Daily Clips for March 13, 2012

FEATURED STORIES

In Tallahassee, Breaks for Business. Families? Not So Much
By Howard Goodman
Florida Center for Investigative Reporting
Business interests ran up the scoreboard in the waning minutes of the 2012 legislative session.

A budget only special interests could love
Editorial
Tampa Bay Times
Look no further than the 2012-13 state budget headed to Florida Gov. Rick Scott to understand that special interests remain firmly in control of Tallahassee.

Connie Mack IV's early woes: Young and foolish, but he says a victim, too
By Brendan Farrington
Associated Press
A younger Connie Mack IV explained two road rage incidents, an arrest at a Jacksonville bar and a bar fight with a Major League Baseball star the same way: He was minding his own business, sober and trouble found him.

Vern Buchanan's ethics cloud no bar to campaign fundraising
By Erika Bolstad
Miami Herald
Two Bentleys, an Aston Martin and a Maserati sat parked under the palms at Villa Solstice, a private home on Sarasota Bay where friends and supporters of Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., were hosting a fundraiser earlier this month for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

How We All Got Stuck Paying the Medical Bills of the Woman Who Sued to Kill Obamacare
By Wendell Potter
Huffington Post
If I were trying to persuade the Supreme Court later this month that Obamacare should not be declared unconstitutional, I would tell the story of the woman who was the original named plaintiff in the lawsuit filed by the National Federation of Independent Business, one of the fiercest critics of the health care reform law.

FLORIDA POLITICS

Mapping out Florida's redistricting special session
By Mary Ellen Klas
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Florida lawmakers will remain in the spotlight this week when they return to the capital city for a redistricting special session to redraw the court-rejected Senate map.

Fla. files federal court case on redistricting
Associated Press
Tampa Tribune
The Florida Legislature has filed a federal lawsuit in Washington, D.C., just in case the Justice Department rejects its redistricting plans.

Florida voter ID law has more options than Texas one blocked by feds
By Dara Kam
Palm Beach Post
Florida law requires voters to present photo identification when they go to the polls, but it allows more alternatives than do the Texas and South Carolina laws that have been blocked by the U.S. Justice Department.

2012 session summary: Ethics, Elections and Redistricting
By Travis Pillow
Florida Current
The 2012 session saw lawmakers advance relatively few measures affecting elections, with one obvious exception: The redrawing of Florida's legislative and congressional boundaries began over the summer as the mother of all interim projects while lawmakers held 26 public hearings across the state.

Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll denies job offer to Clay Clerk of the Court
By Timothy Gibbons
Florida Times-Union
Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll denied being involved with offering a job to Clay Clerk of the Court James Jett, who has accused U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns of plotting to buy him out of the August Republican congressional primary.

Fla. public access celebrated during Sunshine Week
By Mike Schneider
Associated Press
Advocates of Florida's open government laws should focus on the rights of speakers to have their voices heard at public meetings and push to open up the state's process of making laws to further scrutiny, one of the state's top defenders of government transparency said Monday.

Missed opportunities
Editorial
Miami Herald
The Florida Legislature ended its 60-day session with nothing to help cash-strapped homeowners or college students or those struggling to get a job or to ensure safety for the frail elderly at state-licensed facilities.

Senate tempered the House's worst impulses
Editorial
Orlando Sentinel
Unhappy with the results of the Florida Legislature's 2012 session? It could have been much worse.

POLITICAL RACES

Marco Rubio builds A-Team to control image, bio
By Scott Wong
Politico
Sen. Marco Rubio is furiously trying to regain control over a personal narrative and political image that have taken some hits lately.

Romney swoops into Miami and could leave with $1M
By Alex Leary
Tampa Bay Times
Mitt Romney right now is at the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach, taking a detour from the campaign trail to raise money.

GOP convention security-camera details not in focus
By Ray Reyes
Tampa Tribune
The $2 million system to protect demonstrators, delegates, police and citizens in downtown Tampa will be cutting edge, but few other details are public knowledge.

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

2012 session summary: Real Estate and Growth Management
By Bruce Ritchie and Gray Rohrer
Florida Current
Expectations were low going into the session that any significant growth management legislation would pass.

Wildlife bill is leglislature unleashed
By Frank Cerabino
Palm Beach Post
When you look at all the green tracts of state land not yet converted into shopping centers, golf courses and second homes for snowbirds, you probably wonder to yourself, "It's a shame we can't at least use that vacant land for copulating rhinoceroses."

