Daily News Clips for August 8, 2013

PROGRESS FLORIDA IN THE NEWS

Fla.'s jobs recruiter may get hefty bonus for work
By Gary Fineout
Associated Press
Excerpt: Integrity Florida joined with the Tea Party Network and Progress Florida in asking Scott and other state elected officials to delay any vote on executive bonuses. The letter questions the criteria, including counting jobs that have been promised instead of actually created.

Enterprise Florida's plan for $630K in staff bonuses catches flak
By Steve Bousquet
Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Excerpt: Integrity Florida, the Tea Party Network and Progress Florida sent Scott a letter calling for a halt to the executive bonuses and calling for greater transparency by the organization, whose board is comprised of leading business executives in the state.

Groups call for delay in Enterprise Florida bonuses
News Service of Florida
Saint Petersblog
Integrity Florida, Progress Florida and The Tea Party Network want a delay in a proposal that would allot more than $630,000 in bonuses to the head of the state’s business-recruitment organization and his staff.

FEATURED STORIES

Dozens of Lawmakers Support Protesters Fight
By Matt Horn
Capitol News Service
Legislative support for sit in protesters at the Capitol is growing.

Who will last longer: Gov. Scott or the Dream Defenders?
By Kathleen McGrory
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau
Related: Senate President won't convene a select committee on Stand Your Ground
When the Florida Department of Law Enforcement agreed to let a group of student activists spend the night in the Capitol last month, nobody expected they would stay long.

Rubio's 'folly' - the Obamacare edition
By Alex Leary
Tampa Bay Times
Remember that National Review cover with the headline "Rubio's folly"? It dealt with immigration. Now Peter Wehner of Commentary Magazine writes about Rubio's hard-line on health care, saying he's joined the "suicide caucus."

Frank Brogan, chancellor of Florida's university system, leaving for Pennsylvania
By Tia Mitchell
Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Frank Brogan knew his time as chancellor of Florida's state university system was drawing to a close, but even he didn't know he would be leaving his post or the Sunshine State so soon.

Ruling Revives Florida Review of Voting Rolls
By Lizette Alvarez
New York Times
Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, newly empowered by the United States Supreme Court’s ruling in June that struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act, has ordered state officials to resume a fiercely contested effort to remove noncitizens from voting rolls.

FLORIDA POLITICS

Changing political demographics bode well for Florida Democrats
By Joy-Ann Reid
Miami Herald
Marco Rubio raised some eyebrows last week when he said immigration really isn’t all that important an issue, at least as compared to the GOP’s impossible dream of repealing or defunding Obamacare.

Rick Scott will keynote Koch Bros-founded group's Orlando summit
By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
Gov. Rick Scott will be the keynote speaker at Americans for Prosperity's "Defending the American Dream Summit" over the Labor Day weekend at the Universal Orlando theme park.

Grayson pushes expanded family leave policies
By David Damron
Orlando Sentinel
U.S. Rep Alan Grayson teamed up Tuesday with organizers behind Orange County's paid sick time effort to push for an expansion of the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, which turns 20 years old.

Mike Fasano named Pasco tax collector in ceremony, tribute recalling time in Legislature
By Rich Shopes
Tampa Bay Times
In a ceremony that was part tribute and part celebrity-style roast, Mike Fasano was officially named Pasco County's tax collector Wednesday morning.

Florida’s disgraceful distinction: corruption
Editorial
Miami Herald
Two popular South Florida mayors get popped in a federal corruption sting. We would like to say this is the exception to the rule — except the entire state of Florida leads the nation in being ethically challenged. It’s a disgraceful distinction.

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

DEP assessing land for sale as concerns arise about process, budget language
By Bruce Ritchie
Florida Current
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has scheduled a public hearing and webinars on its assessment of state conservation lands that could be sold, but the ongoing assessment process already is generating concerns.

Court rules against rock mining in Everglades Agricultural Area
By Jennifer Sorentrue
Palm Beach Post
U.S. Sugar cannot mine for rock on 7,000 acres it owns south of Lake Okeechobee, an appeals court ruled Wednesday.

Despite Lake Okeechobee dumping, dike danger continues to rise
By Curtis Morgan
Miami Herald
Lake Okeechobee keeps rising — and so do worries about an aging dike the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ranks among the most vulnerable to failure in the country.

Stop letting Florida utilities bill customers for nuclear plants that don’t get built
Editorial
Palm Beach Post
State legislators got new evidence last week that they no longer should allow electric utilities to bill customers for plants that don’t get built.

EDUCATION

Florida's Grades, Education Chiefs Keep Revolving
By Paula Dockery
Lakeland Ledger
Related editorial: Florida Public Education: School Grades A Failure
As scandals go, this was a quick one. Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett resigned Thursday among reports of preferential treatment for the politically influential while he led the Indiana school system.

Local education leaders want input in state grading system
By Gabrielle Russon
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Following the mounting criticism of Florida's school grading system and the resignation of the state's education chief, the region's education leaders said they should be tapped to fix the state's flawed system.

JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY

ADP report: Florida's job growth slowed in July
By Jeff Harrington
Tampa Bay Times
Florida's jobs report for July won't be out for another week, but based on a sneak peek Wednesday, we might want to shut our eyes.

Florida’s chief financial officer asks top insurance regulator why rates aren’t coming down
By Charles Elmore
Palm Beach Post
Florida Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater asked the state’s top insurance regulator Wednesday why millions of residents are not seeing lower property insurance bills if reinsurance rates are falling 15 percent to 20 percent.

HEALTH AND SENIORS

Security concerns jeopardize October opening of health insurance marketplaces
By Tony Pugh
McClatchy Washington Bureau
The opening of the health insurance marketplaces in October – key to Obamacare – is in jeopardy because of looming questions about information security.

Proposal: Congressmen can decide whether to take new health care
By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar
Associated Press
The Obama administration has tossed back in the lap of Congress a prickly political question involving health insurance for staffers and lawmakers themselves.

FL Leads in Fighting Kids' Obesity
Staff Report
Health News Florida
A report released by the CDC Tuesday shows that the rates of childhood obesity are declining in 19 states and that Florida is one of the five states showing the best results, a full percentage point drop.

IMMIGRATION, CIVIL RIGHTS AND SOCIAL ISSUES

The Future of Dozier
By Mike Vasilinda
Capitol News Service
The Dozier School grounds have been padlocked since 2011.

George Zimmerman's Biggest Defender: A Racist With a Criminal Past
By Mariah Blake
Mother Jones
In April 2012, two days before George Zimmerman was arrested for the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, he huddled with a fellow neighborhood watch volunteer, Frank Taaffe.

What we think: With deck stacked, SYG hearing is another farce
Editorial
Orlando Sentinel
For a brief moment, Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford stood apart from Republican leaders in Tallahassee by saying he would convene a legislative hearing on the state's controversial "stand your ground" law in the wake of the George Zimmerman verdict.