PROGRESS FLORIDA IN THE NEWS
Progress Florida pressures Fla. lawmakers with ALEC ties
By Toluse Olorunnipa
Miami Herald/St. Petersburg Times
The American Legislative Exchange Council--the group behind the rapid spread of Stand Your Ground and voter identification laws--has a big target on its back, and Progress Florida is the latest group taking aim.
Progress Florida asks lawmakers to drop ALEC affiliation
By Kathleen Haughney
Orlando Sentinel
Excerpt: “ALEC represents what is essentially an unelected, shadow Legislature in Florida,” said Progress Florida executive director Mark Ferrulo in a press release. “Responsible lawmakers should disavow the group’s extremist and secretive influence on Florida law making.”
ALEC Under Fire in Florida
By Howard Goodman
Florida Center for Investigative Reporting
Excerpt: ALEC’s startling retreat on its gun-rights and vote-suppression efforts “was a de facto admission of extremist policy-making gone wild,” Ferrulo said. “Florida legislators need to decide whether they represent main street Florida or the corporate board rooms that will continue to fund ALEC and its anti-middle class economic agenda.”
ALEC quits gun policy, lefties want more
By Dara Kam
Palm Beach Post
Excerpt: Progress Florida has launched a statewide campaign urging its supporters to tell legislators to “disavow the group’s extremist and secretive influence on Florida law making.” Other national groups are urging state lawmakers and more businesses to do the same.
AWAKE THE STATE IN THE NEWS
Tax Day protesters march to Bank of America, ask for an end to tax loopholes
By Liz McKibbon
WMNF Tampa
Protesters in Tampa are calling for an end to tax loopholes for corporations. Tuesday afternoon a group organized by groups including Awake Tampa marched from downtown’s Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park to the Bank of America building. Thee protesters want the wealthy to pay more in taxes.
FEATURED STORIES
Dems battle GOP congressional district map lines in court
By John Kennedy
Palm Beach Post
Democratic lawyers urged a judge Wednesday to throw out the Republican-led Legislature's plan for redrawing congressional boundaries, arguing it reinstates failings that make Florida the most gerrymandered state.
State Sen. Nan Rich running for governor in 2014
By Tia Mitchell
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
State Sen. Nan Rich said she made up her mind months ago to run for governor, but it wasn't until a short video was posted on YouTube that people really took notice.
Gov. Rick Scott veto hurts legal assistance program for poor
By Michael Peltier
News Service of Florida
A $2 million veto by Gov. Rick Scott will mean fewer attorneys to represent low-income residents through foreclosure proceedings, domestic violence hearings and consumer fraud cases, legal aid officials and a top Democrat lamented Wednesday.
Fla. Gov. to start task force to look at gun law
Associated Press
Tampa Tribune
Florida Gov. Rick Scott is ready to have a state task force begin looking at Florida's gun laws.
Oil spill is prime suspect in hundreds of dolphin deaths
By Kate Spinner
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Dying dolphins and whales in the northern Gulf of Mexico provide a grim reminder that the ecosystem there still has not recovered two years after the BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster.
FLORIDA POLITICS
Rubio crafting compromise immigrant bill
By John Lantigua
Palm Beach Post
Attempts to pass the Dream Act have become a recurring dream.
'Headed in the right direction'
Staff Report
Orlando Sentinel
Gov. Rick Scott touted a successful legislative session, including a $1 billion increase in state funding for public schools, in an interview Wednesday with members of the Orlando Sentinel editorial board.
Authorities call for tougher campaign finance laws following Rivera probe
By Scott Hiaasen and Patricia Mazzei
Miami Herald
Miami-Dade prosecutors on Wednesday formally closed their investigation of Congressman David Rivera without filing criminal charges, and called on state lawmakers to stiffen the campaign-finance laws that they say frustrated their 18-month investigation.
First Amendment falls flat in Florida
By Sheila Anderson
Tampa Tribune
There is a shadow clouding our sunshine. In the 2012 regular session of the Florida Legislature, Senate Bill 206 died.
POLITICAL RACES
Tampa Bay focus group provides a window into Romney's woes
By Adam C. Smith
Tampa Bay Times
Mitt Romney has accomplished something remarkable: After six years of running for president, millions spent on TV ads and copious debates, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee remains a stranger even to his supporters.
Obama launches Spanish ads in Florida
By William Gibson
Orlando Sentinel
President Barack Obama's re-election campaign launched Spanish-language TV and radio ads in Florida on Wednesday, featuring an Orlando Latina, and added a few words of his own in Spanish.
Romney/Rubio? Not exactly a DREAM ticket
By Joy-Ann Reid
Miami Herald
With polls and anecdotal evidence suggesting Mitt Romney has all but won the Republican nomination for president, but not the hearts and minds of the party faithful, the GOP is casting about for a savior.
