UPDATE: Senate President Jeff Atwater sent word through his spokeswoman that “20 percent is too much.”

Gov. Charlie Crist said the main property insurance bill in the legislature had little chance of passing, calling the proposed 20 percent cap for increases to individual Citizens policy holders “excessive” and questioning whether the measure would get past Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach.

“As I’m sure you know, Atwater was one of the strongest leaders in giving us the opportunity to strengthen Citizens,” Crist said. “So I don’t know if that’s going to go very far.”

The proposal is expected to contain several changes, including one that would use the state pension fund to loan $2 billion to the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund in the event of a major storm.

Crist said he wasn’t wild about that one, either.

“Getting some backup from the federal government, I think, is a better way to go,” Crist said. “I think it’s very doable.”

Last year, Crist and the Cabinet paid Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway $224 million for a promise to loan the state $4 billion if a major storm hit the state. This year, Crist and the Cabinet are appealing to the federal government. More on that attempt here.

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Here’s our interview with Florida Education Commissioner Eric J. Smith this morning after a ceremony for “Children’s Week” at the state Capitol.

In this 5-minute podcast, Smith says he expects the waiver application for the state’s school-related stimulus money to arrive from the feds tomorrow morning. If that happens, he said the state would return the application by the end of the week. Smith said the U.S. Department of Education has promised a two-week turnaround on the application. (This story details what the application is expected to include.)

He also weighs in on the Senate proposal to fund K-12 schools this year with Seminole gambling money and a proposed constitutional amendment that would weaken class-size restrictions and increase state sales tax by a penny to pay for schools.

Listen to the podcast here (Or click here to go to our podcast directory)

WEST PALM BEACH — A Democratic billboard campaign against Rush Limbaugh succeeded today in sparking a high-decibel sidewalk political debate that managed to upstage Mayor Lois Frankel.

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Gov. Charlie Crist this morning confirmed details we reported last week (here and here) that he’s hoping to buy 75,000 acres from U.S. Sugar for Everglades restoration instead of 180,000. He said he could announce details as soon as tomorrow or Thursday.

“My goal is to be able to hit the sweet spot, no pun intended, and really target in on the acreage that’s important to be able to be successful in reconnecting the lake to Florida Bay, to the Everglades and then maintain an opportunity to expand on it when the economy turns around,” Crist said today.

“I think we’re on the path to that. But we should be able to let you know tomorrow or Thursday for sure.”

Who knew so many CPAC members were Miami Heat fans?

Gov. Charlie Crist was greeted with a round of boos at last night’s Heat game after he was announced during a halftime ceremony to retire Alonzo Mourning’s jersey.

This from Post writer Tom D’Angelo’s account of the evening:

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist spoke after being greeted by more jeers than cheers.

A couple of basketball fans also noted the less-than-warm welcome on their Twitter pages:

Lots of boos for Charlie Crist during halftime at the Magic/Heat game. (jasonwbragg)

And the @MHEAT crowd showers FL Governor Charlie Crist with boos. (3QCMagic)

It’s a time-honored tradition for sports fans to boo any politician who dares to wade into their arena (Philadelphia Eagles fans once booed Santa Claus).

But the wildly popular Crist, pictured above at the Daytona 500 race this year, has – up until now – largely avoided these embarrassments in Florida’s sports parks.

Republican Gov. Charlie Crist’s cheerleading for President Obama’s economic stimulus plan has put Crist in hot water with some GOP activists. It’s also earned him a spot in Democratic U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler’s latest taxpayer-financed mailing to constituents. Wexler’s mailer includes a shot of himself with Obama (no surprise for someone representing a heavily Democratic House district) and one of himself with the Republican guv.

A property insurance proposal from Rep. Bryan Nelson, R-Orlando, and Sen. Garrett Richter, R-Naples, would lift a recommendation from the Citizens Property Insurance Corp. Mission Review Task Force and increase rates from the state-run insurer by a statewide average of 10 percent and up to 20 percent for individual policy holders.

