Daily Clips for July 16, 2012

PROGRESS FLORIDA IN THE NEWS

Advocacy Groups Beg Department of Justice to Put Brakes on Voter Purge (includes video)
By Angelica Alvarez
WCTV Tallahassee
Four advocacy groups say they've collected more than 22-thousand petitions from Floridians. They're urging the Department of Justice to put the brakes on Governor Rick Scott's voter purge. Those four groups include Progress Florida, Color of Change, Florida New Majority, and Move-On.org.

The BluVu: Week of July 9^th
By Gayle Andrews
The BluVu
Political realty comes your way – including commentary by Progress Florida’s Damien Filer on Rick Scott’s voter purge debacle.

FEATURED STORIES

Voting Rights Expanded
By Dan Smith
Election Smith
Related AP story: In victory for GOP, Florida wins access to Homeland Security list of noncitizens
Of course, you wouldn’t know that reading the completely misleading headline in the “AP NewsBreak” story rushed to publication by the Washington Post and numerous other outlets.

Gov. Scott remains unpopular with Florida voters, but majority support noncitizen voter purge
By Steve Bousquet
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
After 18 months as governor, Rick Scott remains personally unpopular with a majority of Floridians, according to a new Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald/Bay News 9 poll.

Democrats' 2012 strategy includes attacks on Scott
By Brendan Farrington
Associated Press
The fact that Gov. Rick Scott isn't on the ballot this year isn't stopping Democrats from making him an issue as they try to keep President Barack Obama and Sen. Bill Nelson in office.

Special interests unleash flood of contributions, especially to Republicans
By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
Responding to an election field upended by redistricting, Florida corporations and interest-groups are flooding a record amount of cash into legislative races that will help finance a blizzard of ads and fliers during the coming months.

TB strain found in 18 counties outside Duval
By Stacey Singer
Palm Beach Post
The tuberculosis strain that has rocked Florida politics and raised questions of undue government secrecy is referred to as FL 046 by epidemiologists, the professionals who track disease outbreaks.

Committed to healthy Everglades
By President Barack Obama
Tampa Bay Times
The Everglades are, and always will be, an important part of the cultural and environmental landscape in Florida.

FLORIDA POLITICS

Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll to fight allegations
By Brandon Larrabee
News Service of Florida
Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll plans to fight back against charges that she and a female aide were caught in "a compromising position," according to emails Carroll sent to well-wishers from her state account.

Attention no Lt. Gov wants
Editorial
South Florida Sun Sentinel
They are allegations in a lawsuit, and at this point that is all they are.

Florida's former financial regulation commissioner was liberal personal spender
By Susan Taylor Martin and Jeff Harrington
Tampa Bay Times
Last fall, Florida Office of Financial Regulation Commissioner Tom Grady praised an investigator in the agency's Pensacola office who helped crack a $3 million mortgage fraud scheme.

State cops, prosecutors were ready to charge U.S. Rep. David Rivera before case fell apart
By Scott Hiaasen and Patricia Mazzei
Miami Herald
In the summer of 2011, the arrest of U.S. Rep. David Rivera seemed all but certain.

Lawmakers should learn how Legislature works before trying to run it
By Scott Maxwell
Orlando Sentinel
There are a lot of whacked-out things about Florida politics.

POLITICAL RACES

Presidential race in Florida is a 'coin toss'
By Adam C. Smith
Tampa Bay Times
Brace yourselves for another nail-biter presidential election in Florida.

Voting rights, voting wrongs
By Jon Fausman
The Economist
Florida’s state primary is a month away, the presidential election is four months off and the Palm Beach County League of Women Voters (LWV) is busy.

Republicans Agree That Mitt Romney Needs to Come Clean
The Progress Report
Think Progress
It’s not just people on the left who are concerned about Mitt Romney’s outsourcing of American jobs at Bain Capital, his shady foreign finances, and what’s hidden in his tax returns.

Follow the money? Not with Romney
By Robyn E. Blumner
Tampa Bay Times
When you think of the wider world, which of these comes to mind?

No loonies need apply for GOP veep
By Carl Hiaasen
Miami Herald
Sometime before the Republican National Convention in Tampa next month, Mitt Romney will pick a running mate.

RNC taking over Tampa Bay Times Forum for six weeks of convention prep
By Richard Danielson and Michael Van Sickler
Tampa Bay Times
Today is the first of many move-in days for the Republican National Convention at the Tampa Bay Times Forum.

