Daily Clips for January 26, 2012

PROGRESS FLORIDA IN THE NEWS

11,000 Floridians Petition Against Voter Suppression Act
WCTV-TV
Related: Progress Florida submits more than 11,000 petition signatures in opposition to GOP’s so-called Voter Suppression Act
Progress Florida has submitted a petition signed by 11,289 Floridians in opposition to HB 1355 – the “Voter Suppression Act of 2011.” The petition was made part of the official record of the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on Florida’s elections law to be held Friday in Tampa.

FEATURED STORIES

Pain eases to Florida school budgets under House plan, but needy to suffer more cuts
By John Kennedy
Palm Beach Post
A House panel approved a $1 billion boost in public school spending Wednesday, backing Gov. Rick Scott's push to begin replenishing dollars for classrooms which suffered even deeper cuts last year. The proposed, election-year increase looks certain to force sharp cuts in health and social service programs for the poor, elderly and disabled.

At local stops, Mitt Romney draws applause, but Newt Gingrich gets cheers
By Scott Powers
Orlando Sentinel
Related: GOP hopefuls face delicate dance with Florida Hispanic voters
Related: UNF debate rivals' last chance to sway Florida voters
The two leading Republican presidential candidates came to Central Florida on Wednesday, and their events — and reception by voters — couldn't have been more different.

Senate disregards perils of privatization
Editorial
St. Petersburg Times
Florida Senate leaders claim their end run around a judge's ruling in an effort to quickly privatize South Florida prisons is all about saving money.

FLORIDA POLITICS

Americans Elect Makes Florida Ballot
By Whitney Ray
Capitol News Service
Florida’s presidential primary is Tuesday, but voter upset with the outcome will get another shot. The first ever nationwide online primary will be held in April.

Closing schools, Closing prisons, It's all politics
By Scott Maxwell
Orlando Sentinel
Today we're talking about partisan foolishness — on both sides of the aisle. We start with delusional GOP voters, specifically those in Seminole County.

Obscure House subcommittee exists to make political points
By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
Hours before President Barack Obama took to the airwaves Tuesday night to blast partisan intransigence in Congress, state legislators in Tallahassee were huddled in a basement committee room lambasting the president's federal health-care reform and deficits.

Fla. could allow random testing of public workers
By Gary Fineout
Associated Press
The Republican-led Florida Legislature is pushing ahead with a bill that would allow random drug testing of state workers and other public employees every three months, despite ongoing questions about the legality of the plan.

Florida Legislature: College Professors Need Not Apply
By Ralph De La Cruz
Florida Center for Investigative Reporting
Triangulate this story and you’ll find it falls somewhere between laughable, maddening and ironic: A bill moving forward in the Florida Senate would ban state college and university employees, such as professors, from serving in the state legislature.

POLITICAL RACES

Poll: Romney and President Obama even in Florida
By Brent Kallestad
Associated Press
President Barack Obama's popularity among Florida voters appears on the upswing as Republican candidates fight it out for in hopes of a victory Tuesday that would propel them closer to their party's nomination.

Domino to trying returning to state House by running for Snyder's seat
By Jonathan Mattise
TC Palm
Former Rep. Carl Domino, R-Jupiter, will take a shot at returning to the state House by running for Rep. William Snyder's soon-to-be-vacant District 82 seat.

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

Bill to encourage oil exploration and drilling on state lands passes committee
By Bruce Ritchie
Florida Current
A House panel on Thursday approved bills that are intended to encourage oil exploration and drilling on state lands and the development of a solar energy project in Southwest Florida.

Proposal would change public/private boundaries on Florida's lakes and rivers
By Craig Pittman
Tampa Bay Times
It seems like little more than bureaucratic tinkering. Bills now filed in the Florida House and Senate would change the definition of where something called the "ordinary high water line" is measured on waterways across Florida.

House subcommittee advances fertilizer regulation loophole
By Virginia Chamlee
Florida Independent
A Florida House subcommittee this morning advanced House Bill 421, a measure that would allow those who have obtained a “limited certification for urban landscape commercial fertilizer application” to be exempt from local fertilizer regulations.

Lawmakers bag ‘Ag Gag’
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Independent
A state House criminal justice committee unanimously voted for an amendment today that would strike the controversial “Ag Gag” measure from an omnibus agriculture bill.

EDUCATION

Parent trigger bills are half-cocked ideas
Editorial
Orlando Sentinel
It's understandable that parents who have seen little improvement in their children's poor-performing Florida schools would have itchy trigger fingers.

Hispanic Students Ask Lawmakers for Instate Tuition
By Whitney Ray
Capitol News Service
Hispanic students who came to Florida as teenagers are asking lawmakers for instate college tuition.

JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY

House committee proposes $73 million tax incentive package
By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
House budget-writers are proposing to give Gov. Rick Scott more flexibility to dole out tax dollars to companies that promise to create jobs -- but less than half the $230 million he wanted to award.

State weighs whether to tax Amazon's online sales or cut jobs deal
By Toluse Olorunnipa
Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Amazon's state-by-state strategy to score lucrative tax-exemption deals in exchange for creating jobs has landed in Florida.

Tax Foundation: Florida is the fifth-best state for business
By Roger Bull
Florida Times-Union
Florida is one of the best states to do business, as least as far as taxes are concerned, according to the Tax Foundation's annual report. The foundation looks at a property tax, unemployment insurance tax, sales tax, individual income tax and corporate tax to come up with its overall rankings.

HEALTH AND SENIORS

Hospitals, nursing home and state employees cut in House health care budget
By Christine Jordan Sexton
Florida Current
Hospitals, nursing homes and state employees are cut in an early spending plan floated by House Health Care Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Matt Hudson, R-Naples, on Tuesday.

Anti-abortion bills get Fla. House panel approval
By Bill Kaczor
Associated Press
The onslaught of anti-abortion legislation is continuing in the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature, less than a year after lawmakers took the most significant steps to curtail the procedure since passing a parental notification law in 2005.

House forfeits $170M from feds
Health News Florida
Today House health budget chief Matt Hudson presented his proposed budget, which would include cuts of more than $290 million in Medicaid fees to hospitals for next year.

CIVIL RIGHTS, PEACE AND SOCIAL ISSUES

Anti-shackling bill passes unanimously in House committee
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Independent
A bill that would create uniform and humane rules for the shackling of incarcerated pregnant women in Florida has been moving along quickly through the many committees it was referred to this session.

JUSTICE AND THE COURTS

Florida's courts need reliable funding
Editorial
Florida Times-Union
The Florida Legislature needs to provide the third branch of government in this state with consistent, reliable funding. Revenue is currently provided from foreclosure filing fees. Even then, the courts receive only two-thirds of the revenue.

Daily Clips for January 25, 2012

FEATURED STORIES

President urges 'fair shot for everyone'
Washington Post
Tampa Bay Times
Related: Florida reacts to the SOTU
Related editorial: Obama's state of the campaign
President Barack Obama warned the nation Tuesday that the decades-old promise of a secure and rising middle class is under threat because of growing disparities between the rich and everyone else in America.

Florida hospitals bracing for more Medicaid cuts
By Richard Martin and Tia Mitchell
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Gov. Rick Scott's plan to cut about $2 billion in public funding to hospitals that care for the poor is devastating and even ridiculous, say hospital leaders who predict patient care will suffer if it is enacted.

Florida lawmakers file new round of anti-abortion bils
By Dara Kam
Palm Beach Post
After passing five anti-abortion measures last year, lawmakers are again considering measures that opponents say would make it more difficult for women to get access to the procedures.

Furor erupts over bills to let parents decide poorly performing schools' fate
By Leslie Postal
Orlando Sentinel
Florida lawmakers want to give parents the power to dictate the future of poorly performing public schools, sparking criticism from parent advocates and others that the effort is part of a continuing campaign to privatize education.

House higher education plan includes tuition increases, budget cuts
By David DeCamp
Tampa Bay Times
Florida college students can start bracing for higher tuition bills again come fall.

FLORIDA POLITICS

Personal agendas at stake with redistricting maps
By Mary Ellen Klas
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Personal ambitions have been kept off the record in the Legislature's once-a-decade redistricting fight, but the carefully choreographed plan could implode this week if a House committee proposes and accepts changes to the Senate map.

Closing prisons would hurt communities
By Rod Smith
Orlando Sentinel
The Orlando Sentinel recently wrote an editorial ("Emptying prisons," Jan. 18) regarding the closure of 11 Florida correctional facilities, including seven state prisons.

Wage theft bill moves through Florida Senate committee despite no agreement
By Michael Peltier
News Service of Florida
A measure that would set up statewide standards to address wage theft passed in a Senate committee today with both sides agreeing over the need for legislation but at odds over how to do it.

Lawton Chiles' Prague spring
By John Coggin
Tampa Bay Times
Florida's governor must have the courage to believe in ideas.

Legislator found by grand jury to be acting on behalf of billboard company in 2009
By Craig Pittman and Bill Varian
Tampa Bay Times
State Sen. Greg Evers "was actively advocating" on behalf of a billboard company that had been talking about hiring his wife when he intervened with the state Department of Transportation about cutting down 2,000 trees, according to a grand jury report released Tuesday.