The plan, expected to be unveiled in respective committee hearings this week, would also:

* Reduce the capacity of the Hurricane Catastrophe Fund by $12 billion over six years, which could result in Citizens and private insurers raising the cost of property policies. State officials estimate an average annual increase of 3 percent.

*Allow the state to borrow $2 billion from the state pension fund to back up the catastrophe fund in event of a hurricane.

* Use $26 million from the proposed Citizens increases to pay for My Safe Home Florida, which helps homeowners finance new storm windows and fortified roofs.

More here.

Democrats promised an anti-Rush Limbaugh campaign in the radio hothead’s own hometown, and they’re delivering this week.

For more, click here.

Former Palm Beach County school board member Mark Hansen, who lost his reelection bid in November, is busy these days plugging a new book. He says he’s been doing radio interviews with stations from Baltimore to California to promote his Success 101 For Teens: 7 Traits for a Winning Life, which was published this month by Paragon House.

The book features a foreword by Florida Atlantic University President Frank Brogan and endorsement blurbs from state Sen. Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, and county schools superintendent Art Johnson.

An Orlando woman announced today that she’s launching an effort to let voters to decide whether to include medical marijuana laws in the state constitution. She’s planning to put the question on the 2010 ballot.

Kim Russell, a 3rd generation Floridian, said she’s making the push because her father suffers from Parkinson’s disease and believes he could avoid brain surgery with medical marijuana. She said she’s collecting signatures and money, but has not yet received help from any national groups or financiers.

The most recent state to approve medical marijuana laws was Michigan, where 63 percent voters approved a ballot initiative in November. Of the 12 other states with medical marijuana laws, eight stemmed from ballot initiatives; four were enacted by state legislatures, according to the Associated Press.

Russell’s group, People United For Medical Marijuana (PUFMM), has their proposed initiative here.

Two members of Palm Beach County’s congressional delegation are players in Tuesday’s nationally watched special election to fill a New York congressional seat. Some view the race between Democrat Scott Murphy and Republican Jim Tedisco as an early referendum on President Obama’s economic agenda.

The Reenergizing Our Nation PAC (RONPAC) headed by U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, has contributed $4,000 to Murphy while U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, has contributed $1,000 to Tedisco.

A judge has given the Green Party the go-ahead to investigate five mysterious candidates who ran as Greens but who some suspect entered legislative races to peel votes away from Democrats.

The Pasco County judge gave Ronald Meyer permission to subpoena testimony and bank records from Sarah Roman, a 23-year-old waitress who ran against incumbent Rep. Robert Schenck, a Republican, and Democrat Jason Melton.
Meyer wants to know how she was able to afford the $2,000 filing fee since she reported her net worth as $5,000. The Green Party tried in vain to track down Roman and the other Green candidates, who also ran against incumbent Sens. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, and Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach.

Palm Beach County Republican activist Steven Ledewitz wants the county GOP to censure Gov. Charlie Crist for embracing President Obama’s economic stimulus plan, not helping some local Republican congressional candidates and “trying to be Democrat-lite.”

State GOP Chief Jim Greer and county Republican Chairman Sid Dinerstein oppose the idea.

Read about it here.

Sen. Durell Peaden, Jr., motioned with his hand for a reporter to enter his office while he was on his cell phone telling his wife that she’d be proud of him: He was offered some of the best apple dumplings he’d ever tasted that afternoon and only had a few bites. “She’s got me on a diet,” the Panhandle Republican explained after hanging up.

Peaden, the Senate’s top health & human services budget writer, isn’t just trying to manage his own health. He’s also in the middle of a hot debate over how the state should use a shrinking supply of tax money to pay for the increasing demand for public health services.

This 13-minute podcast starts off with a discussion with Peaden about A.G. Holley in Palm Beach County, the last free standing tuberculosis hospital in the country that was nearly axed from the state budget last year. It’s on the chopping block again with neither Gov. Charlie Crist nor the Senate including money for the hospital in their budget proposals (not sure about the House as of this moment).