New Super PAC backs GOP Senate candidate Connie Mack
By Marc Caputo
Miami Herald
Freedom PAC, the second shadowy political-action committee in Florida’s U.S. Senate race, announced itself Wednesday and pledged to get Congressman Connie Mack elected.
ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY
BP oil spill: Safety practices still a concern 2 years after Gulf of Mexico oil spill
By Kevin Spear
Orlando Sentinel
Exhaustive probes of the nation's largest offshore oil spill two years ago uncovered blunder after blunder, all tied to underlying factors that experts say remain a concern in the disaster's continuing aftermath.
Two Years after the BP Oil Spill: The Oil You Cannot See
By Craig Kopp
WUSF Tampa
On some Florida Panhandle beaches, swimmers can come off the beach with oil from the BP oil spill still on their skin -- two years after that environmental disaster.
National coalition includes St. Johns River, Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint system as "Great Waters"
By Bruce Ritchie
Florida Current
Two Florida waterways on Wednesday were designated "Great Waters" by a national coalition, raising hopes among some supporters for increased federal and state funding for restoration projects.
LGBT
Clearwater poised to create domestic partnership registry
By Mike Brassfield
Tampa Bay Times
Following the example of Tampa, Clearwater is poised to create its own domestic partnership registry.
EDUCATION
Students are shortchanged, pre-K to 12
By Andy Ford
Florida Times-Union
Amid a flurry of TV ads and a media event in St. Johns County, Gov. Rick Scott signed the state's budget Tuesday.
Constant testing takes away from developing whole student
By Desiree Gladieux
Orlando Sentinel
On Monday, students across the state began taking the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.
Miami-Dade School Board votes to close controversial charter school
By Laura Isensee
Miami Herald
Miami-Dade School Board unanimously voted to close a charter school accused of holding raunchy late-night parties in its cafeteria.
Education seminar focuses on college prep for high schoolers
By Gray Rohrer
Florida Current
During an education seminar in Tallahassee on Wednesday, three Florida lawmakers stressed the need to get high school juniors and seniors engaged in learning so they are properly prepared for college-level courses.
JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY
America's Dumbest Tax Loophole: The Florida Rent-a-Cow Scam
By Jordan Weissmann
The Atlantic
State tax codes have a way of accumulating junk -- quirky breaks and carve-outs that grow increasingly odd as they linger on the books, like tacky old legislative souvenirs.
Veto pen blots out funding for 6 South Florida road projects, expressway authorities
By Gray Rohrer
Florida Current
Gov. Rick Scott’s veto pen put up a roadblock in front of several million dollars in funding for local road projects and funds for the state’s seven expressway authorities.
Food stamps, federal pensions face GOP cuts
By Andrew Taylor
Associated Press
Republicans controlling the House are targeting food stamps, federal employee pensions, tax breaks for illegal immigrants and subsidies under President Barack Obama's health care law in a multifaceted drive to swap cuts to domestic programs for big Pentagon cuts scheduled next year.
Florida bankers object to disclosing identities of foreign depositors
By Mark K. Matthews
Orlando Sentinel
Over the objections of Florida lawmakers, the U.S. Treasury Department has issued a new rule that will force banks to disclose the identity of foreigners who deposit their money in America.
HEALTH AND SENIORS
Health Mandate's Affordable Care Act: What's at stake
By John Lantigua
Palm Beach Post
The intense debate over whether the U.S. should oblige all citizens to have health insurance has been accompanied in recent days by another spirited squabble: Just whose idea was it in the first place?
Some Women's Groups See Another Agenda In Attacks On Contraceptive Coverage
By Judith Graham
Kaiser Health News
Opponents of the Obama administration's contraceptive coverage mandate -- including likely GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney -- invoke "religious freedom."
Scott says he gave each health care project in the budget ‘equal and fair consideration’
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Independent
Of the more then $142 million that Gov. Rick Scott vetoed from the already tight $70 billion budget yesterday, more than $38 million came in cuts to health care services.
CIVIL RIGHTS, PEACE AND SOCIAL ISSUES
Florida didn't save money by drug testing welfare recipients, data shows
By Brittany Alana Davis
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Required drug tests for people seeking welfare benefits ended up costing taxpayers more than it saved and failed to curb the number of prospective applicants, data used against the state in an ongoing legal battle shows.
JUSTICE AND THE COURTS
New judge will preside over George Zimmerman caseBy David Ovalle
Miami Herald
A new judge has been appointed to hear the case of George Zimmerman, accused of second-degree murder in Trayvon Martin's shooting in February.
Florida counties challenge costs of juvenile detention
By Jim Saunders
News Service of Florida
An administrative law judge Monday will hear arguments in part of a wide-ranging dispute about whether the state is forcing counties to pick up too much of the cost of juvenile detention.
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