Daily News Clips for December 17, 2012

FEATURED STORIES

We can't remain silent on gun control
Editorial
Tampa Bay Times
The horror that unfolded Friday in a Connecticut elementary school leading to the deaths of at least 26, including 20 children, is a heart-wrenching reminder of how desperately this country needs to have an honest conversation about guns and violence.

Florida revenue forecast improves, but federal “cliff” and pension ruling could hurt budget
By John Kennedy
Palm Beach Post
Florida’s economy continued showing fresh signs of life, with analysts Friday forecasting tax collections will rise almost 5 percent next year – giving Gov. Rick Scott and state lawmakers more cash to spend in the state budget.

Provisional-ballot law prevented little fraud but forced extra work
By Michael Van Sickler
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
It's the most unreliable way to vote, a last resort in which half of the ballots are disqualified.

Gov. Scott calls for bids to build transparency web site
By Mary Ellen Klas
Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times Tallahassee Bureau
A budget tracking web site paid for by Florida taxpayers but never made public will remain on the shelf as Gov. Rick Scott announced Friday that he will seek bids to create a public budget watchdog site and the vendors of the existing system can get in line with everyone else.

Speaker Will Weatherford warns lawmakers to cool it after rowdiness at Disney resort
By Lucy Morgan and Michael Van Sickler
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
House Speaker Will Weatherford has apologized for the behavior of some lawmakers at a retreat last month when several Republican members who had been drinking became unruly at a Disney World hotel.

EDITORIAL CARTOON OF THE WEEK

By Jim Morin
Miami Herald

FLORIDA POLITICS

Few answers for long lines at Orange, Osceola polls
By Scott Powers and David Damron
Orlando Sentinel
Related column: Bill would remedy long voting lines
Chris Fernandez waited five hours to vote Nov. 6, then drove past his polling place a couple of times during the afternoon to see whether the line ever got shorter.

Taddeo drops out of race for chair of Florida Democrats, backs Allison Tant
By Alex Leary
Tampa Bay Times
Annette Taddeo has dropped her bid for chair of the Florida Democratic Party and has gotten behind Allison Tant, saying "it is clear that she would make a phenomenal Florida Democratic Party chair and unite our party because of her passion for Democratic values that we all share."

Ethics law changes on Legislature's radar for 2013 session, report says it's time
By Jenna Buzzacco-Foerster
Naples Daily News
Florida's counties are strengthening their ethics laws while their law-making counterparts in the state's capital have stayed mum on the issue since the 1970s, a recent report said.

Mediocre GOP opponents put luck on Sen. Nelson's side
By Adam C. Smith
Tampa Bay Times
Hard to argue with political analyst Stuart Rothenberg, who last week declared Bill Nelson the "Luckiest Politician of 2012."

Former GOP chairman Bob Waechter charged with felony
By Jeremy Wallace and Carrie Wells
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
The most powerful political player in Sarasota County politics and the former chairman of the county Republican Party has been charged with a felony after authorities say he stole the identity of a political rival and made campaign donations in her name to a Democratic candidate for Congress to embarrass her.

Longtime Florida political figure Doyle Conner dies
By Brent Kallestad
Associated Press
Doyle Conner, the youngest House speaker in Florida history who went on to spend 30 years as the state's agriculture commissioner, died Sunday.

Compilation of reactions from Florida’s elected officials to tragedy in Newtown
By Peter Schorsch
Saint Petersblog
Florida elected officials offered condolences to families and the community around Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where a 20-year-old man killed 20 children and seven adults on Friday.

POLITICAL RACES

Charlie's future is all about campaign cash
By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
Charlie Crist 2.0 must answer a serious question before he becomes a serious alternative to presumed Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls like former CFO Alex Sink, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer or ex-Broward Sen. Nan Rich.

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

Florida rivers getting sicker, Sentinel investigation finds
By Kevin Spear
Orlando Sentinel
Florida's rivers are in trouble. That's what the Orlando Sentinel found after a yearlong evaluation of some of the state's biggest and smallest, most urban and remote, cleanest and dirtiest, protected and abused rivers.

Group urges federal government to take manatees off endangered list
By Craig Pittman
Tampa Bay Times
For more than a decade, boaters who chafed at the proliferation of speed limits on the water have contended that the Florida manatee no longer deserves to be called an endangered species.

Drive to keep Kings Bay from being smothered by toxic algae treats symptom, not cause
By Craig Pittman
Tampa Bay Times
Last month, Florida's top environmental regulator took a boat tour of a Citrus County spring, joined by the chairman of the state Senate's Environmental Preservation and Conservation Committee.

