Environmental groups, the recycling industry and a handful of Florida lawmakers said Wednesday they’ve drawn preliminary approval from House and Senate leaders to study the idea of requiring deposits on bottles and other glass products to promote recycling.

The goal of the effort, similar to programs in place in at least 10 states, would be to reduce the amount of glass winding up as trash on roadways, beaches and landfills, said Sen. Dennis Jones, R-Seminole, among those touting the proposal.

“I represent 23 cities on the beach,” Jones said. “We want to keep our beaches protected.”

A University of Florida study recently found that 30 million beverage containers are trashed in state landfills. But a new poll by McLaughlin & Associates shows that more than 60 percent of Floridians support creating a recycling refund program.

Jay Liles, lobbyist for Florida Wildlife Federation, hailed prospects for a legislative study of the issue this year. But he added, “We’ll be back with a bill next year.”

The Florida House is poised today to approve legislation ending tenure and tying teacher pay to how much students improve in their classes.

The bill also will be chalked up as a major victory for ruling Republican lawmakers over the state teachers’ union, which has been a huge supplier of campaign cash and activists to Democratic political campaigns.

Democrats, outnumbered more than two-to-one in the House, have been pushing back, and a vote isn’t expected until early evening. House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, already having set aside six hours for debate on the measure.

U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, who was accused of sexual harassment in a lawsuit this month by a former Helsinki Commission staffer, has responded in the black-oriented Westside Gazette with an article in which he calls plaintiff Winsome Packer’s claims “completely false.”

As he hinted earlier, Hastings notes in the Gazette that Packer wrote a self-published novel called A Personal Agenda that deals with sexual harassment and other issues on Capitol Hill. Hastings says that Packer, in a Jamaican TV interview, said that “her book requires a lot of marketing to have success and that she is working very hard to promote her book and that a sequel is coming.”

Hastings also says that Judicial Watch, the conservative group representing Packer in her lawsuit, has taken aim at Hastings on other occasions and “has a strange fixation with me.”

With significant defections in majority Republican ranks, the U.S. House today approved a three-week spending bill that, if also approved by the Senate, will avert a partial shutdown of the federal government looming Friday.

Most Republicans in the GOP-led House were supportive of the measure, which cuts $6 billion in spending on top of the $4 billion cut in the last stopgap spending bill. But there were 54 “No” votes in the Republican caucus, including U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, and other conservatives who are critical of the piecemeal approach. The GOP defections mean Speaker John Boehner needed Democratic support — which he got this time — to pass the continuing resolution.

The final vote was 271-to-158, with the unlikely duo of U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, and U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, voting yes while conservative West joined liberal U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, in voting no.

Read what local members had to say about the vote after the jump….

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WEST PALM BEACH — Palm Beach County Tax Collector Anne Gannon got an earful from County Commissioner Burt Aaronson Tuesday when she told the commission her office was struggling to speed through lines of people waiting for driver’s license services.

In 16 years on the commission, Aaronson said he’s never heard as many complaints about a tax collector.

“We’re taking the brunt of a lot of the things going wrong in your office,” Aaronson said.

She proposed to train county workers to answer simple questions about drivers licenses; he said that would be “indoctrination.”

Then he read aloud a letter from a disgruntled citizen and quizzed Gannon on the mechanics of how people line up in her Delray Beach office.

Gannon, who is elected and doesn’t report to the commission, responded by inviting Aaronson several times to come to Delray and see for himself. Aaronson dodged the offer.

In recent months rumors have swirled that the term-limited Aaronson may seek Gannon’s job next.

Outnumbered House Democrats sought to punch holes Tuesday in a sweeping plan pushed by ruling Republicans, which eliminates public school tenure and ties teacher pay to student performance.

With the House set to vote today on the measure already approved by the Senate, Democrats grilled House sponsor Erik Fresen, R-Miami, about the legislation (SB 736), which critics say is designed to punish a state’s teachers union that historically has poured millions of dollars into Democratic campaigns.

Fresen defended the measure, downplaying the politics and saying it will assure that Florida rewards the best teachers by giving them incentives to help students achieve.

“There’s nothing in this bill that micromanages how teaching is done,” said Fresen, chairman of the K-20 Competitiveness subcommittee. “It simply deals with contracts, evaluations and salary schedules.”

Florida lawmakers have $1.6 billion less to spend on education this year than last, according to a preliminary glimpse of the Senate’s education spending plan.

The shortfall comes from the disappearance of one-time $880 million federal stimulus funds used last year plus a reduction in property tax collections due to a decline in assessed values.

Senate K-12 education budget committee chairman David Simmons handed out spreadsheets to his committee and told them to be ready to do some serious cutting when they meet again on Thursday.

“For anybody who sees this do not have a heart attack yet,” cautioned Simmons, R-Maitland, who pointed out that lawmakers still have $554 million in federal “Education Jobs” grants leftover that school districts were supposed to have held onto from last year.

And the $1.6 billion hold “does not reflect any kind of “beg allocation,” Simmons said. “That’s where we’re going to beg for an additional allocation for education.”

Simmons drew attention to a single item on the $22 billion public education spending spreadsheet: public broadcasting.
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R.J. Reynolds is asking the Florida Supreme Court to overturn a $30 million award to the widow of a long-time smoker of Lucky Strikes.

