Lloyd Marcus (right) with former U.S. Rep. Dick Armey at a 2009 event in Palm Beach Gardens.
EUSTIS — Artist, entertainer and conservative activist Lloyd Marcus of Deltona regularly sings at tea party events and is often one of the few black people in the crowd.
“I have been to well over 200 tea parties around this country, including Alaska….I have a major revelation for the media: It ain’t about race,” Marcus said to loud applause.
Marcus told the crowd he’s often asked “Where are the black people?” His response: “I don’t know. They’re still hung up on that Barack Obama-is-black thing…I got over it.”
The Scott administration posted its budget proposal online earlier today, but the site has been down on-and-off for the last several hours, so we put up a quick table showing his proposed cuts by agency.
EUSTIS — Gov. Rick Scott told hundreds of cheering tea party activists today that Florida’s $70.5 billion budget can be cut by $5 billion, with more than $2 billion of that savings going to tax cuts.
Scott presented the broad outlines of his budget plan to the activists this afternoon as the details were being released online.
Scott mentioned his proposal to force teachers and other public employees in the state’s pension plan to begin contributing 5 percent of their pay toward their retirement — a measure he said will save $2.8 billion over two years.
He also called for cutting the state’s business tax from 5.5 percent to 3 percent and phasing it out by 2018.
“This budget’s the way we’re going to get our state back to work,” Scott said.
EUSTIS — Bad weather has forced tea party activists and Gov. Rick Scott’s office to change plans for today’s rollout of the new governor’s budget plan for 2011-12. Instead of an outdoor event at a park along scenic Lake Eustis, the event has been moved to a large church a few miles away.
The podium where Scott will speak bears the message: “Reducing State Spending & Holding Government Accountable.” See more details of the budget here.
North Lake Tea Party member Bob Carey is helping direct traffic from East Orange Avenue to the backup site at First Baptist Church. Carey is easy to pick out: he’s the guy wearing a bright yellow T-shirt and yellow “Don’t Tread On Me” Gadsden flag with a shaved head that has “Limited Gov.” written on the front and “I (Heart) Tax Cuts” on the back.
A retired dentist who served 20 years in the Air Force, Carey says he hopes Scott has the “guts” to propose significant spending reductions.
Next month’s West Palm Beach city commission races are nonpartisan, but candidate John Cohen has managed to cause a stir with activists from both parties.
Veteran Democratic activists like Gregg Weiss of the West Palm Beach Democratic Club and Allen Mergaman of the Mid-County Democratic Club were convinced that Cohen was a Democrat after he attended several meetings of their clubs.
Republican Club of the Palm Beaches President Melissa Nash Andrews was sure Cohen was a Republican after meeting with him and letting him speak at her club.
Cohen, who also attended meetings of other partisan clubs, is in fact registered with no party affiliation. Of his Zelig-like ability to fit in with those around him, Cohen says, “I have never said to anybody that I was registered with any party. What they have interpreted is up to them.”
Gov. Rick Scott today reappointed all four Public Service Commission members put on the panel by his predecessor Charlie Crist.
PSC commissioners Eduardo Balbis, Ronald Brisé, Julie Brown and Arthur Graham were among the hundreds of Crist’s appointees Scott yanked from Senate consideration earlier this week.
The Senate still must confirm the four appointees to the five-member panel, but Scott’s actions puts to rest concerns about possible instability on the panel that oversees utility rates.
Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, filed a bill that would continue the crackdown on “pill mills,” pain management clinics dealing prescription drugs that law enforcement officials say are worse than crack cocaine.
Fasano’s bill would enhance penalties for pill mill operators that don’t comply with state laws and require the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) to conform with national standards.
The drug database has been on hold because of a lack of funding and a bid dispute.
Attorney General Pam Bondi is launching a new assault on the pill mills with a team led by state drug czar Dave Aronberg. Bondi called Florida “the epicenter of the country” for prescription drug abuse because busloads of drugsters travel to the state from Kentucky, Ohio and other places to get prescriptions from the rogue clinics.
Seven Floridians each day die from overdoses of prescription drugs.
Palm Beach County Commissioner Burt Aaronson told a county Democratic Executive Committee meeting tonight that people need to speak up about the county budget as commissioners decide what level of taxes to levy and services to provide.
“I know what I want to do, I want to give you the services,” Aaronson told the audience of about 100 Democratic activists west of Delray Beach.
