Daily Clips for May 16, 2012

FEATURED STORIES

As Mitt Romney hits Florida, Democrats attack Bain's history of profits and layoffs
By Adam C. Smith
Tampa Bay Times
Related: Hispanic activists plan to protest Romney in Tampa
As Mitt Romney returns to Florida today for two days of campaigning and money-raising, Democrats are trying to ensure Floridians keep two words in mind: Dade Behring.

Lobbying firms get big paydays in Tallahassee
By Jim Saunders
News Service of Florida
With an early legislative session speeding up action in the Capitol, at least three lobbying firms collected more than $1 million in fees during the first three months of the year, according to new reports.

Timing of scrubbing noncitizens from voters rolls worry Florida election supervisors
By Jodie Tillman
Tampa Bay Times
In February, county election supervisors got some news from the state motor vehicle agency: A database audit in April 2011 had identified more than 20,000 potential non-U.S. citizens on voter rolls.

Back to the future: State reverts to old 3.0 grading scale to help bolster FCAT writing scores
By Allison Ross-Ferrelli
Palm Beach Post
Shocked by dismal results on this year's writing FCAT, the state decided today to lower its definition of proficiency in order to insulate schools' crucial A-to-F grades from the plunge.

Government is largest employer in most Florida counties
News Service of Florida
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
A government entity is the largest employer in 51 of the state’s 67 counties, and in every county in Florida government is at least one of the top five largest employers, Florida TaxWatch reported in a study out Tuesday.

FLORIDA POLITICS

Same Old, Same Old
By Mary Jo Melone
Florida Voices
You can tell a lot about a man by the company he keeps.

New GOP ad touts Gov. Rick Scott's work on PIP reform
By Tia Mitchell
Miami Herald
The Republican Party of Florida is airing a new TV ad that praises Gov. Rick Scott and the Legislature for reforming the no-fault car insurance system.

POLITICAL RACES

Gov. Scott gives Boca audience tips on winning Florida in this year's elections
By George Bennett
Palm Beach Post
Gov. Rick Scott, who spent more than $70 million of his own money to lift himself from political obscurity and win office in 2010, told Republican activists tonight that money won't be the most important factor in America's largest swing state this year.

Romney's Florida fundraising includes $50,000-a-plate dinner in Boca Raton
By George Bennett
Palm Beach Post
Mitt Romney will make some money stops in Florida on Wednesday and Thursday, including a $50,000-a-plate dinner at private equity mogul Marc Leder's Boca Raton home. 

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

Deadline looms for EPA water pollution rules proposal
By Sascha Cordner
WFSU Tallahassee
The deadline for the federal Environmental Protection Agency to propose new water pollution rules for Florida rivers and streams is fast approaching.

Florida crumbling
Editorial
Gainesville Sun
During the freeze of 2010, Plant City farmers pumped water out of the ground continuously for 11 days to insulate their strawberry crops against the biting cold.

LGBT

Quietly, the Republican Party is embracing gays
By Curtis Tate
McClatchy Newspapers
A quiet transformation is taking place in the Republican Party, which has begun to embrace openly gay candidates – and among gay Republicans, who now feel more comfortable speaking out in a party that may have accepted them but didn’t always show it.

Jacksonville City Council members treading into gay rights bill
By Steve Patterson
Florida Times-Union
In cautious tones, Jacksonville City Councilman Robin Lumb urged Councilwoman Kimberly Daniels not to share material she had brought to a committee meeting. It was "inflammatory," he said.

EDUCATION

Superintendents: What is wrong with writing test?
By Marcia Lane
St. Augustine Record
While the State Board of Education is lowering the passing grade for Florida’s standardized writing tests, district school superintendents say it would make more sense to first find out why the new test caused students to score so low.

FCAT fiasco points up failures at the top
Editorial
Tampa Bay Times
The Florida Board of Education was in crisis mode Tuesday, holding an emergency meeting by telephone to change on the fly the illogical scoring of this year's FCAT writing test.

FCAT writing test is failing all of Florida
Editorial
Highlands Today
No matter how you look at it, consider it, analyze it, measure it or do anything else, the new FCAT writing tests are a complete failure.

Department of Education settles Race to the Top contract dispute
By Travis Pillow
Florida Current
The Florida Department of Education has resolved a contract dispute between companies vying to provide a testing system tied to the state's Race to the Top grant after the company that originally won the bidding agreed to steer some of the business to the company challenging the decision.

Protect student loans
Editorial
Miami Herald
Like many disputes in Congress, the standoff involving a hike in student loan rates is deeply partisan.

JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY

TaxWatch shows the importance of public employers as job creators
By Bob Shaw
Orlando Sentinel
Politicians, especially Republicans, love to rail against public employees — former Gov. Bob Martinez famously called them “lardbricks” back in the late 1980s — but lots of them overlook the fact that public agencies — federal, state and local — often are among the top employers in many areas.

Citizens Property Insurance plan could send rates soaring for new customers
By Toluse Olorunnipa
Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times Tallahassee Bureau
If Citizens Property Insurance Corp. moves forward with a controversial plan to uncap rates for new customers, the price to join state-run insurance will increase by an average of 30 percent next year.

Real estate pros say things are looking up, survey says
Staff Report
Florida Current
The economic recovery may be coming slow, but the sentiment in Florida's real estate sector has rebounded to levels not seen since 2007, according to a quarterly survey from the University of Florida.

Report: Tampa Bay is most financially distressed among major metros
By Jeff Harrington
Tampa Bay Times
Got a bad case of the fiscal blues? No surprise there.

Small business group's Florida members in Washington this week
By Gray Rohrer
Florida Current
More than a dozen Florida members of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, a small business lobbying group, are in Washington, D.C., this week as part of the NFIB Small Business Summit.

HEALTH AND SENIORS

Chamber says Bill Nelson voted to cut Medicare $500 billion: Mostly False
By Aaron Sharockman
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald PolitiFact
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is going after Sen. Bill Nelson’s vote in favor of the federal health care law, saying in a new television ad that the law will "be a nightmare for Florida seniors."

OSHA Investigates Florida Postal Worker’s Illness
By Trevor Aaronson
Florida Center for Investigative Reporting
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency charged with monitoring worker safety, is investigating the illness of a U.S. Postal Service employee who handled a leaking package from Yemen at an Orlando mail-sorting facility.

CIVIL RIGHTS, PEACE AND SOCIAL ISSUES

Barack Obama shift on gay marriage energizes young Hispanic immigration activists
By Jeri Clausing
Associated Press
President Barack Obama's shift to support gay marriage is energizing young Hispanic voters who have been working side-by-side with gay activists in their push for immigration reform.

JUSTICE AND THE COURTS

Zimmerman Medical Report Shows Broken Nose, Lacerations After Trayvon Martin Shooting
By Matt Gutman
ABC News
A medical report compiled by the family physician of accused Trayvon Martin murderer George Zimmerman and obtained exclusively by ABC News found that Zimmerman was diagnosed with a "closed fracture" of his nose, a pair of black eyes, two lacerations to the back of his head and a minor back injury the day after he fatally shot Martin during an alleged altercation.