Daily Clips for March 26, 2012

FEATURED STORIES

Stand-your-ground law had a sad history before Trayvon
By Fred Grimm
Miami Herald
Related: Trayvon Martin attorneys use bootcamp playbook to press case
Related: NRA ready to stand its ground over Stand Your Ground
Related editorial: Revoke this license to kill
The killing of Trayvon Martin was only the most infamous Florida homicide complicated by the legal inanity known as “Stand Your Ground.

Trayvon Case Not Exactly Top Priority for Florida's GOP Governor
By Adam Weinstein
Mother Jones
Last Monday, Rick Scott—Florida's beleaguered freshman tea party governor—made a powerful executive decision: He signed legislation to require drug tests of state employees.

Gov. Scott signs school 'inspirational message' law; opponents promise constitutional challenge
By John Kennedy
Palm Beach Post
Gov. Rick Scott signed legislation Friday likely to stir another costly courtroom and cultural clash in Florida over school prayer.

Report: Florida legislature passed $125 million in ‘special interest tax breaks’
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Independent
According to a new report from the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy (FCFEP), an economic development package that passed during the Legislative session this year included “$125 million in special-interest tax breaks.”

Justice Department says Florida fails 'burden of proof' on new voting law
By Steve Bousquet
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
The U.S. Department of Justice says Florida has not proved that its new voting law protects racial and ethnic minorities from discrimination in Hillsborough, Monroe and three other counties.

Health care law has Supreme stakes for all Floridians
By Laura Green
Palm Beach Post
When Barbara Notebaert was laid off in November, she not only lost her income ; she lost her health insurance.

EDITORIAL CARTOON OF THE WEEK

By Chan Lowe
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Artist's commentary: The Trayvon Martin case

FLORIDA POLITICS

For some in tea party, honeymoon with Gov. Scott is over
By Kathleen Haughney
Orlando Sentinel
Everett Wilkinson and fellow tea-party leaders across Florida celebrated when Gov. Rick Scott took office, cheering when their hero killed a $2.8 billion high-speed-rail project, sought $4 billion in cuts in state spending and endorsed radical changes in public schools.

Florida new congressional redistricting map likely to face court outcome
By Bob Rathgeber
Ft. Myers News-Press
Florida’s new congressional redistricting map sits with the U.S. Department of Justice and in the courtroom of a state judge in Tallahassee, making it tough to predict what Florida’s 27 seats in the House of Representatives will look like.

Senators face decisions on careers
By Brandon Larrabee
News Service of Florida
With the new Senate maps expected to easily pass the House next week, lawmakers in the upper chamber and potential candidates for those seats are beginning to evaluate their electoral futures.

Ethics Committee extends investigation into Buchanan
By Virginia Chamlee
Florida Independent
The U.S. House of Representative’s Committee on Ethics has decided to extend its investigation into Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Sarasota.

U.S. Rep. Hastings disputes report calling him Congress' worst offender for paying 'family' members
By George Bennett
Palm Beach Post
U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, is disputing a watchdog group's report that ranks him No. 1 out of 435 House members for paying salaries and fees to "family" members.

Sen. Paula Dockery Has Built Coalitions and Battled Leadership in the Legislature
By Bill Rufty
Lakeland Ledger
State Sen. Paula Dockery has stood her ground on issues that often made her a party maverick.

State lawmakers get one perk for the road
By Brittany Alana Davis
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
When Mike Fasano leaves the state Senate this year, he'll forfeit one of his perks of power: his specialty license plate.

POLITICAL RACES

As Marco Rubio dismisses VP chatter, he looks to be preparing for job
By Adam C. Smith and Alex Leary
Tampa Bay Times
For a guy who keeps insisting he has no interest in being vice president, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio appears to be feverishly positioning himself for the job.

Joe Biden bashes ‘Etch-A-Sketch’ Mitt Romney, Republicans over Medicare and Social Security
By Marc Caputo
Miami Herald
In his second official speech of the campaign, Vice President Joe Biden’s retirement community address Friday in Coconut Creek was straight out of the age-old Democratic playbook: Accuse Republicans of wanting to “dismantle” Social Security and Medicare.

