Gov. Rick Scott added five more high-level workers to his staff – including one fired by his former gubernatorial opponent Alex Sink – as the new governor continues to put together an administration at the end of his second official week on the job.

Scott hired Melinda Miguel to come back to her old post as inspector general, which she also held under Gov. Charlie Crist.

And Scott tapped Doug Darling as his third deputy chief of staff (Darling will be in charge of Cabinet affairs). Then-Chief Financial Officer Sink axed Darling, who was her chief of the Division of Accounting and Auditing, for failing to discover a scheme to defraud the state of millions of dollars. The plan was revealed by an auditing firm. Darling, a former Marine, later went to work as chief of staff and, until now, inspector general for the Department of Environmental Protection.

Jesse Panuccio, an associate at Cooper & Kirk, and C.B Upton, general counsel for the Department of State, will join Scott’s legal team.

And Brian Hughes will go to work for Scott’s spokesman Brian Burgess. Hughes recently served as spokesman for Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater’s winning campaign. Hughes also served in the military and is a decorated Air Force vet, according to a press release on Scott’s Facebook page.

Senate President Mike Haridopolos started organizing his U.S. Senate bid with a campaign committee to raise money for the 2012 race.

Haridopolos’ committee – “Friends of Mike H” – launched a Website to accept contributions for the Merritt Island Republican.

Haridopolos is inviting big Republican donors to a “private strategy meeting” in Orlando next month and asking them to bring $10,000 checks, according to an e-mail a GOP fundraiser sent out yesterday.

Haridopolos and what is expected to be a host of others have targeted U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, the state’s statewide-elected Democratic holdout. Others who’ve expressed an interest in running against Nelson include former U.S. Sen. George LeMieux, an attorney with the West Palm Beach-based Gunster law firm and former aide to Gov. Charlie Crist.

Republicans swept the governor’s seat and the Florida Cabinet and nailed down veto-proof majorities in the state House and Senate in the November elections.

House Speaker Dean Cannon is asking his economic development committee to investigate reports of problems with the Gulf Coast Claims Facility payments to BP oil spill victims.

BP claims czar Ken Feinberg has paid out almost $1.2 billion to nearly 70,000 claimants.

But more than twice that many claims – about 157,000 – remain in the system.

“Recently, numerous breakdowns and inconsistencies within the claims process have been brought to my attention,” Cannon, R-Orlando, wrote to House Economic Affairs Committee Chairwoman Dorothy Hukill.

Remarks of President Barack Obama – As Prepared for Delivery

To the families of those we’ve lost; to all who called them friends; to the students of this university, the public servants gathered tonight, and the people of Tucson and Arizona: I have come here tonight as an American who, like all Americans, kneels to pray with you today, and will stand by you tomorrow.

There is nothing I can say that will fill the sudden hole torn in your hearts. But know this: the hopes of a nation are here tonight. We mourn with you for the fallen. We join you in your grief. And we add our faith to yours that Representative Gabrielle Giffords and the other living victims of this tragedy pull through.

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The state of Florida is paying too much for prescription drugs because, in part, its contract with a middleman bars discussion about potential cost-savings, a consultant told the Senate Budget Committee this afternoon.

In addition, the state – the largest employer in Florida – is paying way more than other businesses for prescription drug dispensation, consultant Jeffrey Lewis, who analyzed state agencies’ spending on prescription drugs, found.

The state pays a $4.28 dispensing fee to pharmacies for each prescription filled, more than three times more than the $1.25 market rate.

But the state’s getting ripped off even worse for mail-order drugs, Lewis said. Florida pays a dispensing fee of $4.22 for each prescription filled through home delivery while most other companies pay nothing.

“Paying for mail-order is unheard of,” Lewis said.

Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander requested the analysis of prescription drug spending after running into trouble getting information from state agencies about what they were spending on drugs.

Just before Lewis’ presentation, Alexander, R-Lake Wales, and his committee learned that the state’s budget hole is continuing to grow and is now at an estimated $3.62 billion.

Lewis, the president of the Heinz Family Philanthropies, estimated the state could save about $230 million in two years by revamping how it buys prescription drugs. Florida should renegotiate the contract with Minnesota Multi-State Contracting Alliance and its distributor Cardinal Health, Lewis recommended, among other things.

“This is incredible,” said Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine.

“Hopefully somebody from the governor’s office is in here. If they’re not I would recommend somebody hand carry this down to the first floor right now,” Thrasher said, waving a copy of the presentation.

Thrasher asked if Gov. Rick Scott, whose office is now scrutinizing all state contracts worth more than $1 million, could issue an executive order to change any of the state’s prescription drug purchasing processes.

“Our governor obviously likes those kinds of things,” Thrasher said.

Most of the anonymous trashing in the Republican Party of Florida’s five-candidate race for chairman has focused on presumed frontrunners Deborah Cox-Roush of Hillsborough County and Dave Bitner of Jefferson County.

