Daily Clips for June 26, 2012

FEATURED STORIES

Lawsuit aims to throw three Florida Supreme Court justices off ballot
By Mary Ellen Klas
Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times Tallahassee Bureau
Two Seminole County men filed suit Monday in Leon County asking the secretary of state to remove the three Florida Supreme Court justices who are seeking merit retention from the November ballot.

State won't release larger list of possible noncitizen voters
By Steve Bousquet
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Gov. Rick Scott insists Florida's voter rolls must be scrubbed carefully to remove any non-U.S. citizens, but his administration is keeping secret a list of more than 180,000 voters whose citizenship may be in question.

Supreme Court decision could lead to “show me your papers” law in Florida
By Dara Kam
Palm Beach Post
The U.S. Supreme Court issued a split decision on Arizona’s immigration law, striking down three parts but leaving intact the “show me your papers” provision that was the centerpiece of the nation’s most sweeping immigration law.

Nail-biting ends soon
Staff Report
Health News Florida
The long wait for a Supreme Court ruling in Florida's lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act will end soon --- probably on Thursday.

Barron: FSU faculty a 'farm team' for out-of-state schools
Associated Press
Tampa Tribune
The head of Florida State University told Gov. Rick Scott's higher education reform panel Monday that budget cuts are making his faculty a "farm team" for out-of-state schools.

FLORIDA POLITICS

Scott gives MacNamara 'the triple crown'
By Bill Cotterell
Florida Current
Gov. Rick Scott said farewell to chief of staff Steve MacNamara Monday night, presenting him the "triple crown" of Capitol clout at a reception attended by more than 150 of Tallahassee's past and present power brokers.

Dreadful disease strikes one of the good ones in Tallahassee
By Lucy Morgan
Tampa Bay Times
Former state Sen. Ken Plante has been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — ALS, commonly called Lou Gehrig's disease.

POLITICAL RACES

President Obama to travel to Miami on Tuesday
By Patricia Mazzei
Miami Herald
President Barack Obama will travel to South Florida on Tuesday to attend a pair of fundraisers, including one with salsa singer Marc Anthony.

Tampa unveils alert systems for RNC week
By Kevin Wiatrowski
Tampa Tribune
With the potential for mayhem looming over the Republican National Convention this August, Mayor Bob Buckhorn unveiled a two-prong approach the city will take to keep businesses and residents up-to-date about trouble spots around downtown.

Bill Nelson's opponents frequently melt away
By Steve Bousquet
Tampa Bay Times
Before he headed to Congress from Orlando, Dan Webster was the first Republican speaker of the Florida House since Reconstruction. 

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

As springs, rivers decline, 40-year-old law to protect them mostly goes unheeded
By Bruce Ritchie
Florida Current
The sign at Falmouth Springs near Live Oak describes it as a "jewel of the Suwannee" River and an example of Florida as it existed a century ago.

U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear Florida's case in tri-state water dispute
By Bruce Ritchie
Florida Current
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to take up an appeal filed by Florida in the case involving the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system.

Florida black bear poised to come off threatened list
By David Fleshler
South Florida Sun Sentinel
The future of Florida's largest native land mammal will be on the table Wednesday as the state wildlife commission votes whether to remove the Florida black bear from the state's list of threatened species.

Gov. Scott declares statewide state of emergency because of Tropical Storm Debby
By John Kennedy
Palm Beach Post
Gov. Rick Scott today signed an executive order declaring a statewide state of emergency because of Tropical Storm Debby.

LGBT

Full house as Tampa kicks off its domestic partnership registry
By Sean Kinane
WMNF Tampa
Couples in Tampa who want some of the rights of married couples, but either don’t want to, or are legally forbidden from getting married, can now sign up as domestic partners.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu to Jacksonville: Be 'open' to gays
By Matt Pearce
Los Angeles Times
Archbishop Desmond Tutu would like to have a word with Jacksonville, Fla., about gays and lesbians.

EDUCATION

Manatee School Board requests a scale-back of FCAT
By Christopher O'Donnell
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Add another name to the growing list of critics of the FCAT: the Manatee County School Board.

