PROGRESS
FLORIDA IN THE NEWS
Florida This Week: Friday, December 7, 2012
By Rob Lorei
WEDU Tampa
Rob Lorei and this week’s panelists – including Progress Florida’s Darden Rice – discuss the latest local and national political news.
FEATURED
STORIES
Legislative leaders dish out salary increases to top staff
By Mary Ellen Klas
Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times Tallahassee Bureau
Florida’s new legislative leaders handed out hefty raises and salaries to many of their top staff and newly hired talent even as thousands of state workers went for a sixth year without a bump in pay.
Miami-Dade to Florida elections chief: Help us make election fixes
By Patricia Mazzei
Miami Herald
Miami-Dade’s mayor and elections supervisor asked Florida’s secretary of state on Tuesday to relay three requests to Tallahassee to try to fix last month’s elections woes.
Florida’s debt edges downward but school repair needs climb
By John Kennedy
Palm Beach Post
After rising sharply under previous Republican governors, Florida’s tide of red ink is receding — at an historic rate, Gov. Rick Scott and the Cabinet were told Tuesday.
Florida Democrats Wary as National Party Embraces Crist
By Beth Reinhard
National Journal
Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist joined the Democratic Party with trademark panache, posting a picture of himself brandishing the signed paperwork on Twitter--from a White House Christmas party.
Sources: Obama, Boehner talk on fiscal cliff
Associated Press
Tampa Tribune
In a test of divided government, President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner sought an elusive compromise Tuesday to prevent economy-damaging tax increases on the middle class at year's end, conferring by phone after a secretive exchange of proposals.
FLORIDA
POLITICS
Reform requires repeal of voter suppression law
By Rhonda Swan
Florida Voices
I waited three and a half hours – an hour longer than in 2008 but hours less than many Floridians -- to cast my ballot on the first day of early voting for this year’s general election.
Cabinet adopts emergency PIP rule
By Gray Rohrer
Florida Current
The Florida Cabinet unanimously passed an emergency rule implementing changes to a form filled out by auto accident victims seeking health care in order to prevent “confusion in the marketplace”.
Leon Democrats back Tant for state chair
By Bill Cotterell
Florida Current
Leon County Democrats have devised a deal designed to help Allison Tant win the top spot in the Florida Democratic Party next month.
POLITICAL
RACES
Charlie Crist, Democratic front-runner?
By Sean Sullivan
Washington Post
Former Florida governor Charlie Crist completed his transformation from Republican to Democrat last week, and by doing so, took a step closer to running for governor as a Democrat in 2014, a possibility that has been openly speculated on by political observers in the Sunshine State.
Crist vs. Scott? Expect lots of makeup, no hugs
By Sue Carlton
Tampa Bay Times
Former Florida governor and Republican-turned-independent Charlie Crist is officially a Democrat now, what a shock, and you can bet your next paycheck he will be a contender against Gov. Rick Scott in 2014.
Crist to Florida voters: I’ve changed. Really, I have…
By Frank Cerabino
Palm Beach Post
News item: After changing his voter registration to the Democratic Party last week, former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said he’s considering a run for governor again in 2014.
Crist's courage comes from uncharted path
By Peter Schorsch
Florida Voices
After seeing the reaction of Florida Republican Party Chairman Lenny Curry and other state Republicans, Charlie Crist’s signing up to be a Democrat will only further exacerbate the messy divorce between Crist and his former party.
ENVIRONMENT
AND ENERGY
Cabinet aproves Florida Forever work plan as environmentalists question slow pace of buying
By Bruce Ritchie
Florida Current
The Cabinet on Tuesday approved a fiscal year 2012-13 work plan for conservation land purchases with 21 projects involving conservation around military bases and springs and other water features.
Deaths of two endangered Florida panthers shatter state record
By Craig Pittman
Tampa Bay Times
About 9 p.m. Sunday, a truck driver ran over a Florida panther on State Road 520 in Orange County and tied two records at once.