But as Saturday’s vote looms in Lake Buena Vista, Palm Beach County GOP Chairman Sid Dinerstein has also been targeted in an e-mail from “bocagop” that reprises many of the same criticisms Ed Lynch raised in his unsuccessful challenge of Dinerstein for county chairman last month.

Lynch, who lost a 120-to-87 vote at the Dec. 8 county GOP meeting, denied knowledge of the e-mail, but said, “there’s a lot of people that are not happy with what they (Dinerstein and conservative operative and Dinerstein ally Jack Furnari) did. It’s not just me that has an issue with what they did.”

The Dinerstein-Lynch contest featured a Furnari-produced mailer showing a picture of Lynch over a photo of dead bodies from the 1978 Jonestown mass suicide and Lynch’s invocation of the barbecue-sauce defense after Furnari posted pictures of Lynch in a T-shirt touting a Democratic candidate.

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With a $3.5 billion budget hole looming, Senate President Mike Haridopolos said it’s highly unlikely that lawmakers will approve any new – or expand any existing – tax breaks for businesses.

That would put Gov. Rick Scott’s plans to do eventually do away with the state’s corporate income taxes on hold, at least for this year.

“I don’t see that happening at this point. That’s something I’d like to do. But we’re $3.5 billion short and the promise of no tax increases, I don’t see the math yet. But Rick Scott is a very able executive. If he and his budget team can find a way to make it happen, we’re going to be all ears,” Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, told reporters during a Q-and-A this afternoon.

No more tax breaks would also put on ice Scott’s proposed expansion of school vouchers paid for by businesses, one of the governor’s top priorities.

“There’s probably no bigger advocate of tax cuts in the legislature,” Haridopolos said. “I’m a big proponent of tax cuts. This is not a year I can afford to push them through.”

Former House Speaker and potential 2012 presidential candidate Newt Gingrich will keynote the Palm Beach County Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Day dinner on Feb. 24 in West Palm Beach. The $195-a-plate affair at the Kravis Center is the local GOP’s main money-raising event.

Tuesday’s blog post about Republican U.S. Rep. Allen West’s reaction to the shooting of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, and a similar news article in today’s print edition, refer to the freshman from Florida’s 22nd congressional district as “U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation.”

As with most stories involving West, this one quickly ricocheted around the Internets. Many readers who don’t live in South Florida aren’t aware that Plantation is the name of the city in Broward County where West lives.

Some questioned the linking of West, who is black, with a word associated with American slavery.

Within an hour of its posting on this blog, for instance, the conservative FreeRepublic.com site had linked to the item and a commenter wrote: Did anyone else notice this: “U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation” Giffords is listed as D-Arizona. Has Florida changed it’s name or is this some sort of racial slur? (wouldn’t put it past them – some kind of Freudian slip). I’m I too sensitive and jumping too conclusions?

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Sen. Joe Negron jumped on some of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s staff during a presentation on investigations into the state’s foreclosure crisis at today’s Banking and Insurance Committee meeting.

Attorney General Pam Bondi is continuing an investigation launched last year by predecessor Bill McCollum that thus far has found that the foreclosure process in Florida is in total disarray.

But Negron objected to some of the AG’s presentation and questioned whether the investigation is beyond the state’s top legal eagle’s scope of responsibility.

First, Negron didn’t like the term “foreclosure mills” referring to law firms that churn out the cases and are under investigation and being sued for racketeering and other allegations.

“It could also be called a very busy law firm because you provide very good service to your clients,” suggested Negron, R-Stuart, a lawyer with the West Palm Beach-based Gunster law firm.

He also didn’t like the finding by Scott Palmer, the head of the AG’s mortgage fraud investigation, that banks aren’t using loan modifications enough to avoid foreclosure.

“Where does…the government have the right to tell the bank what’s in your best interest?” he wanted to know.

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U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, this morning criticized “political opportunism” in the wake of Saturday’s shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and said he has no plans to tone down his own “stronger language.”

Within hours of the shooting that killed six and critically injured Giffords, some commentators placed the massacre in the context of the nation’s heated political climate and blamed the tea party movement, Sarah Palin and other conservatives although no public evidence has suggested accused gunman Jared Lee Loughner was associated with or sympathetic to any of them. Some critics pointed to West’s own words — such as saying citizens must be “well-informed and well-armed because this government that we have now is a tyrannical government” — as contributing to that climate.

West has rejected such criticism and accused those making it of trying to score political points.

“One of the concerns I do have is the political opportunism that has come out of this. That’s kind of deplorable and unconscionable what some people are doing. This is not the time to start looking for grandstanding and things of that nature,” West said on his way into a West Boca Chamber of Commerce breakfast at Boca Lago Country Club.

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The Florida Senate held a low-key information-gathering session on immigration reform late this afternoon, the first in a series of meetings coinciding with immigration legislation currently in the works.

