FEATURED
STORIES
Rick Scott promised big ethics reform, but nothing has happened
By Steve Bousquet
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Long before the Legislature saw the need for new ethics laws, Gov. Rick Scott made a bold commitment to fight public corruption. But he hasn’t followed through.
Is Rick Scott a wildcard on 'parent trigger' bill?
By Kathleen McGrory
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Related: Controversial ‘parent trigger’ bill gets first nod from House subcommittee
No matter what you think of the so-called "parent trigger" proposal, one thing was made clear Thursday: The bill will be among the most contentious of the legislative session.
Proposal to change Florida state pensions to 401(k) plan moves forward
News Service of Florida
Tampa Bay Times
A bill placing all new state employees in a 401(k)-style retirement plan passed a House subcommittee on a party-line vote Thursday, setting up a major showdown between legislative Republicans and public workers' unions.
Bill banning local worker protections passes panel with living wage sunsets
By David Damron
Orlando Sentinel
Related: Precourt amends local wage, benefit ban bill, carves out exceptions
The House State Affairs Committee voted largely along party lines today to advance a Republican-led effort to ban local governments from adopting stronger pay and benefit protections for workers, but was changed to allow certain existing living wage measures to stay in place temporarily.
Rick Scott's new Medicaid ally — Charlie Crist
By Tia Mitchell
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Gov. Rick Scott's endorsement of a plan to expand Medicaid has many Republicans fuming, but not Republican-turned-Democrat Charlie Crist.
Clumsy book tour shows Jeb Bush still untested on national stage
By Adam C. Smith
Tampa Bay Times
Maybe, after all the gushing about his policy chops, strong executive record and ability to broaden the appeal of conservative Republicans, Jeb Bush isn't ready for the national stage.
BEST
OF THE BLOGS
Special thanks to Ben Kirby of The Spencerian, a Best of the Blogs favorite. We’ll miss all the great writing and insight he’s provided “thinking Floridians” over the years while he gives his keyboard an extended rest.
Weatherford's Family Relied On Medicaid, Which He's Now Denying Floridians
By Martha Jackovics
Beach Peanuts
There are at least three things that you can count on today's Republicans for being consistent on: Pushing tax cuts for the wealthy, obstruction, and stunning hypocrisy.
Private Prison Executive Isn’t Telling The Truth About GEO’s Record Of Juvenile Abuse
By Nicole Flatow
Think Progress
In the wake of the announcement that Florida Atlantic University would name its football stadium after private prison corporation GEO Group for a hefty price, an executive at the company is disseminating false and misleading information about the firm’s practices and documented abuses at its facilities.
Dozens Converge on Downtown Tampa to Resist Voter Suppression
By Ryan Ray
The Florida Squeeze
As our Capitol slowly devolves into an open-air slaughterhouse for good ideas and majoritarian rule, lousy with graft and openly hostile to the public trust like no time since the regime of the Pork Choppers, a loose-knit group of lefties the state over is standing athwart Florida history yelling “Enough already!”
Mainstream press avoids real cause of man-swallowing Florida sinkholes
By Gimleteye
Eye on Miami
One may pray that Florida voters will eventually make the connection between water managers, beholden to special interests, and district board members, appointed by the governor they elect, and sinkholes like the one that recently claimed the life of a Tampa area man named Jeff Bush.
Scott's Florida Medicaid plan hits legislative snag
By Joan McCarter
Daily Kos
So it turns out Florida's legislature is even more extremist than Gov. Rick Scott.
FLORIDA
POLITICS
House voting reforms don't go far enough
Editorial
Tampa Bay Times
It was designed to be a symbolic gesture of significant proportions.
House Speaker: $10,000 contribution limit isn't happening
By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
Speaker Will Weatherford said Thursday the House would dramatically lower the proposed $10,000 campaign-contribution limit it is pushing in exchange for broad ethics changes lawmakers are debating this session.
