Daily News Clips for April 17, 2013

PROGRESS FLORIDA IN THE NEWS

Exclusive Fla Insider Poll: Bill Nelson toughest challenger to Rick Scott
By Adam C. Smith
Tampa Bay Times
Note: Progress Florida’s Mark Ferrulo and Damien Filer were among those polled.
Gov. Rick Scott's re-election prospects would be much weaker if he faced Sen. Bill Nelson as the Democratic nominee, rather than Charlie Crist. That's the overwhelming sentiment of 119 veteran Florida political experts in the latest Tampa Bay Times Florida Insider Poll.

FEATURED STORIES

Proposed election changes don't go far enough, Florida Democrats warn
By Steve Bousquet
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
The Florida Senate reworked a major elections bill Tuesday to make it easier to vote early and absentee — and easier for the state to punish election supervisors who make mistakes.

Florida Senate budget chief open to compromise on health-care expansion for poor
By John Kennedy
Palm Beach Post
With the House and Senate divided over whether to accept federal dollars to expand health insurance for poor Floridians, Senate budget chief Joe Negron said Tuesday he is open to finding a middle ground.

House Math Doesn't Add Up: Fasano
By Carol Gentry
Health News Florida
State Rep. Mike Fasano of Pasco County went through the math of the House's health plan and showed how any family poor enough to qualify for it would be unable to afford it.

Activists urge Floridians to fight anti-sick-time bills
By David Damron
Orlando Sentinel
A coalition of activists urged Floridians on Tuesday to oppose statewide legislation blocking local governments from adopting benefit provisions such as the pending paid sick time referendum in Orange County.

Fate of nuclear fee depends on whether House or Senate prevails
By Mary Ellen Klas
Miami Herald
Florida legislators continued to fast-track two proposals to rework the unpopular nuclear fee on customer utility bills Tuesday but activists warned that the two plans could have drastically different impacts on customers.

Senate's Gang of 8 releases immigration bill
By Alan Gomez
USA Today
After months of late-night negotiations, a bipartisan group of senators finally released their immigration bill early Wednesday morning that allows the nation's 11 million unauthorized immigrants to apply for U.S. citizenship and tightens security along the nation's southwest border.

FLORIDA POLITICS

Florida Republicans target foreign-language voting
By Marc Caputo
Miami Herald
Desiline Victor, the 102-year-old North Miami voter who became a symbol of Florida’s elections woes, could again find it tough to cast a ballot now that the state Senate voted Tuesday to keep a crackdown on foreign-language interpreters at the polls.

Florida elections supervisors dislike disciplinary provision added to elections overhaul bill
By Dara Kam
Palm Beach Post
Florida’s secretary of state could wipe out bonuses for elections supervisors deemed out of compliance with election standards under a provision added to an elections overhaul bill on Tuesday.

Make key changes to ethics reform bill
By Matt Carlucci
South Florida Sun Sentinel
As a member of the Florida Commission on Ethics, I am grateful and encouraged that we are on the cusp of dramatic and necessary ethics reform.

Tea party members protest at Sen. Marco Rubio's office
By Alex Leary
Tampa Bay Times
Tea party members protested Tuesday at one of Sen. Marco Rubio's Florida offices, revealing strains in the relationship since Rubio became the national face of immigration reform.

Florida Senate unanimously approves texting-while-driving ban
By Rochelle Koff
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
This looks like the year Florida will outlaw texting while driving.

Sachs: I'm a legal resident of my district
By Bill Cotterell
Florida Current
State Sen. Maria Sachs said Tuesday she complies with all legal residency requirements for her legislative seat, despite objections raised by the chairman of the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee.

POLITICAL RACES

Election war chests grow for Florida politicians, even with voting far in future
By George Bennett
Palm Beach Post
Former Republican U.S. Rep. Allen West has ruled out running for office in 2014 after losing his reelection bid last year.  

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

HB 999 is a 'Christmas tree' with gifts some think don't belong in state law
By Bruce Ritchie
Florida Current
Related: Permitting bill approved at final committee stop despite continued environmental opposition
To Alan Marshall of the Orange County Environmental Protection Division, a dispute between the county and a stormwater district doesn't seem like the right issue to be taken up in legislation that would change state law.

House, Senate nuclear cost recovery bills clear final committee stops
By Bruce Ritchie
Florida Current
House and Senate bills that would limit the costs that utilities can recover in advance for proposed new nuclear plants cleared their final committee stops on Tuesday.

Environmentalists worry about certain bills in Legislature this year
By Kevin Spear
Orlando Sentinel
Moves to block local-government bans on summertime fertilizing and prohibit septic-tank inspections are among provisions feared by environmentalists monitoring this year's session of the Florida Legislature.