Florida urged to develop criteria for military missions on state conservation lands
By Bruce Ritchie
Florida Current
Acquisition and Advisory Council members on Friday questioned the extent of military training missions that will be conducted on state lands as state officials agreed to discuss whether criteria are needed for what is allowed.

Public Service Commission acted for FPL, not consumers.
Editorial
Palm Beach Post
On Thursday, the Florida Public Service Commission officially became a wholly owned subsidiary of Florida Power & Light Co.

LGBT

Gay leaders take seats in Tally
News Service of Florida
South Florida Herald-Tribune
With the U.S. Supreme Court considering same-sex marriage, President Barack Obama re-elected on a platform that included it, and the first openly gay lawmakers taking their seats in Tallahassee, gay voters say it’s been a winning year.

Gays celebrate year of political victories
By Anthony Man
South Florida Sun Sentinel
After a string of political victories in Florida and across the country, gays and lesbians see 2012 as a political watershed.

EDUCATION

Schools around US mull security after massacre
By Christine Armario
Associated Press
Schools around the country are reviewing security plans and in some cases adding extra law enforcement patrols to prepare for the first day of classes since a shooting massacre at an elementary school in Connecticut.

Florida education chief puts focus on communication
By Jerome R. Stockfisch
Tampa Tribune
The state Board of Education has named Tony Bennett education commissioner, keeping Florida on track with the reforms initiated by former Gov. Jeb Bush in 1999.

Same old, same old
Editorial
Ocala Star-Banner
It’s no surprise that Tony Bennett, Florida’s newly hired education commissioner, would be bullish on testing, vouchers and charter schools, or that the state’s largest teacher union would object to his appointment.

JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY

Citizens fights new policy because it saves consumers too much
By Charles Elmore
Palm Beach Post
State-run insurer Citizens moved Friday to block customers from saving nearly 30 percent on their 2013 premiums if they choose less coverage under a new state law — unless regulators agree to kill most of the savings first.

Union jobs build middle class
By Richard Trumka
Florida Today
It’s a tough time to work for a living. Middle-class families have been losing ground for more than a decade.

Don’t let yet another state employee ‘retire’ and keep working
Editorial
Palm Beach Post
Some government employees in Florida must have confused themselves with big-time athletes.

HEALTH AND SENIORS

Hike in Medicare Age: In or Out?
By Carol Gentry
Health News Florida
In the still-unresolved “fiscal cliff” negotiations over spending cuts and revenue increases, one Republican proposal that would have a huge impact on Floridians -- raising the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 67 -- apparently has not been ruled out, McClatchy Newspapers reports.

Social Security and Medicare trim would squeeze retirees
By William E. Gibson
South Florida Sun Sentinel
Democrats in Congress and many of their constituents from the retirement haven of Florida are trying to fend off Republican proposals to trim future Medicare and Social Security benefits as part of a budget deal to avert the fiscal cliff.

Most Don't Know Much About Health Law
By Carol Gentry
Health News Florida
Many people who are uninsured, the ones whom the Affordable Care Act is designed to help, are terrified of it because they have little understanding of it.

Centers Had History of Abuse
By Carol Gentry
Health News Florida
Two Florida centers that housed vulnerable populations -- adults with brain-damage, teen girls accused of delinquency -- had a long history of trouble before problems came to the attention of authorities, according to reports over the weekend.

Fewer health care options for illegal immigrants
Associated Press
Tampa Tribune
For years, Sonia Limas would drag her daughters to the emergency room whenever they fell sick.

CIVIL RIGHTS, PEACE AND SOCIAL ISSUES

Marco Rubio, Mario Diaz-Balart exemplify split among GOP on immigration reform
By Alex Leary
Tampa Bay Times
Immigration — one of the most complex and divisive issues facing the country — suddenly has new life on Capitol Hill.

State’s Gun Fetish is Nothing to Celebrate
By Pierre Tristam
Florida Voices
For some reason Adam Putnam, Florida’s agriculture commissioner and governor wannabe, felt compelled to hold a press conference last week to boast about the number of concealed-carry weapons license holders in the state.

JUSTICE AND THE COURTS

Gov. Rick Scott picks Crews as state prisons chief
By Steve Bousquet
Tampa Bay Times
Gov. Rick Scott on Monday will announce a new secretary for the Department of Corrections: Mike Crews, who is currently the agency's No. 2 official, holding the title of deputy secretary.

State attorneys do not compile case statistics in a uniform manner
By Cindy Swirko
Gainesville Sun
About 43 percent of cases filed each year by the Alachua County Sheriff's Office and Gainesville Police Department are eventually dropped by 8th Circuit State Attorney Bill Cervone, records show.