Florida Legislature should repeal special-interest billboard law
Editorial
Palm Beach Post
The Florida Senate made a big show this week of passing an ethics reform bill that Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville said is long overdue.
Scott sidesteps questions about legislation
By Steve Bousquet
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
When Gov. Rick Scott says his focus this legislative session is on a teacher pay raise and a tax break for manufacturers' equipment purchases, he isn't kidding.
Texting while driving bill gets moving in House
By Rochelle Koff
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
A bill to limit texting while driving appears finally to have momentum in the Florida House, after years of proposals stalling out.
Florida lawmakers seek to repeal controversial international drivers' law
By Lloyd Dunkelberger
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
With Florida Tourism Day set for the state Capitol next week, state lawmakers are scrambling to correct an embarrassing legal misstep threatening that industry.
With the voice of reason gone, who do you call?
By Sue Carlton
Tampa Bay Times
A few months back when I was writing about politics where politics does not belong — Republicans opposing the retention of three Florida Supreme Court justices who had apparently displeased them — my first call was a no-brainer.
Five things to look for in Friday’s Legislative session
By Steve Bousquet
Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times Tallahassee Bureau
A legislative week marked by the Senate's fast passage of an ethics reform bill will end with a senator formally answering ethics charges.
POLITICAL
RACES
Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown files to run for re-election
By Timothy J. Gibbons
Florida Times-Union
Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown is looking to take his time in office to the next level.
ENVIRONMENT
AND ENERGY
Florida sugar growers win House vote on Everglades pollution payout
By John Kennedy
Palm Beach Post
The sugar industry won a round Thursday in the long fight over Everglades restoration, when a House panel approved extending a tax on growers that environmentalists say will leave South Florida taxpayers paying most of the cleanup cost.
Ag water bill passes Senate committee while coal ash and fracking bills clear House subcommittee
By Bruce Ritchie
Florida Current
A pair of bills facing environmental opposition passed Senate and House committees on Thursday while bills that would regulate hydraulic fracturing passed a House panel without opposition.
Florida lawmakers lay groundwork for natural gas “fracking”
By Jim Saunders
News Service of Florida
The national debate about a type of oil and gas drilling known as “fracking” has never hit home in Florida.
Gov. Scott, Cabinet approve land deals
Associated Press
Tampa Tribune
Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Cabinet have approved buying land to add to a National Guard training site and a north Florida spring.
High-Stake Environmental Issues Before The Florida Legislature in 2013
By Tricia Woolfenden
WLRN Miami
The Florida Legislative Session 2013 is in full swing, and environmental groups are worried about a number of bills before lawmakers.
LGBT
Hearing set for Leon County domestic-partner registry
By Jeff Burlew
Tallahassee Democrat
Sharon and Terry Anne Kant-Rauch have been together since their first date 30 years ago, a day trip to St. George Island.
EDUCATION
McKeel's sister back on Florida Polytechnic payroll
By Tia Mitchell
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Last year, Maggie Mariucci cited a toxic, stressful environment as the reason she left her job at what was then known as University of South Florida Polytechnic.
Florida data shows charter schools outperform traditional schools on FCAT
By Jeffrey S. Solochek
Tampa Bay Times
Every year by law the Florida Department of Education releases a report comparing the academic performance of charter and traditional schools, as assessed by the FCAT and end-of-course exams.
JOBS,
BUDGET, AND ECONOMY
Brandes bill on tougher pension scrutiny passes first committee
By Michael Van Sickler
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
He had to scramble to do it, but Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, got his bill for more pension scrutiny passed in a senate committee.
Miami-Dade Republican blasts anti-'living' wage efforts in Tallahassee, questions Van Zant's 'theology' ties to communist Cuba
By Patricia Mazzei
Miami Herald
Natacha Seijas, the former Miami-Dade commissioner who championed ordinances creating a local "living wage" and preventing wage theft, took Florida lawmakers to task Thursday for considering legislation that would force counties to repeal those laws and ban them from enacting them in the future.