EDUCATION

Teachers mount legal challenge to new evaluation system
By Kathleen McGrory and Danny Valentine
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
When the state began evaluating teachers based on student test scores last year, Bethann Brooks watched her performance rating slip from "highly effective" to "effective."

Guns in schools bill gets through committee
By James Call
Florida Current
A bill allowing a designated school employee to carry a gun on school property is headed to the House floor.

State Board Works To Dispel 'Misinformation' About New Common Core Ed Standards
By Lynn Hatter 
WFSU Tallahassee
The State Board of Education, which oversees Florida’s public schools and community and state colleges, met Tuesday to get an overview of proposals making their way through the legislature.

New (Hoosier) faces at the Florida Department of Education
By Jeffrey S. Solochek
Tampa Bay Times
When Tony Bennett won the job as Florida's education commissioner, he didn't hide that his desire to bring some of his Indiana advisers with him to help him make the transition.

Florida Poly marks construction landmark
By Jerome R. Stockfisch
Tampa Tribune
With the placement of a final stanchion alongside a symbolic tree and a rousing round of applause, Florida Polytechnic supporters and officials celebrated the “topping out” of the campus showpiece – the $134 million Innovation, Science and Technology building.

JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY

Wage theft bill headed to House floor
By Toluse Olorunnipa
Miami Herald
A bill that would outlaw new “wage theft” ordinances—similar to the one in Miami-Dade County—is headed to the House floor after a partyline vote in its final committee.

County OKs wage-theft law
By Morgan Watkins
Gainesville Sun
Alachua County Commission adopted a wage-theft ordinance Tuesday evening that allows it to mediate disputes between workers and employers over unpaid wages, but state legislation could pre-empt the ordinance before it goes into effect.

Lawmakers move to water down Citizens bill
By Gray Rohrer
Florida Current
Faced with robust opposition to legislation that designed to reduce the number of policies in Citizens Property Insurance Corp. in part by softening a cap on rate increases, lawmakers in both chambers Tuesday took steps to carve out some Citizens customers from provisions allowing sharp rate increases.

Gov. Scott visits Riviera Beach, urges end to sales tax on manufacturing equipment
By George Bennett
Palm Beach Post
Gov. Rick Scott renewed his push for eliminating Florida’s 6 percent sales tax on manufacturing equipment Tuesday, urging business and local government representatives to call legislators and urge them to support the tax break.

Scope of Cat Fund bill drastically reduced in House as Senate seeks compromise
By Gray Rohrer
Florida Current
Lawmakers pushing for a reduction in Florida’s reinsurance fund are holding out hope that some form of their legislation will make it to Gov. Rick Scott’s desk this year.

HEALTH AND SENIORS

Sen. Gaetz wants Medicaid middle ground that avoids special session
By Mary Ellen Klas
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Related: Ads urge Republican House members to support Medicaid expansion
Related editorial: Math for accepting Medicaid only gets better
Senate President Don Gaetz said Tuesday that as the House and Senate work to seek a middle ground on Medicaid expansion the final product that emerges may be a melding of the two extremes that puts Florida at odds with the federal government’s “all or nothing approach.”

Medicaid expansion saves lives, money
By Martha Baker
Miami Herald
The Medicaid expansion debate raging in Tallahassee can seem pretty abstract at times, as lawmakers consider whether and how to move billions of federal dollars to help millions of people access quality healthcare in communities across Florida.

Appalling cuts fall on needy children
By Dan Dewitt
Tampa Bay Times
Head Start is a lousy name, because at best the program just makes up lost ground — gives needy preschoolers some of the things other kids get by being born into middle-class families.

Bill seeks fairness on nursing home litigation, but critics cry foul
By Rochelle Koff
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Families of nursing home patients and advocates for the elderly are once again fighting legislation that would make it tougher to sue the homes for neglect.

IMMIGRATION, CIVIL RIGHTS AND SOCIAL ISSUES

Senators finally release immigration bill
By Alex Leary
Tampa Bay Times
The Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013.

GOP money man Hoffman: ‘Obama is right on the issue of gun control’
By George Bennett
Palm Beach Post
Republican mega-financier Al Hoffman of North Palm Beach is at it again.

JUSTICE AND THE COURTS

House panel moves forward death penalty bill
By James L. Rosica
Associated Press
A bill that would speed up the death penalty in Florida cleared a House panel Tuesday after a man told lawmakers of his family's 32-year wait for his sister's killer to be put to death.

Online-travel tax fight may go to Florida's high court
News Service of Florida
Orlando Sentinel
After years of debate in state courthouses and the Capitol, a high-stakes tax battle between counties and online-travel companies could wind up in the Florida Supreme Court.