“But if you tell me that you don’t want the services, you’re willing to cut back, and you don’t want to go to the library seven days a week — cut it down to two days — and if you don’t want the children to have the lights in the park, and you don’t want to have as many sheriff’s deputies on the road, you tell me, then I’ll know what to do.
“But I think, being a Democrat, I don’t think taxes are a dirty word. Taxes are what makes the world go ’round. And we are not Republicans, so we have to think a little differently. And if we have to take another buck out of our pocket, we want the people to have, we want the children to have,” the five-term incumbent said.
Former first lady Adele Graham, among the hundreds of appointees Gov. Rick Scott yanked from pending confirmation last night, won’t be leaving her post on the Governor’s Mansion Commission, if Scott has anything to say about it.
Scott, a Republican, announced this evening he’s reinstating the wife of former governor and former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, a Democrat, after some sniping about giving the former first lady short shrift.
“I’m pleased that Adele Graham and Jane Aurell have been reappointed to the Governor’s Mansion Commission,” first lady Ann Scott said in a press release. “The Governor’s Mansion has such beauty and history. As former residents of the Mansion themselves, I know they will help showcase the People’s House for everyone who visits.”
Jane Aurell, 72, is a Tallahassee community volunteer and is reappointed for a term beginning February 3, 2011, and ending September 30, 2013.
Adele Graham, 72, is a former First Lady of Florida and is reappointed for a term beginning February 3, 2011, and ending September 30, 2013.
The appointments are subject to confirmation by the Florida Senate.
House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, is endorsing Senate President Mike Haridopolos’ bid for U.S. Senate in 2012, according to two people who heard Cannon speak to Haridopolos supporters today.
Cannon was on hand when Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, met with about 75 donors and supporters to discuss the Senate bid at the Airport Hyatt in Orlando today.
Haridopolos is one of several potential GOP candidates for the seat of Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson. Former state House Majority Leader Adam Hasner of Boca Raton, Delray Beach businessman and philanthropist Nick Loeb, former U.S. Sen. George LeMieux and U.S. Rep. Connie Mack of Cape Coral are among the other possible GOP candidates.
Former Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Foley held pariah status with many in the GOP after he abruptly resigned in 2006 over sexually charged e-mails to male congressional pages. Many Republicans said Foley’s disgrace a few weeks before the midterm elections helped Democrats take control of the House and the Senate from the GOP that year.
But Foley — who launched a talk radio show last year and recently flirted with entering the nonpartisan mayor’s race in West Palm Beach — is slowly regaining acceptance among Republicans.
Foley was on the host committee last year for a fund-raiser for Republican Sharon Merchant’s failed state Senate bid. He spoke to a Palm Beach County Young Republicans meeting last week and introduced new U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, at the grand opening of West’s district office in West Palm Beach Tuesday.
Foley’s speech to the YRs was his first public appearance at a Republican event since his resignation.
Gov. Rick Scott’s budget plan includes a tax cut for businesses that would decrease corporate income taxes from 5.5 percent to 3 percent and roll back property taxes by $1 billion, the governor said in Tampa this afternoon.
Scott did not reveal details of how he plans to come up with the savings while also closing a $3.62 billion budget deficit but is scheduled to release his entire budget on Monday in Eustis.
Scott’s also blaming Florida’s budget woes in part on the federal health care law recently struck down by a Pensacola federal judge as unconstitutional.
House Speaker Dean Cannon created a new committee to look into reorganizing state government, a good for Gov. Rick Scott and his ambitious plan to merge agencies and shift agency functions, something that requires legislative action.
Cannon’s memo to House members about the Select Committee on Government Reorganization expressed skepticism of Scott’s pledge to run government more like a business but the goal of the committee dovetails with the governor’s proposal to combine certain departments and possibly do away with others.
“Privatization, performance standards, running government like a business, and information technology are appealing ideas but not panaceas. Reform cannot consist of simply combining, recombining, dividing, or redividing government agencies. Our goal instead is to engage in the work of identifying the specific and necessary work of government in order to eliminate the extraneous tasks that have been added over the years. Florida government should be focused on core goals and structured to achieve those goals,” Cannon, R-Winter Park, wrote.
Rep. John Legg, R-Port Richey, will chair the committee.
The committee will “look at government programs that purport to promote or regulate private sector economic activity and “look at government programs involved with health and human service delivery systems.”
Scott’s transition team recommended merging the Agency for Health Care Administration and the Department of Health and to combine the departments of Community Affairs, Environmental Protection and Transportation to streamline permitting and regulations.