Florida Legislature to talk openness
By Michael Braun
Ft. Myers News-Press
Florida’s Legislature will undertake bills this year that will make it easier for individuals to speak at government meetings and define record-keeping for newly elected officials.

POLITICAL RACES

Gingrich draws thousands in Fla. while Romney's, Santorum's crowds number in hundreds
By Andrew Abramson, Jane Musgrave and George Bennett
Palm Beach Post
Related: Newtmentum: Q poll says Gingrich has erased Romney’s Florida lead
If former Florida frontrunner Mitt Romney hoped Newt Gingrich's rise in popularity was a temporary blip, Gingrich's campaign appeared to prove otherwise Tuesday as it drew crowds estimated at 4,000 in Sarasota and 6,000 in Naples.

Miami becomes battleground for Gingrich, Romney
By Erika Bolstad and Marc Caputo
Miami Herald
A sign it’s getting close to Election Day in Florida: Mitt Romney softens his immigration stance and his opponent’s new ads end with “Soy Newt Gingrich y apruebo este mensaje.’’

Newt who? Democrats attack Romney harder than they hit his rivals
By Scott Powers
Orlando Sentinel
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has an unlikely ally this week in his Florida primary battle against Mitt Romney: the Democratic National Committee.

Finally released Romney tax filings leave some voters saying, 'so what?'
By George Bennett
Palm Beach Post
Mitt Romney's release of his tax returns Tuesday appears to have removed a Republican primary issue that tripped him up in South Carolina last week.

In St. Petersburg, Newt Gingrich attacks Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, Charlie Crist
By Alex Leary
Tampa Bay Times
Newt Gingrich stepped onto a podium at the Tick Tock Restaurant with a hometown message.

Santorum using 'ObamaCare' to highlight his conservative bona fides
By Scott Powers
Orlando Sentinel
Rick Santorum pushed his long and deep opposition to President Barack Obama's health-care plan Monday as the defining difference between himself and the two Republican candidates he's trailing in Florida presidential primary polls.

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

State, environmental groups continue to wrestle over water cleanup plan
By Brittany Alana Davis
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
A lawsuit-fueled four-year battle over safety and health standards for Florida waters inched toward a possible resolution in the Legislature Tuesday.

Bill to undo Senate role in picking Citrus chief moves in House with Alexander's support
By Bruce Ritchie and Travis Pillow
Florida Current
A bill that would eliminate a law change last year requiring Senate confirmation of the Department of Citrus director passed a second House committee stop on Tuesday -- with support from powerful Sen. JD Alexander.

EDUCATION

Parent Empowerment Act
By Whitney Ray
Capitol News Service
Parents could fire teachers or ask a charter school company to take over their child’s school under legislation moving in Tallahassee.

School prayer bill on its way to the Senate floor
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Independent
A bill that would allow students to pray during school events passed through its final state Senate committee yesterday.

Are the Koch brothers teaching you?
By Robert Greenwald
Huffington Post
What's happening to academia in Florida demands national attention.

US education chief Arne Duncan visiting Florida
Associated Press
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
U.S. Education Commissioner Arne Duncan is visiting Florida to talk about job creation and making college more affordable.

FCAT fails as a measure, again
Editorial
Ocala Star-Banner
If Gov. Rick Scott’s and state Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson’s goal in ranking Florida’s 67 school districts based on their latest FCAT scores was to start a dialogue, they have succeeded mightily.

JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY

Amazon may bring jobs to state if deal is reached
By Gary Fineout
Associated Press
Amazon.com is promising to bring between 2,500 jobs and 3,000 jobs to Florida if state lawmakers and Gov. Rick Scott agree to a deal that would exempt the online retailer from collecting sales taxes for the next two years.

Citizens assessment bill moves ahead as its concerns stall Cat Fund proposal
By Gray Rohrer
Florida Current
A bill to allow private insurance companies more time to recoup losses from customers in the aftermath of a storm passed swiftly through a House panel Tuesday.

Banks would reduce mortgage debt as part of federal inquiry settlement
By Paul Owers
South Florida Sun Sentinel
About 1 million homeowners could get their mortgages reduced by an average of $20,000 if major lenders agree to settle a government inquiry of improper foreclosure practices.

Occupy demonstrators arrested; protests continue against investor conference (Updated)
By Marcos Restrepo
Florida Independent
Three protesters from the Occupy movements of Palm Beach and Miami were arrested Monday evening after they blocked the Camino Real bridge in Boca Raton to protest the 2012 GAIM conference, a major investor industry event.

