Senate President Jeff Atwater yanked a controversial Central Florida commuter rail bill from its final committee stop and has sent the measure to the Senate floor for a full vote.

The move was done without the approval of Senate Rules and Calendar Committee Chairman Alex Villalobos, R-Miami, but Senate rules do not require that Atwater get the go-ahead from Villalobos.

Sen. Paula Dockery, a vehement opponent of the bill that would pay CSX transportation giant more than $600 million to purchase some of its freight line and make improvements on other lines, stopped by the Senate Democratic office to give them a heads-up on the maneuver and shore up opposition.

Yesterday, the measure (a priority of Gov. Charlie Crist and incoming House Speaker Dean Cannon) was amended to include a $2 rental-car surcharge to help pay for South Florida’s Tri-Rail commuter line.

Dockery, a Lakeland Republican, told Senate Democratic Leader Al Lawson and a handful of other Senate Dems that “the votes on the floor look pretty good” to kill the deal.

“They must be planning on twisting people’s arms to bring it straight to the floor,” Lawson, D-Tallahassee, responded during the informal chat.

Lawson received assurances from the few caucus members attending the meeting that they would vote against the measure (SB 1212).

“We don’t want no train tracks on our back,” Lawson said.

Tags: Charlie Crist, Jeff Atwater, state agencies, state budget, State Senate

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 at 5:19 pm and is filed under Charlie Crist, Jeff Atwater, legislature, State Senate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.