Supporters of two voter-approved constitutional amendments changing the way Florida lawmakers draw Congressional and legislative districts filed a lawsuit today demanding that Gov. Rick Scott move forward with the federal approval needed to implement the changes.
Scott reappointed Kurt Browning as Florida’s secretary of state. Browning, originally appointed by Crist, left his post last year to lead the fight against the “Fair Districts” amendments approved by voters in November that now bar lawmakers from drawing districts that favor political parties or incumbents.
Four leaders of Jewish, Christian and interfaith groups signed a letter Wednesday expressing “deep concern” to U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, about his recent criticism of Muslim U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and West’s “tendency to offer intemperate comments about Islam.”
In an interview on The Shalom Show, West (around the 1:50 mark on the video above) referred to Ellison as “someone that really does represent the antithesis of the principles upon which this country was established.”
West sent a letter back to the interfaith leaders Wednesday saying he’s “neither anti-Muslim nor anti-Islam…It is the extremist, radical element that has hijacked Islam that presents a dangerous threat to both our country and our allies throughout the world.”
A new Quinnipiac University poll of Florida voters suggests President Obama, who carried the state in 2008, will have trouble winning it again in 2012. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson’s numbers are better, but not “terrific.”
Obama gets favorable job reviews from 47 percent and unfavorable reviews from 49 percent — statistically a dead heat in the poll of 1,160 registered voters with a 2.9 percent margin of error. A generic Republican challenger gets 42 percent to Obama’s 40 percent in a hypothetical 2012 match-up.
Nelson’s job approval/disapproval score is 45/21. In a hypothetical 2012 race, Nelson gets 41 percent support to 36 percent for an unnamed Republican. Says Quinnipiac’s Peter Brown: “Sen. Nelson is not in terrific shape but he is not in terrible shape either. His fate may rest with how President Barack Obama does in 2012 as Florida voters see the two men similarly on the issues.”
The poll shows Floridians favor repealing the health care law by a 50-to-43 percent margin and oppose continued U.S. fighting in Afghanistan by a 54-to-38 percent margin.
Gov. Rick Scott withdrew the names of all of his predecessor Charlie Crist’s nominees that require Senate confirmation, including four appointees to the Public Service Commission.
Scott sent a letter to Senate President Mike Haridopolos late Wednesday evening asking him to withdraw dozens of nominees appointed by Crist, from Alafia River Basin appointee Stephen Bissonnette to Withlacoochee River Basin Board members Burton Eno and Alan Grubman.
Among those targeted: Public Service Commissioners Eduardo Balbis, Ronald Brise, Julie Brown and Art Graham.
On the list are all of Crist’s appointees as well those whose terms have already expired.
“The letter and list reflect the governor’s exercising his prerogative to reevaluate his predecessor’s appointments. Inclusion on the list does not preclude someone from the possibility of reappointment,” Scott spokesman Brian Hughes said.
Scott’s move is nothing new. Crist and his predecessor Jeb Bush did the same thing, but Crist didn’t wait until he was sworn in to withdraw Bush’s appointees.
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Gov. Rick Scott tapped Tallahassee public relations consultant Cindy O’Connell to head the state’s Florida Lottery department.
O’Connell previously served on the start-up team for the Florida Lottery after voters approved the department in 1986.
O’Connell is the widow of the late Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Stephen O’Connell, who also served as the president of the University of Florida. Cindy O’Connell spent a decade as a UF trustee.
“Cindy brings an impressive record of leadership and brand management to the Florida Lottery and will improve the agency’s important mission of maximizing revenues for the enhancement of public education in Florida,” Scott said in a statement announcing O’Connell’s appointment.
Jay Weitz, a former Palm Beach County Democratic state committeeman and an easygoing presence in often-abrasive south county politics for more than a decade, died Monday of cancer. He was 81.
Mr. Weitz was a New York native who worked as a pharmacist before retiring and moving to Boynton Beach 19 years ago, said Ann Weitz, his wife of 58 years.
Often a wise-cracking emcee at Democratic events, Mr. Weitz was past president of the Democratic Club of Greater Boynton and current parliamentarian for the United South County Democratic Club. County Democrats elected him state committeeman in 2004 to represent the local party in state Democratic affairs. He held that post until 2008.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by sons Mitchell and Glenn of New York. A funeral will be Thursday at 11 a.m. at Beth Israel Memorial Chapel, 11115 Jog Road in Boynton Beach. Burial will follow at Eternal Light Memorial Gardens.
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