent
Members of the black caucus in the Florida Legislature today released statements denouncing a comment state Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, made following the state Senate’s passage of the final congressional and legislative districts.

JUSTICE AND THE COURTS

Inmate set to die for 1980 slaying
By Mitch Stacy
Associated Press
A twice-convicted murderer who has lived on Florida's death row for more than three decades is scheduled to die by lethal injection this week for killing a St. Petersburg mother — but like many executions, why he is being killed now and why it didn't happen years ago are something of a mystery.