Daily Clips for February 24, 2012

PROGRESS FLORIDA IN THE NEWS

VIDEO: Scott comes under fire for hefty campaign contribution
By Virginia Chamlee
Florida Independent
Excerpt: “What’s he got to hide?” reads a recent press release from Progress Florida and Florida Watch Action. “Could it be that he doesn’t want to talk about ramming a Medicaid overhaul through the legislature last year that will move all patients into managed care where his buddy Mike Fernandez will be able to reap the profits?" Scott refused to answer questions about the donation when approached by a tracker for Progress Florida and Florida Watch Action’s Adams Street Project, who posted the exchange on YouTube.

FEATURED STORIES

Senate approves $71 billion state budget; now come negotiations with House
By Steve Bousquet
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
The Florida Senate passed a $71 billion budget Thursday with bipartisan support after Republicans agreed to Democratic moves to save a rural prison from closure and to spend $1 million more to keep elderly people out of nursing homes.

Florida House committee okays bill to require 24-hour wait for abortions
By Dara Kam
Palm Beach Post
A House committee approved along party lines an anti-abortion measure that would impose a 24-hour waiting period and restrict ownership of new abortion clinics to doctors who specialized in abortion procedures during their residency.

Senate votes to create 12th university
By Kim Wilmath
Tampa Bay Times
Related editorial: Bay area senators undo damaging cuts to USF
The Senate has approved Sen. JD Alexander's vision to immediately create the state's 12th university out of the University of South Florida's branch campus in Lakeland.

Florida joins suit over contraception requirement
By Tia Mitchell
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Seven states, including Florida, have decided to take on President Barack Obama's mandate that health insurance policies include coverage for contraceptives.

President Obama talks gas prices, energy policies — and raises lots of cash
By Marc Caputo
Miami Herald
President Obama stopped in Miami Thursday to refuel his re-election campaign with $4 million in big-donor cash and to bash Republicans for politically “licking their chops” over the high price of fuel at the pump.

BEST OF THE BLOGS

JD Alexander’s audacious misdirection
By Peter Schorsch
St. Petersblog 2.0
Pay no attention to what is going on over here…look at how bad it is over there!

Florida Passes Minimum Wage Reduction: Another ALEC Bill?
By Inkberries
Beach Peanuts
Today the Florida Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee passed a bill that will allow employers to pay a lower minimum wage to tipped employees, waiters and waitresses.

The Further Decline Of Florida Education Under Rick Scott And A GOP Legislature
By Ronald Feinman
The Progressive Professor
Florida is the fourth largest state in population, and will surpass New York in the next decade.

Florida Republican Legislators Give Themselves “Absolute Shield”
By Trish Ponder
Pensito Review
If you noticed an avalanche of lawsuits over your decisions, would you: a) Take a moment to consider objectively what you’ve been doing and adjust your actions going forward, or b) Pass legislation that says you can no longer be sued.

Florida Imagine Charter Schools pay huge leases to a company owned by...Imagine Charter Schools.
By FloridaGal
Daily Kos
Some bloggers have pointed this out for a few years now, so it is a good feeling to see the Tampa Bay Times (previously known as the St. Pete Times) cover it so extensively.

FLORIDA POLITICS

News from Marco Rubio: He used to be Mormon
By Alex Leary
Tampa Bay Times
News broke Thursday that U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio was baptized as a Mormon at age 8, when his family lived in Las Vegas.

Three things you don’t know about Marco Rubio
By Marc Caputo
Miami Herald
From vice-presidential shortlister to auto-biographer, Marco Rubio is gaining the type of nationwide attention that most freshmen U.S. Senators only dream of.

Andy Gardiner secures 2015-16 Senate presidency
By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
Orlando Sen. Andy Gardiner on Thursday secured enough signed pledge cards to become the Florida Senate president for the 2015-16 term, ending a three-day attempted coup by two former supporters that had bitterly divided the caucus in the final days of the session.

Revamped alimony bill gets nod from full House
Staff Report
Palm Beach Post
The House approved a watered-down version of what began as a rewrite of the state's alimony laws but still contains provisions critics say favor the bread-winning spouse.

Rick Scott to talk about Legislature in West Palm Beach
Associated Press
Tampa Tribune
Gov. Rick Scott plans to discuss the legislative session in a speech in West Palm Beach.

State Rep. Steinberg returns home to Miami Beach amid federal probe into texting
By David Ovalle
Miami Herald
As fellow lawmakers convened Thursday in Tallahassee for the annual session, state Rep. Richard L. Steinberg, D-Miami Beach, has returned home to be with his family in the wake of a federal probe into possible stalking.

POLITICAL RACES

GOP fears rise over 2012 tone, message
By John F. Harris, Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns
Politico
In 2008, after Republicans were routed in the presidential and congressional elections, there was widespread consensus within elite GOP circles about the party’s structural problems: The Republican voter base was too old, too white, too male and too strident for the party to prosper long term in a country growing ever more diverse.