Monday is deadline for primary voter registration
Associated Press
Palm Beach Post
Monday is the deadline for Florida residents to register to vote in the upcoming state primary elections or change their party affiliation.

Wasserman Schultz for governor of Florida
By Adam C. Smith
Tampa Bay Times
There has been some intriguing chatter in Washington and Florida political circles lately that DNC chairwoman and U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz is considering running for governor in 2014.

BALLOT INITIATIVES

PAC exploring putting casino gambling on ballot linked to Malaysian developer Genting Group
By Toluse Olorunnipa
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Genting Group appears to be intensifying its push to allow voters to make the final decision on whether Las-Vegas style gambling comes to South Florida.

Citizens rally for Orange County earned sick time initiative
Staff Report
WFTV Orlando
Dozens of supporters collected signatures during a rally for the Orange County earned sick time initiative Saturday morning.

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

Feds announce deal for preserving Everglades headwaters ranches as judge signs off on restoration plan
By Bruce Ritchie
Florida Current
A federal judge who two years ago blasted state and federal agencies for ignoring Everglades cleanup has approved an $880 million state restoration plan.

Everglades plan promising, but where’s the money?
By Alan Farago
Palm Beach Post
Half a century ago Marjory Stoneman Douglas, founder of Friends of the Everglades, was fiercely skeptical of governmental efforts to restore the fading River of Grass without ironclad assurances to reverse harm from misguided engineering and agricultural policies.

LGBT

Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll: I can't be gay because I'm married and 'black women that look like me' aren't lesbians
By Steve Rothaus
Miami Herald
Giggling nervously, Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll spoke publicly for the first time on Saturday about allegations from a former aide that she caught Carroll having lesbian sex with another female aide.

EDUCATION

Campaign could turn on whether GOP is starving schools – or remaking them
By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
Has Florida's political leadership defended public education or de-funded it over the last two years?

Teachers: New evaluation system 'artificial,' 'frustrating,' 'humiliating'
By Leslie Postal
Orlando Sentinel
High-school chemistry teacher Steve Fannin was honored recently in Washington, D.C., as one of the nation's best math and science educators.

FAMU board meets to discuss fate of president
Associated Press
Palm Beach Post
Florida A&M University's governing board is holding an emergency meeting to discuss the resignation of school president James Ammons.

UF faces another $4 million in cuts
By Nathan Crabbe
Gainesville Sun
The University of Florida’s decision to reduce its tuition increase might be well received by students and the public, but it also means more budget cuts.

JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY

Battle Looms Over State Pensions
By Lloyd Dunkelberger
Lakeland Ledger
Florida's pension plan for public workers faces a legal showdown in early September before the state's highest court.

New jobs-agency chief seeks to calm storm
By Jim Stratton
Orlando Sentinel
The new CEO of Workforce Central Florida is on her cellphone, rolling down Interstate 95 through North Carolina when the skies let loose.

HEALTH AND SENIORS

Health exchange by another name: Marco Rubio's 'marketplace'
By Tia Mitchell
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
In the months before he became Florida House speaker, Marco Rubio crisscrossed the state searching for ways to make Florida better.

State insurance programs covering more children
By Lawrence Sullivan
Tampa Tribune
As America's political battle over health care for adults rages, Florida's low-cost health insurance program for children quietly grows.

Fla. Chronic Pain Patients Unable to Get Prescriptions Filled
By Jessica Palombo    
WFSU Tallahassee
Pill mills busts have become a familiar sight over the past year, as federal, state and local agencies try to stem the illegal flow of controlled substances from Florida clinics.

CIVIL RIGHTS, PEACE AND SOCIAL ISSUES

Poll: Florida voters favor President Barack Obama’s immigration policies
By Erika Bolstad
Miami Herald
Florida voters, particularly in immigrant-rich pockets of South and Central Florida, overwhelmingly say they support comprehensive immigration reform that would give people living in the state illegally a pathway to citizenship, according to a new Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9 poll.

Poll: Most Floridians want no changes to Stand Your Ground law
By Toluse Olorunnipa
Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times Tallahassee Bureau
Florida’s controversial “Stand Your Ground” law continues to enjoy widespread support among likely voters, even as a state task force considers rewriting the law, according to a new Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald/Bay News 9 poll.

JUSTICE AND THE COURTS

Defense attorneys call new flat fee for taking on indigent cases a crime
By Daphne Duret
Palm Beach Post
A growing number of local criminal defense attorneys say new flat state fees for cases as complicated as rape and second-degree murder are so low that they either can no longer afford to take them or would have to cut drastically the number of the hours they work.