Daily News Clips for April 25, 2013

FEATURED STORIES

Legislators send campaign finance and ethics bills to governor
By Mary Ellen Klas
Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times Tallahassee Bureau
Shamed by a series of ethics and campaign finance abuses, Florida lawmakers sent to the governor on Wednesday a bill that eliminates political slush funds and imposes new ethics rules for elected officials across the state.

Florida Senate passes elections reform on party-line vote
By Steve Bousquet
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Responding to the long lines and long ballots that tarnished Florida's 2012 election, the Senate passed a set of voting fixes Wednesday along party lines, with Republicans voting yes and Democrats voting no.

Could Pension Reform In Florida Be In Jeopardy? Ball's In Senate Sponsor's Court
By Sascha Cordner      
WFSU Tallahassee
Pension talks between the House and Senate appear to be at an impasse, after the Senate’s pension overhaul bill never got taken up Wednesday.

Simmons may opt for sick time bill that kills local wage rules too
By David Damron
Orlando Sentinel
State Sen. David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs, said he may abandon his bill that would block local governments from adopting mandatory sick time benefits, such as one pending in Orange County, and go for something broader.

FL Medicaid: Why Doesn't House Take the Money?
By Carol Gentry
Health News Florida
The hottest issue of this legislative session has been the question “Will Florida take $50 billion in federal Medicaid funds to cover over 1 million uninsured?”

Florida will suffer if House Republicans don’t bend on Medicaid
Editorial
Palm Beach Post
House Republicans still insist on denying health insurance coverage to 975,000 Floridians and sticking taxpayers with a $2 billion tab for a substandard insurance program — just to snub the Obama administration on Medicaid. That is heartless and irresponsible.

FLORIDA POLITICS

'The Right Thing to Do'? Really, Governor?
By Paula Dockery
Florida Voices
When Rick Scott first broke onto the scene in 2010, he hit the airwaves with brilliant campaign ads that sent the simple but effective message to a weary electorate.

Deal on campaign finance, ethics doubles contributions
By Dara Kam
Palm Beach Post
Florida House and Senate leaders have reached a deal on campaign finance and ethics reforms, Senate Ethics and Elections Committee Chairman Jack Latvala announced on the floor this morning.

Latvala: House insisted on political party loophole
By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
Senate elections chairman Jack Latvala said House leaders were insistent that any campaign-finance bill requiring additional disclosure of cash by candidates keep a major loophole that will likely allow soft-money givers to channel their cash through political parties.

Former Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll gets new job
Associated Press
Tampa Bay Times
Former Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll is getting a new job.

Dangerous bills help Big Sugar pollute, quash government transparency
Editorial
Miami Herald
With less than two weeks left to wrap up the session, the Florida Legislature is moving some controversial and destructive bills forward at warp speed while allowing others of paramount importance — expanding Medicaid to 1 million more Floridians, for instance — to languish and go nowhere.

Orange leaders who lost or deleted records added to 'textgate' lawsuit
By David Damron
Orlando Sentinel
Four Orange County leaders who lost or deleted phone text messages in the wake of a paid sick time voting controversy were individually added to an open government lawsuit Wednesday.

Willfully blind
Editorial
Gainesville Sun
It’s nothing new for Florida lawmakers to try to pull down the shades on the state’s Sunshine Law, creating exemptions that hide information from public view.

POLITICAL RACES

Bush, Clinton speak, stoke speculation about political futures
Associated Press
Tampa Bay Times
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush urged the nation to change its immigration and education systems to ensure a robust American economy in remarks Wednesday before the World Affairs Council in Dallas.

Jeb battles Bush fatigue
By Anna Palmer
Politico
Jeb Bush can check the boxes needed to win the White House — money, résumé and connections. But he’s also got a problem: his last name.

BALLOT INITIATIVES

Why Florida needs the Water and Land Conservation Amendment
By Will Abberger
Saint Petersblog
With an eye toward conserving Florida’s rich natural beauty for future generations to enjoy, our state has had an excellent and long-standing commitment to protecting public land and water through acquisition and management.