Peaden, whose relatives have helped shape Florida policy since before statehood, discusses an equally long personal history with TB (including his own son being diagnosed with the disease that killed most of his ancestors).

“Somewhere there will be funding for AG Holley. It will not be neglected. Trust me. Because we’ll have the court on us or the governor or DCF … That will not go unfunded or uncovered. Trust me.”

Peaden also discusses the cigarette tax increase included in the Senate’s budget.

“Smoke ‘em, chew ‘em, dip ‘em or whatever. We have to tax ‘em. We have to tax cigars. Doesn’t matter if its … smuggled in from Castro. It doesn’t matter. They need to be taxed.”

Peaden says the money should not be earmarked for anything more specific than the state health budget (Sen. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, wants to tie some of the new money to cancer research). But he says the new money shouldn’t replace what the state already spends on health care.

Listen to the podcast here (Or right click on the link to download.)

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Post reporter Jeff Ostrowski spends some time with the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation office in West Palm Beach and writes in a story published today that the “frustration is the fallout of Florida’s fast-deteriorating job market.”

It’s not just new applications that are swamping the phone lines. To keep their $300-a-week checks flowing, unemployed workers must complete a short questionnaire every two weeks, either by phone or online.

On Mondays and Tuesdays, getting through to the state’s call center or logging onto the state’s www.floridajobs.org site is especially difficult.

“Mondays and Tuesdays? Hopeless,” Abraham said. “The whole state of Florida is calling.”

Through the wife’s county commission votes, she and her husband profited for a decade or more.

On Friday, both paid a price.

At a 10:30 a.m. hearing, former Palm Beach County Commissioner Mary McCarty pleaded guilty to conspiring to deprive the public of her honest services. She is scheduled to be sentenced June 4 to as much as five years in prison.

At 3 p.m., a federal judge sentenced Kevin McCarty, ex-chairman of the South Florida Water Management District, to eight months in prison, forfeiture of the couple’s $272,000 in ill-gotten gains and a $5,000 fine. He’s scheduled to enter prison near Miami on May 4.

Read the rest of the story from Tony Doris here.

The content of the podcast informed this story that was published Sunday. The interviews are still timely and, by at least one account, still entertaining.

The first 14 minutes is an interview with designated House Democratic Leader Ron Saunders of Key West talking about how Republican leaders are more interested in “hijacking” bills than fulfilling their responsibilities. He admires Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, for her “blatant partisanship,” anticipates the next “memo” from House Republican Majority Adam Hasner, apologizes on behalf of the Democratic caucus “for not being stupid,” and says he’s going “do my best” to flip the 76-44 majority the GOP enjoys in the chamber.

“We are the minority party,” Saunders says. “We are their conscience.”

The 12 minutes that follow is a separate interview with Hasner, R-Boca Raton, who gets in his own jabs. He says the House Democrats “have become a party of no” — just like Republicans in the U.S. House. He says their a “continental divide” in the minority party and that the stimulus will “potentially create more problems in the future than it solves.”

Listen to the podcast here. (Right click on the link to download)

Spotted in the visitor’s log in Gov. Charlie Crist’s outer office: A March 19 entry from Deborah Lopez.

“Don’t cut money from schools. We don’t even have soap,” Lopez wrote.

Her plea was in the midst of dozens of “No more cuts” demanded by other visitors, presumably among the roughly 1,000 parents and educators descended on the Capitol to ask lawmakers to avoid cutting the state’s school budget.

An apologetic Kevin McCarty must serve eight months in federal prison for failing to report the misdeeds of his wife, former Palm Beach County Commissioner Mary McCarty, a judge ruled this afternoon.

The sentencing came hours after a separate hearing in which Mary McCarty pleaded guilty to a charge of misusing her office, including by voting on bond deals that benefited the couple. She is scheduled to be sentenced June 4 to as much as five years in prison.

More here.