HEALTH AND SENIORS

House forfeits $170M from feds
Staff Report
Health News Florida
Today House health budget chief Matt Hudson presented his proposed budget, which would include cuts of more than $290 million in Medicaid fees to hospitals for next year.

Bill outlawing race- and sex-based abortions moves forward
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Independent
A controversial bill that would outlaw sex- or race-based abortions in Florida passed a state House health committee today.

Senate proposes sweeping overhaul of disabled care
By Travis Pillow
Florida Independent
A Senate panel on Wednesday is slated to take up a sweeping set of changes proposed by the agency that provides care to the developmentally disabled.

Daily Clips for January 24, 2012

FEATURED STORIES

Romney, Gingrich get testy in Florida
By Mark Z. Barabak and Seema Mehta
Los Angeles Times
Standing face to face, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich traded barbs over honesty and integrity in an acrimonious debate that opened a fierce fight ahead of Florida's crucial presidential primary.

Hundreds of protesters rally outside GOP debate at USF
By Alexandra Zayas and Richard Danielson
Tampa Bay Times
Lining the streets of the University of South Florida before Monday's Republican presidential debate, the crowd thickened with hundreds, bull horns blaring, signs held high.

Prison workers decry privatization
By Dara Kam
Palm Beach Post
Emotional pleas and threats of questionable savings and a danger to public safety failed to move an elite group of senators who gave preliminary approval to a sweeping prison privatization plan struck down by a judge last year.

Proposal would change public/private boundaries on Florida's lakes and rivers
By Craig Pittman
Tampa Bay Times
It seems like little more than bureaucratic tinkering.

Contentious voting law to face hearing in Tampa
By Mike Salinero
Tampa Tribune
Florida's new election law, which critics say is a thinly disguised Republican effort to suppress likely Democratic voters, will be the focus of a U.S. Senate committee meeting this week in Tampa.

FLORIDA POLITICS

Florida's story of Republican dominance starts with a Democrat
By Steve Bousquet
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
It's an important week for Florida Republicans, so it's a good time to trace the beginning of the dominance of the modern GOP in the state.

More-expensive inmates shifted from prisons to be privatized
By Aaron Deslatte and Kathleen Haughney
Orlando Sentinel
As the Legislature was steaming toward passage of privatization of a huge chunk of its prison system last spring, public records suggest the Florida Department of Corrections was removing its most violent prisoners from the facilities slated to be outsourced.

Tattoos and other privatization fantasies
By Fred Grimm
Miami Herald
Related: Prison privatization bills move forward in senate
First off, after my new company wheedles a contract to privatize a state prison, I intend to do away with traditional prison tattoos.

Florida state senator calls for opening stadiums, including Sun Life Stadium, to homeless
By Dara Kam
Palm Beach Post
Florida professional sports teams have ignored a 25-year-old law long enough, according to Sen. Mike Bennett, who wants to use that law to force teams to refund some of the money taxpayers have spent subsidizing stadium construction.

West urges more blacks to join GOP
By Erika Bolstad
Miami Herald
It’s a lonely world out there, black conservatives said Monday, especially as they try to recruit more African-American voters to their ranks.

Rubio staffer quits after arrest on domestic battery charge
Associated Press
Tampa Tribune
A regional director for U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio resigned Monday after his arrest days earlier on a domestic battery charge, accused by his wife of rolling her up in a carpet and punching and kicking her, according to the arrest report.

POLITICAL RACES

Florida Republican primary is 'Armageddon'
By Alexander Burns and Robin Bravender
Politico
In only the first few days of the Florida campaign, every aspect of the GOP contest has blown up on a grand scale: the price of competing, the nastiness of the attacks and the cost of a potential defeat for Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich.

Mitt Romney slices, dices and silences Newt Gingrich -- Finally
By Marc Caputo
Miami Herald
Say goodbye to Mr. Nice Guy Mitt. Mitt Romney on Monday night came with verbal knives for newly minted frontrunner Newt Gingrich.

Romney paid $3 million in federal income tax in 2010
Associated Press
Tampa Tribune
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney paid about $3 million in federal income taxes in 2010, having earned more than seven times that from his investments.

As Race Moves to Florida, Facing Political Implications of a Housing Crisis
By Susan Saulny
New York Times
When Mitt Romney swept into the contentious battleground state of Florida on Sunday, the first local issue he raised was the nation’s mortgage foreclosure crisis, which is arguably at its worst here, from this city on the northern coast to the ghost-town developments in what used to be farmland south of Miami.