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

Senate passes water quality bill, House passes fertilizer amendment -- and Sierra Club slams both
By Bruce Ritchie
Florida Current
The Senate on Wednesday passed a bill that could help the state implement water quality standards while the House amended a permitting bill to add a moratorium on new fertilizer ordinances.

Fla. House passes bill requiring registry to track fracking in Florida
By Jenna Buzzacco-Foerster
Naples Daily News
Hydraulic fracturing may not be on the immediate horizon, but a Southwest Florida lawmaker is hopeful his bill will put disclosure requirements in place before it happens.

Lawmakers Debate Underground Natural Gas Storage
By Regan McCarthy      
WFSU Tallahassee
Natural gas companies want to take advantage of Florida’s already existing resources and use once-mined and now empty underground natural gas and petroleum reservoirs as a place to store natural gas.

Collier, Lee, others sue BP for economic losses from 2010 oil spill
By Aisling Swift
Naples Daily News
Collier and Lee counties have sued BP, Transocean and Halliburton Energy Services to recoup economic losses caused by the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.  

EDUCATION

Fla. online school target of cuts from legislators
By Gary Fineout
Associated Press
Florida's highly-successful online school is battling proposed cutbacks at a time when state legislators are bragging about boosting money for schools by more than $1 billion.

High school sports bill gets a 'Hail Mary' in the Florida House
By Kathleen McGrory
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
The body that oversees high school sports in Florida is preparing its fourth-quarter defense.

Details of subsidized tutoring deal remain elusive
By Kathleen McGrory
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Florida lawmakers told reporters Tuesday that they will free school districts from requirements to pay for subsidized tutoring programs.

JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY

Lawmakers take aim at workers' benefits
By Nancy Argenziano and Patricia Schroeder
Tallahassee Democrat
Imagine being a working mother when one of your children wakes up with the flu.

Budget battles 2013: A big behind-the-scenes tug of war
By Gary Fineout
The Fine Print
In their final public session together the two men (pictured left) leading the 2013 budget negotiations over education spending gave each other a hearty hug.

State Pension Reform
By Whitney Ray
Capitol News Service
The future of Florida’s state retirement system is in limbo as Republicans in Tallahassee line up behind two different reform plans.

Citizens Insurance overhaul bill delayed — again
By Toluse Olorunnipa
Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times Tallahassee Bureau
A scheduled vote on a major insurance overhaul was again postponed Wednesday, indicating that fear of skyrocketing rates is weighing down the bill in the Florida Senate.

Scott to get fewer tax-incentive dollars, more qualifiers
By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
Gov. Rick Scott will get a slimmed-down tax-incentive toy box with tougher standards for evaluating the economic benefit of projects.

HEALTH AND SENIORS

Democrats to co-sponsor Fasano health amendment
By James Call
Florida Current
It’s that time of the session when lawmakers find strange bedfellows.

Fla. House, Senate negotiating Medicaid compromise
Associated Press
Tampa Tribune
Florida House and Senate leaders are negotiating a deal that would use state and federal dollars to offer health coverage to thousands of uninsured Floridians under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, according to a person close to the talks.

Counties and Safety Net Hospitals Outraged Over Senate Plans To Distribute Local Money
By Lynn Hatter 
WFSU Tallahassee
Some counties have special taxes they collect to support their local hospitals that treat needy patients.

Weatherford on Medicaid: 'I have not had to twist arms'
By Mary Ellen Klas
Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times Tallahassee Bureau
House Speaker Will Weatherford said that the high-level attention given to House Republican freshmen does not involve using strong-arm tactics, as he and his deputies try to hold the Republican caucus position to reject federal dollars on Medicaid reform.

IMMIGRATION, CIVIL RIGHTS AND SOCIAL ISSUES

Civil rights martyrs honored in Tallahassee
By Margie Menzel
News Service of Florida
For 82-year-old Evangeline Moore, Wednesday was a long time coming.

JUSTICE AND THE COURTS

Bock warns Senate clerks-of-court funding plan would mean closures, layoffs
By Dara Kam
Palm Beach Post
Florida’s clerks of court are expecting a change this year in the way the state funds their offices, but they don’t know yet whether it will be better or worse than the system they say has left them underfunded since 2009, when lawmakers changed the way court fines and fees had been distributed in Florida for 164 years.