Obama's All-Star party fundraiser pulls in $2.1 million
By Scott Powers
Orlando Sentinel
President Barack Obama came to the Isleworth mansion of NBA player Vince Carter on Thursday night to talk with basketball stars and a handful of others who could afford the $30,000 ticket about his campaign theme of fairness in America.

Obama in Coral Gables: GOP's 'drill, drill, drill' is a bumper sticker, not an energy policy
By John Lantigua
Palm Beach Post
President Barack Obama used the friendly confines of the University of Miami Thursday to push a diversified energy policy and also to attack his Republican adversaries, who he claimed have the same answer to every energy issue.

Study: Gingrich, Santorum plans would increase deficit
Associated Press
Tampa Tribune
Massive tax cuts proposed by GOP presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum would cause the national debt to explode while Mitt Romney's budget plan could generate red ink in line with current projections, according to a new study released today.

Slugging it out for the Senate
By Daniel Ruth
Tampa Bay Times
This is hardly a point of personal honor, but by the time I turned 45 somehow I had managed get through life without being involved in numerous bar brawls.

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

Senate passes revamped bill that would increase oversight of water management districts
By Bruce Ritchie
Florida Current
A bill that would require water management districts to receive budget approval from the Legislature was substantially revised Thursday and passed by the Senate.

Port of Miami project gets help from Tallahassee
By Kathleen McGrory and Curtis Morgan
Miami Herald
A bill that won the support of the Florida House on Thursday could jump-start the stalled Port of Miami Deep Dredge.

Fix last year's water supply mistakes
By Eric Draper
Gainesville Sun
The time has come to correct a major mistake in Florida's system of managing water resources.

Its day in court
Editorial
Gainesville Sun
Presidents and governors have advocated restoration of the Ocklawaha River.

Message is clear: Clean up Florida waters
Editorial
Tampa Bay Times
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and her legal allies from polluting industries are doing a victory dance over a U.S. District Court ruling that set back the federal effort to clean up the state's waterways.

LGBT

Tampa councilwoman proposes domestic partner registry
By Kevin Wiatrowski
Tampa Tribune
Following the lead of Orlando and several South Florida cities, the City of Tampa may let unmarried couples register as domestic partners.

Judge: DOMA unconstitutional; U.S. can't deny health benefits to wife of lesbian federal worker
By Lisa Leff
Associated Press
The government cannot deny health benefits to the wife of a lesbian court employee by relying on the 1996 law that bars government recognition of same-sex unions, a federal judge has ruled.

EDUCATION

Florida Schools Chief Says New Grade Proposals Under Review
By John O'Connor
StateImpact
Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson says the state may not include schools that specialize in students with disabilities in the new school grading formula now under discussion.

Pasco schools learn FCAT recognition money is on the way
By Jeffrey S. Solochek
Tampa Bay Times
As Feb. 1 came and went, teachers at John Long Middle School began wondering whether they would ever see a penny of the promised funding for their school's strong FCAT performance a year earlier.

Designed to fail
Editorial
Gainesville Sun
Florida's practice of grading public schools on the basis of test scores has always been a superficial — even lazy — methodology for measuring a very complex and highly variable process; education.

JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY

Florida Senate OKs $70.7 billion budget; stage set for talks with House over $1.5 billion gap
By John Kennedy
Palm Beach Post
The Senate approved a $70.7 billion state budget plan Thursday that restores most of last year's deep cut to public schools while imposing a fresh round of reductions on Florida's increasingly crowded universities.

Delay of Citizens assessments for private insurers passes House
By Gray Rohrer
Florida Current
Legislation to all but eliminate regular assessments on property insurance premiums after a catastrophic storm by instead increasing emergency assessments passed through the Florida House on Thursday by an 89-25 vote.

As Senate backs off communications tax overhaul, House approves it unanimously
By Travis Pillow
Florida Independent
The Senate backed away from an overhaul of communications service taxes on the same day the House of Representatives approved its version on the floor.

Florida Foreclosure Bill: Don't Rush Home Cases
Editorial
Lakeland Ledger
As Florida lawmakers pursue legislation to accelerate the foreclosure process, a new study from California demonstrates why speed is not necessarily a good thing.

HEALTH AND SENIORS

Legislators add ‘fetal pain’ measure to ‘omnibus anti-choice’ bill
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Independent
A bill that was already being described as a way to pass a slew of anti-abortion rights measures all at once has just absorbed another bill.

Pro-Life, Pro-Choice Collide
By Whitney Ray
Capitol News Service
Pro-life and pro-choice advocates collided twice in Tallahassee today.

Attempt to strip CPC funding from Senate budget fails
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Independent
Another attempt to strip $2 million in taxpayer funds from Florida crisis pregnancy centers failed on the Senate floor today.

Florida Legislature's proposed cuts to Medicaid too draconian; stakeholders must find reasonable solution
Editorial
TC Palm
Medicaid is a vital health care program for about 80,000 Treasure Coast residents and 3.1 million Floridians.