GOP leaders say immigration, unemployment will define Florida primary
By Marcos Restrepo
Florida Independent
Related: Poll shows Gingrich up in Florida
Florida GOP leaders said over the last two days that the economy is No. 1 in the minds of Florida voters and that their party’s presidential candidates must be aware of how they address immigration.

Several counties scale back hours of early voting in primary
By Steve Bousquet
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
When state legislators cut back early voting from 14 days to eight, they said the total number of hours would remain the same at 96.

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

Oil rig arrives off Havana; drilling 70 miles from Keys
By David Goodhue
Miami Herald
An offshore oil drilling operation has begun less than 90 miles from the coast of Key West.

Energy group wants court to throw out nuclear-cost law
By Mary Ellen Klas
Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times Tallahassee Bureau
The state law that has allowed Florida Power & Light and Progress Energy to charge customers $1 billion so far for speculative nuclear power plants is unconstitutional, a group of energy advocates claims in a lawsuit before the state’s highest court.

Environmental groups want summer-time ban of nitrogen in fertilizer upheld
By Janelle Irwin
WMNF Community Radio Tampa
Lawn care giants like Scotts and TrueGreen Chem Lawn are pushing a bill in the Florida House that would overturn summer bans on the use of nitrogen on lawns during the rainy summer months.

Progress Energy customers still on the hook
Editorial
Tampa Bay Times
Put away the party hats.

EDUCATION

Critics say ‘parent trigger’ bill favors charters over public schools
By Kathleen McGrory
Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times Tallahassee Bureau
Florida parents are taking sides over a controversial piece of legislation known as the parent trigger.

Florida ranks school districts using FCAT scores
By Ron Matus
Tampa Bay Times
The Florida Department of Education released a ranking of all 67 school districts Monday, using FCAT scores alone.

State of Florida considers tougher rules for grading schools
By Topher Sanders
Florida Times-Union
A set of rule changes proposed by the Department of Education to the State Board of Education could result in four times as many F schools and 493 fewer A and B schools across the state.

Panel OKs ban on professors in Fla. Legislature
Associated Press
Tampa Tribune
A bill that would prohibit state college and university employees and contractors from serving in the Florida Legislature is still alive – but just barely.

Don't charge more for STEM classes, most poll participants advise
Staff Report
Florida Current
At a recent meeting with the House Education Committee, presidents of Florida's two leading research universities -- Florida State University and the University of Florida -- suggested that lawmakers let them pay for expanding expensive science, technology, engineering and math programs by charging those so-called STEM students higher tuition.

JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY

Brand names and lawmakers' games
By Daniel Ruth
Tampa Bay Times
Given Florida's penchant for being the nation's tattooed neighbor who walks around the yard in a Speedo, swilling a beer and blaring Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville, do we really want to sell the naming rights to our public facilities?

Rick Scott's incomplete grade
By Gary Fineout
The Fine Print
Gov. Rick Scott - who has billed himself as Florida's jobs governor - says repeatedly that he receives a new grade every month when Florida's unemployment rates are released.

Internet sales tax bill hinges on House support
By Gray Rohrer
Florida Current
A bill to collect sales taxes on goods purchased over the Internet is stalled over the reluctance of some House members to take up the measure.

Major banks offer $25 billion over foreclosure abuse
By Derek Kravitz
Associated Press
The nation's five largest mortgage lenders have agreed to overhaul their industry after deceptive foreclosure practices drove homeowners out of their homes, government officials said Monday.

HEALTH AND SENIORS

Three abortion bills to be taken up in state Legislature tomorrow
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Independent
Related: Lawmakers wants to make this week ‘Reproductive Rights Awareness Week’
State Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, has put three anti-abortion bills on the state Legislature’s calendar for tomorrow.

U.S. bishops: We will sue over birth control mandate
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Independent
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is announcing that it will continue fighting a mandate for health insurers to cover birth control without co-payments.

House looking at establishing a health insurance exchange
By Christine Jordan Sexton
Florida Current
A House health care spending panel will tackle on Tuesday a bill that would limit emergency room services to nonpregnant adults to 12 visits per year and also would limit chiropractic and pediatric services to Medicaid patients under the age of 21 only.

1 in 3 Florida retirees who receive Social Security survive solely on government checks
By Donna Gehrke-White
South Florida Sun Sentinel
A third of Florida's senior Social Security recipients survive on only their monthly government checks, according to an analysis by AARP.

CIVIL RIGHTS, PEACE AND SOCIAL ISSUES

Fla. Civil Rights Hall of Fame inductees announced
Associated Press
Miami Herald
A pioneering teacher, a Baptist preacher and a U.S. congressman have been named inaugural inductees of Florida's new Civil Rights Hall of Fame.