EPA must protect Florida waterways
Editorial
Palm Beach Post
For three years, Florida tried to stall on setting tougher anti-pollution standards for the state’s lakes, rivers, streams and estuaries. Finally, and correctly, it appears that Florida has lost — for now.
LGBT
End the ban on gay marriage
Editorial
Miami Herald
With nine states and the District of Columbia now recognizing same-sex marriages, the timing was right for the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Friday to consider the issue.
EDUCATION
Parent leaders urge Gov. Rick Scott to reject education commissioner finalists
By Tia Mitchell
Tampa Bay Times
Nine parent leaders representing advocacy organizations across Florida sent a letter to Gov. Rick Scott today urging him to reject all three of the finalists for the education commissioner job.
State education commissioner candidates all fans of testing
By Jerome R. Stockfisch
Tampa Tribune
The state Board of Education is scheduled to pick a new education commissioner today, but students, teachers, parents and staff probably won't see radical change at the top.
Scott says voucher students should have same testing as in public schools
By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
During his gaggle with reporters after a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, Gov. Rick Scott made a statement that potentially puts him out of sync with Florida’s prominent school-choice backers in the Legislature and private sector.
Florida's program to grade teachers needs improvement
By Dan DeWitt
Tampa Bay Times
To believe in the fairness and accuracy of the state's new teacher evaluations, you'd have to believe that more than two-thirds of the teachers at Springstead High School — 69 of them — are better than the very best teacher at either Nature Coast Technical or Central high schools.
Scandals threaten FAMU's accreditation
By Gary Fineout
Associated Press
A series of scandals in the last year - including the hazing death of a drum major - is now threatening to cost Florida A&M University its academic reputation.
JOBS,
BUDGET, AND ECONOMY
Scott touts economic incentives, but lawmakers skeptical
By Gray Rohrer
Florida Current
Fresh off a trade mission to Colombia last week, Gov. Rick Scott emphasized the importance of economic incentive deals and claimed they are essential in bringing jobs to Florida.
In Florida, More Jobs But Fewer Hours
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Center for Investigative Reporting
As unemployment numbers drop across the country, little attention has been paid to another aspect of the country’s persistent economic woes: the high rate of underemployment in the United States.
Gov. Scott calls for more Citizens Property Insurance changes
By Michael Peltier
News Service of Florida
Florida Gov. Rick Scott on Tuesday called for the state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corp. to hire a full-time inspector general and submit to an ongoing third-party review of the policies it sells.
House Dems, GOP embrace cuts in defense spending
By Donna Cassata
Associated Press
Substantial reductions in military spending should be part of any budget deal that President Barack Obama negotiates with Congress to avert the so-called "fiscal cliff" of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts, a group of House Republicans and Democrats said Monday.
HEALTH
AND SENIORS
Scott: Make Medicaid affordable
By Ledyard King
Florida Today
Gov. Rick Scott is exploring his next move now that the White House has told states they must fully expand their Medicaid programs if they want the federal government to cover the initial costs.
Bondi bans "disgusting" synthetic drugs
By Bill Cotterell
Florida Current
As police across Florida sternly warned merchants to stop selling legal synthetic drugs, Attorney General Pam Bondi issued an emergency order Tuesday banning 22 more "disgusting" substances marketed to young people as safe alternatives to marijuana, cocaine and other illegal stimulants or hallucinogenic drugs.
Get to the bottom of Dozier deaths
Editorial
Tampa Bay Times
The tragic story of the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys will not be complete until every attempt has been made to account for every child who died there — either naturally or at the hands of their abusers.
JUSTICE
AND THE COURTS
Ex-Sweetwater cop executed by lethal injection at 7:47 p.m.
By David Ovalle and Anna Edgerton
Miami Herald
Twenty-four years after he urged a jury to give him a “glorious” death, Miami serial killer Manuel Pardo shut his eyes, yawned and fell into an eternal slumber, but not before delivering a final, defiant homage to his military past.
No comments:
Post a Comment