Senate President Mike Haridopolos put Sen. Anitere Flores, a Cuban-American from Miami and chairwoman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in charge of three meetings on the controversial topic that legislatures throughout the nation are grappling with.

Today’s meeting included presentations from federal immigration authorities and an update from state education, prison and highway safety officials as well as a law professor from Florida International University.

Flores said she hoped the cerebral kick-off would set the stage for future discussions to be held in “dispassionate and well-informed manner.”

But some lawmakers were clearly frustrated by what they heard.
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Senate President Mike Haridopolos is paying former state Sen. Carey Baker, a gun shop owner from Eustis, up to $89,000 a year as a special consultant.

Baker, who served alongside Haridopolos before leaving office due to term limits last year, will make $175 per hour – up to $7,500 per month, or $89,000 annually – for working with senate committees, subcommittees or research organizations established by the legislature, according to his contract.

Baker ran briefly for state agriculture commissioner but dropped out of the race eventually won by Adam Putnam.

The year-long contract between Haridopolos and Baker’s consulting company, Country First Consulting, was signed on Nov. 9 and started on Nov. 3. Baker’s consulting business was created the day before the contract was filed, according to the state division of corporations Web site.

Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, cleaned house at the Senate before even officially taking over the chamber in November. He consolidated a variety of positions and did not rehire several high-ranking committee staffers for what he called about $1 million in savings from the Senate budget.

Advocates for poor and low-wage workers filed a lawsuit against the state for failing to raise the minimum wage to reflect inflation as required by the Florida constitution.

Lawyers for the New York-based National Employment Law Project and Florida Legal Services filed the lawsuit on behalf of roughly 188,000 minimum wage workers in Florida.

The agency should have raised the current $7.31 hourly minimum rage by six cents, the lawsuit argues.

In 2004, Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment automatically raising the minimum wage each year to reflect the increase in the cost of living.

Gov. Rick Scott has ordered flags flown at half-staff at state and local government buildings until Friday night out of respect for the 19 victims of an Arizona gunman, in keeping with President Obama’s order for federal buildings in the U.S. and overseas.

The president led a moment of silence at 11 a.m. this morning to honor the victims of the shooter who killed six people, including a young child, and injured 13 others, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. The Arizona Congresswoman was shot through the head and remains in critical condition.

Members of Palm Beach County’s congressional delegation are reacting to today’s shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz.

Giffords was doing the kind of thing members of Congress in South Florida and across the country routinely do — conducting a “Congress On Your Corner” event with constituents at a shopping center in her district — when a gunman opened fire, critically wounding her and killing a federal judge and at least four other people.

Click here for a story on local reactions.

Read after the the jump for complete statements by local members of Congress and both Florida Senators….

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On his fifth day on the job, Gov. Rick Scott met with Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara at the Capitol to discuss trade and a controversial hi-speed rail project from Tampa to Orlando.

Maehara met with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice-President Biden in Washington yesterday and arrived at the Florida Capitol with numerous aides and a Japanese press contingent in tow for the Saturday meeting.

Maehara requested the tete-a-tete, his aides said. His visit with Scott is his only official trip outside of the nation’s capital, according to aides.

The Japanese official, who formerly served as the country’s transportation minister, came to the Sunshine State primarily to pitch his country’s involvement in the high-speed rail project with Scott, who is dubious about the proposal.

After the meeting in his Capitol office, Scott made no mention of trains during a brief statement to the media. Instead, he stressed his desire to expand trade and draw more businesses to the Florida (Remember Scott’s pledge to bring 700,000 new jobs to the state in seven years).

“We had a wonderful meeting. We talked about how Japan and Florida can work together better and expand trade both in Florida and in Japan and, of course, the Foreign Minister knows about the great opportunity that both Japan has and Florida has in growing our relationship with Latin America,” Scott said.
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Palm Beach County GOP Chairman Sid Dinerstein, one of five announced candidates for next Saturday’s Republican Party of Florida chairman election, has sent the following mailer to the approximately 250 party bigs who will vote:

In case the type is too small, a larger version of the text is included after the jump….

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Texas-based Harris Media LLC, the PR firm that handled Gov. Rick Scott‘s gubernatorial campaign, has hired the new governor’s daughter Allison Guimard, according to the firm’s Web site.

The firm’s CEO Vincent Harris said Guimard, who graduated from George Washington University and previously worked for U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, started work today as vice president of marketing and development in a new Tallahassee office.

Former Gov. Charlie Crist has joined the Morgan & Morgan law firm as expected.

Crist was in talks with longtime political supporter and friend John Morgan before officially leaving office this week.

Crist also said he may take a part-time job as a visiting professor at Stetson Law School in his St. Petersburg hometown.

Crist passed the Florida Bar exam on his third attempt after receiving his law degree from Cumberland School of Law in Alabama.

It’s been 18 years since Crist punched the clock at a private job.

He was first elected to the state Senate in 1992 and has been a public servant ever since.