LGBT

Do Kiss, Do Tell, Do Show
By Pierre Tristam
Florida Voices
After a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the soldier’s homecoming kiss is almost a cliche’: husband reuniting with wife, girlfriend returning to boyfriend, dad surprising child in her classroom.

EDUCATION

Tuition Battle: Students Target Scott
By Whitney Ray
Capitol News Service
Florida college students are taking their fight against tuition increases to Governor Rick Scott.

Tuition bill puts future of Florida Prepaid in question
By Scott Travis
South Florida Sun Sentinel
Newly passed legislation allowing some universities to charge whatever rates they want could spell the death of Florida's popular prepaid tuition program.

JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY

Ethel and Kerry Kennedy join protest at Publix headquarters in Lakeland where farmworkers break 6 day fast
By Kelly Benjamin
WMNF Tampa
On Saturday after 6 days without food, more than 60 farmworkers and supporters ended their fast for fair food outside the Publix Supermarket corporate Headquarters in Lakeland.

Lawmakers give governor more power over jobs agencies
By Jim Stratton
Orlando Sentinel
Florida lawmakers have approved a plan that would give Gov. Rick Scott more control over the state's regional jobs boards, allowing Scott and future governors to remove agency board members or top executives for poor performance.

Banks OK foreclosure settlement that could give state homeowners $8.4 billion
By Kimberly Miller
Palm Beach Post
Florida's struggling homeowners are one step closer to getting a share of the state's foreclosure settlement - valued at $8.4 billion - after formal bank agreements were filed in federal court Monday.

PIP reform passes in Fla.; will it be effective?
By Brent Kallestad
Associated Press
Gov. Rick Scott got the legislation he wanted to reform Florida's mandatory motor vehicle no-fault law and crack down on the abuses in personal injury protection cases that has led to skyrocketing increases for coverage.

HEALTH AND SENIORS

Big health bills die at the session's end
By Jim Saunders
News Service of Florida
After weeks of lobbying and debate, Florida lawmakers ended the 2012 session without passing major health-care bills dealing with assisted-living facilities, malpractice lawsuits and physicians dispensing drugs to workers-compensation patients.

Florida’s 2012 legislative session ends without passage of any anti-abortion bills
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Independent
Despite last session’s onslaught of legislation aimed at cracking down on legal abortions in the state, the Florida Legislature did not pass a single anti-abortion bill during the 2012 legislative session.

Lee among counties set to dispute Medicare bill
By Thomas Himes
Ft. Myers News-Press
Lee County officials are counting on the governor to veto a bill they say aims to fix state-level incompetence with county money.

Assault on jobs at Jackson will hurt patient care
By Martha Baker
Miami Herald
Jackson Health System is the healthcare jewel of Miami-Dade County.

Obama campaign dropping mailers in Florida to highlight health care law
By Alex Leary
Tampa Bay Times
The Obama campaign is launching a Florida effort to highlight popular aspects of the Affordable Care Act, the sweeping, and still controversial, health care law enacted two years ago this month.

CIVIL RIGHTS, PEACE AND SOCIAL ISSUES

Immigration advocates march to support immigration reform
By Marcos Restrepo
Florida Independent
Immigration advocates continue to march to oppose enforcement-only state laws, deportation proceeding and to support immigration reform measures.

Sharia law bill dies as Florida’s legislative session ends
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Independent
A controversial bill aimed at restricting the “application of foreign law” (specifically Sharia law) in courts in Florida died on the floor of the state Senate late last Friday night, as the 2012 Legislative session came to a close.

JUSTICE AND THE COURTS

Judge followed the law in pension case
By Janet E. Ferris
South Florida Sun Sentinel
I was stunned by the comments made by Senate President Mike Haridopolos and Gov. Rick Scott about a former colleague, Tallahassee Circuit Judge Jackie Fulford.

Florida Legislature approves 11 claims bills totalling nearly $40 million
By Toluse Olorunnipa
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Rachel Hoffman was shot and killed when Tallahassee police officers lost track of her during a botched drug sting operation in 2008.

Conservatives in Tallahassee aren't true conservatives
By Randy Schultz
Palm Beach Post
A truly conservative Florida Legislature would not have done what the 2012 Legislature tried to do to the state court system.