Bill could bring higher insurance rates for property owners
By Toluse Olorunnipa
Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times Tallahassee Bureau
A bill brimming with enticements for the private property insurance industry — and forcing homeowners to pay higher rates to reinvigorate a tepid market — passed its first committee in the Florida Legislature on Thursday.
Florida's unemployed will take 2 hits as sequestration's bite is felt
By Michael Pollick
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Once a worker in Florida has gone through 19 weeks of unemployment compensation, federal emergency compensation checks kick in.
Sharper eye needed on state contracts
Editorial
Tampa Bay Times
It is a common refrain among conservative politicians that government should be managed like a business.
HEALTH
AND SENIORS
Health care workers rally at Florida Capitol to expand Medicaid coverage
By John Kennedy
Palm Beach Post
About 400 health care workers crowded the Florida Capitol on Thursday, singing, chanting — with even a few in costume — to urge legislative leaders to endorse the Medicaid expansion allowed under the federal Affordable Care Act.
Feds' offer would increase care, cut costs, create jobs
By Ron Pollack
Orlando Sentinel
Related: Medicaid expansion costs: not as much as Scott thought
At a recent gathering of political leaders, Gov. Rick Scott was asked if Florida would accept federal money to expand health-care coverage to hundreds of thousands of uninsured Floridians through Medicaid.
Florida Chamber of Commerce hears Medicaid debate
By Bill Cotterell
Florida Current
The president or the Florida Hospital Association told Florida Chamber of Commerce leaders Thursday that Gov. Rick Scott's plan to expand Medicaid access for about 1 million poor people would be good for business by sending about $30 billion rippling through the state's economy in the next 10 years.
State lawmakers should leave the sad family stories to those that really matter
By Frank Cerabino
Palm Beach Post
Can we please have a moratorium on telling heart-melting family stories as a way to peddle your views on who should pay for the health care of Floridians?
Florida Medicaid Expansion: Confusion or Hypocrisy
Editorial
Lakeland Ledger
The Florida Legislature opened its annual 60-day session Tuesday. Monday, just prior to the formalities, the House Select Committee on Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act voted 10-5 along party lines to reject an expansion of Medicaid in Florida.
Patient Pitches Medical Marijuana
By Mike Vasilinda
Capitol News Service
A wheelchair bound woman who has outlived predictions of her demise for more than 20 years spent the day wheeling through the halls of the Capitol, seeking to legalize the use of medical marijuana, which she believes has kept her alive.
Senate Moving on Smoking Ban Bill
By Whitney Ray
Capitol News Service
A state bill to ban smoking in parks and at beaches is moving early in session.
CIVIL
RIGHTS, PEACE AND SOCIAL ISSUES
Senate panel approves gun-control measure
Staff Report
Hearst Newspapers
The Senate Judiciary Committee took a tentative step Thursday toward addressing gun violence by approving legislation that would make "straw purchases" of guns a federal crime.
More gun laws fewer deaths, 50-state study says
By Lindsey Tanner
Associated Press
States with the most gun control laws have the fewest gun-related deaths, according to a study that suggests sheer quantity of measures might make a difference.
In Immigration Discussion, Jeb Bush Fell Victim to Bad Timing. Or Did He?
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Center for Investigative Reporting
There are a couple of explanations floating around for what’s going on with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
Let Felons Vote After They Complete Sentence
By Rhonda Swan
Florida Voices
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia last week said that Congress’ re-authorization of the Voting Rights Act is a "perpetuation of racial entitlement.”
JUSTICE
AND THE COURTS
|Scott names 'conservative' lawyer Forst to DCA judgeship
By Steve Bousquet
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Gov. Rick Scott on Thursday named a lawyer to an appellate judgeship who highlighted his "conservative credentials" on his application, including past ties to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and members of the Bush family.
Time for Fla. lawmakers to end attack on courts
Editorial
Orlando Sentinel
Politicians in Tallahassee mounted a sustained attack on Florida's courts in 2011 and 2012.
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