Testing experts play critical role in students', teachers' futures
By Erica Rodriguez
Orlando Sentinel
Heather Wright often meets people who are confused about exactly what she does for a living.

Barron continues push for tuition flexibility
By James Call
Florida Current
Florida State University won’t appeal the Board of Governors’ decision to grant a lower tuition increase than the one the school requested.

South Florida students lobby for student loan rate freeze
By Scott Travis
South Florida Sun Sentinel
Students and administrators from Palm Beach State College and Miami Dade College on Monday voiced their concerns about the imminent rise in new Stafford student loan rates.

JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY

State list of business incentives, released in error, may make Florida more accountable with tax dollars
By Robert Trigaux
Tampa Bay Times
What should we make of the contents of a mistakenly released database of state incentive packages created to lure hundreds of businesses and produce more than 32,000 jobs in 39 of Florida's 67 counties?

Scott’s office flips out over accidental release of data
By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
Planning to post some scraps and tidbits that didn’t make it into my weekend story on Florida’s use of tax-incentives to try and create jobs.

Should state show bid preference to in-state companies?
By Jim Stratton
Orlando Sentinel
When Carole Gilbert lost a state contract this year to a cheaper competitor, she was disappointed.

HEALTH AND SENIORS

Attorney General Bondi confident Supreme Court will strike down 'Obamacare'
By Tia Mitchell
Tampa Bay Times
There was a chance that the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Florida's challenge to health care reform would occur today, so all the cable news channels were focused on "Obamacare" coverage this morning.

The group trying to kill Obamacare
By Alex Seitz-Wald
Salon
If the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act, this week, you’ll have the National Federation of Independent Business to thank for it, at least in part.

What small business owners should know about each possible Supreme Court health-care ruling
By William H. Maruca
Washington Post
The Supreme Court is set to release its ruling on the constitutionality of President Obama’s controversial health reform law, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), as early as this week.

Panel revives effort to reform residential care for the elderly
By Brittany Alana Davis
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
After a failed attempt to pass legislation to protect the frail and elderly in assisted living facilities, industry experts reconvened in Jacksonville Monday with the hope of hammering out measures to curb abuse while appeasing the powerful long term care industry.

Vulnerable Florida seniors going hungry
By Beth Reese Cravey  
Florida Times-Union
Hundreds of homebound senior citizens are on a waiting list for hot meals and a bit of conversation.

Lack of dental prevention costly to state: report
Staff Report
Health News Florida
Many Floridians forgo routine dental care because they can't afford it, which runs up the costs of emergency care for conditions that could have been prevented, according to a report released today.

CIVIL RIGHTS, PEACE AND SOCIAL ISSUES

High court limits state action on immigration
By Mark Sherman
Associated Press
A divided Supreme Court threw out major parts of Arizona's tough crackdown on illegal immigrants Monday in a ruling sure to reverberate through the November elections.

JUSTICE AND THE COURTS

U.S. Supreme Court lets decisions stand on water war, Florida death penalty
By Michael Peltier
News Service of Florida
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday said it would not take up three Florida cases: one dealing with a decades’ long water war among three states, a ban on Cuban travel and a death penalty case involving a man with an IQ his lawyers said was too low.

Miami federal judge blocks new Florida anti-Cuba law from taking effect
By Patricia Mazzei
Miami Herald
A Miami federal judge on Monday blocked Florida from enforcing a new state law that prohibits governments from hiring companies with business ties to Cuba.

Hundreds of Florida killers could get new sentences under Supreme Court ruling
By David Ovalle and Scott Hiaase
Miami Herald
Hundreds of convicted murderers in Florida will likely get a chance to convince a judge that their life prison terms should be reduced because they were juveniles when they killed.

Florida prison privatization issue in court again
Associated Press
Palm Beach Post
A judge is hearing additional legal argument on the privatization of health care services in Florida's state prisons.

Supreme Court strengthens Citizens United decision with Montana ruling
By Matea Gold
Los Angeles Times
The Supreme Court on Monday reaffirmed the right of corporations to make independent political expenditures, summarily overturning a 100-year-old Montana state law that barred corporations from such political activity.