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

Gulf Dolphins Exposed to Oil Are Seriously Ill, Agency Says
By Leslie Kaufman
New York Times
Dolphins in Barataria Bay off Louisiana, which was hit hard by the BP oil spill in 2010, are seriously ill, and their ailments are probably related to toxic substances in the petroleum, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggested on Friday.

5,000 new claims filed after BP settlement
By Michael Kunzelman
Associated Press
More than 1,000 claimants have received around $27 million in the two weeks since a court-supervised administrator took over the processing of claims spawned by the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

EDUCATION

Insult to injury
Editorial
Gainesville Sun
For the last five years, the Florida Legislature has been steadily cutting state funding for universities, while jacking up student fees and tuitions.

Lawmakers have OK'd millions for reading program that educators discredit
By Leslie Postal
Orlando Sentinel
Joe Lockavitch promises that in 30 minutes he can take the "worst kids in the building" — even high-school students still stumbling over simple texts — and teach them to read a passage full of words they didn't know half an hour earlier.

Broward County to open its first public military academy in August
By Cara Fitzpatrick
South Florida Sun Sentinel
Broward County will open a public military academy this fall, the first in South Florida and an option designed for parents seeking both structure and rigorous academics.

JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY

Florida construction jobs nearly at bottom, economist says
By Marcia Heroux Pounds
South Florida Sun Sentinel
Employment in Florida's construction industry has been bad, but last year it got worse.

HEALTH AND SENIORS

Groups Blanket Supreme Court on Health Care
By Eric Lichtblau
New York Times
Related: A Moment of Truth for Health Care Reform
Justice Clarence Thomas likens all the outside political pressure that the Supreme Court is facing over its review of the Obama administration’s sweeping health care law to the distraction faced by a free-throw shooter confronted with fans waving wildly behind the basket.

High court must eschew politics on Affordable Care Act
Editorial
Tampa Bay Times
Related: Health care case puts spotlight on Justice Anthony Kennedy
The oral argument beginning today in the legal challenge to the nation's landmark health care reform law is also a test for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Public health experts warn Scott against signing health department reorganization
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Independent
The Florida Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), along with Florida’s public health associations and a coalition of distinguished public health leaders, have sent a letter to Gov. Rick Scott asking him to oppose legislation that seeks to reorganize the state’s Department of Health (DOH), warning that it would be “very detrimental to public health.”

CIVIL RIGHTS, PEACE AND SOCIAL ISSUES

Florida was test case for NRA-created 'stand your ground' law
By Beth Kassab
Orlando Sentinel
Related: Trayvon Martin special prosecutor wastes no time in launching case review
Florida is a laboratory for the NRA. The place where it tests the formula for a gun-toting utopia.

Repeal ‘stand your ground' law, local leaders say
By Carlos E. Medina
Ocala Star-Banner
Related: ‘Stand your ground’ should be revised
The fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin — and the law some say is responsible for the young man's death — was at the center of a press conference held in Ocala on Saturday, the eve of a planned candlelight vigil in memory of Martin on Ocala's downtown square.

Fla Dem chair Rod Smith co-sponsored 'stand your ground'
By Adam C. Smith
Tampa Bay Times
Related: Calls for justice come from Washington, D.C., rally for Trayvon Martin
Plenty of Florida Democrats are saying, "We told you so" and calling for repeal of the "stand your ground" law in the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting in Sanford,but not Florida Democratic Chairman Rod Smith.

Trayvon Martin killing brings scrutiny to controversial self-defense laws
By Sue Sturgis
Facing South
The U.S. Department of Justice announced late Monday that it would investigate the February deadly shooting of an unarmed black teen by a neighborhood watch vigilante in a gated community near Orlando, Fla.

What Does a Black Father Say?
By Andrew J. Skerritt
Florida Voices
Everyone has been talking about mothers having the talk with their sons.

JUSTICE AND THE COURTS

Foreclosure trends put state courts in a pinch
By Dara Kam
Palm Beach Post
Florida's foreclosure crisis has affected more than homeowners, real estate agents and banks.