The cigarette maker is appealing a December appeals court decision upholding the verdict awarding $30 million – the highest award since the historic Engle decision -to Matilde Martin.

The appeal was filed in the Florida Supreme Court today.

Martin, whose husband Benny died of lung cancer after smoking for more than 50 years, sued R.J. Reynolds and five other cigarette manufacturers arguing the tobacco companies conspired to make their products addictive and hid from the public information about the dangers of smoking.

Last summer, a Palm Beach County jury ordered Reynolds and Philip Morris to pay only $270,000 in punitive damages to the widow of a Royal Palm Beach smoker who died of lung cancer at age 55.

The case under appeal, as well as the Palm Beach County case, are among roughly 8,000 spawned in 2006 when the Florida Supreme Court threw out the $145 billion verdict a Miami-Dade County jury awarded smokers in a class action suit filed by longtime smoker Dr. Howard Engle.

While upholding the jury’s findings the cigarette-makers had lied about the dangers of smoking, the high court ruled that each of the smokers had to prove how they were uniquely harmed by cigarettes.

House members signalled Tuesday they fear being on the losing end of legal challenges filed by cities to 2009 legislation which relaxed growth management standards.

The legislation, SB 360, eased back on state laws requiring developers  to help underwrite the cost of new schools, roads and other infrastructure needs tied to new projects in urban areas. Backers said the shift would help blunt urban sprawl, by giving developers more of an incentive to build within crowded areas.

But cities sued — saying the changes would shift costs away from developers to taxpayers. And a Leon County Circuit judge agreed in 2010, declaring the measure unconstitutional, sending an appeal to Tallahassee’s First District Court of Appeal.

Lawmakers, though, don’t seem to feel good about their chances. 

 Instead, the Legislature’s planned fix will take shape Wednesday with the House expected to try to reenact the measure off the books since the judge’s ruling.

 Powered by super-majorities in the House and Senate, ruling Republicans can revive the costly shift to local governments with two-thirds support. A 1990 constitutional amendment allows lawmakers to pass on such unfunded mandates –but only when two-thirds of each chamber agrees.

“It simply reenacts state law and gives developers and local governments some certainty about the law we passed in 2009,” said Rep. Ritch Workman, R-Melbourne, sponsor of this year’s proposal (HB 7001).

The Leon court, in its 2010 ruling, said the developer-friendly law would require almost 250 Florida cities to submit comprehensive plan amendments to comply with the law at a cost of $15,000 each, or roughly $3.7 million statewide.

 

Ft. Lauderdale businessman Patrick Murphy, a Democrat, is running against U.S. Rep. Allen West, a tea party favorite who unseated U.S. Rep. Ron Klein in November.

“I love my country. I love South Florida. I’m not going to stand by while right wing extremists like Allen West divide us,” Murphy, vice president of Coastal Environmental Services, said in a press release today announcing his candidacy for District 22, which includes parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties.

National Democrats have targeted West in next year’s elections.

“South Florida simply deserves better than what it’s now getting out of Washington. If we’re going to actually create jobs and protect families, we need representation that isn’t looking backwards,” Murphy said.

Murphy’s company specializes in disaster relief and environmental cleanup, and last year, the native Floridian spent six months in the Gulf of Mexico doing clean-up work after BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil disaster. West, who lives in Plantation, supports offshore oil drilling.

Gov. Rick Scott, a former health care CEO, gave a longish response to a question about The Palm Beach Post’s report about a potential conflict of interest with his proposed changes to the state’s regulation of the health care industry.

Asked what his response is to critics who say his changes are designed to benefit Solantic, the chain of urgent care clinics Scott recently transferred ownership of to his wife Ann, Scott stayed on message.

“Everything that I want to accomplish in health care in Florida is basically what I’ve believed all my life. I believe in the principle that if you have more competition, it will drive down the prices. If you give people more choices, it’s better for the consumer and also help drive down price. I believe that we should reward the person that takes care of themself, eats right, doesn’t smoke, exercises, things like that. All those things are the things that I believe in and that’s exactly what I’m going to do as governor,” Scott said.

The state House weighed in with its first look at public school spending Monday — outlining plans for a 7.7 percent reduction in the state’s current $6,899-per student spending.

That may sound rough — until you consider Republican Gov. Rick Scott proposed a 10 percent per-student cut in his budget proposal last month.

“It’s going to be rough,” said Vern Pickup-Crawford, lobbyist for the Palm Beach County School Board.

But it’s also early. Lawmakers and lobbyists are holding back on the scenary chewing that usually accompanies proposed school cuts — at least until Friday, when economists are expected to update a revenue forecast which already is leaving Florida in at least a $3.6 billion budget hole.

There are few indications that the forecast will improve much. But most close to the budget-writing also say the outlook is not likely to worsen — unless rising fuel costs add a new budgetary caution.

“And you’ve got to remember, transportation costs are a big part of district spending,” Pickup-Crawford added.

Florida’s new corrections department secretary is shutting down three prisons, two boot camps and a road prison.

DOC Secretary Edwin Buss said the closures will save the state $30.8 million this year and $25 million annually in the future.

The Department will close the Brevard Correctional Institution (CI) in Cocoa, Hendry CI in Immokalee, Hillsborough CI in Riverview, Tallahassee Road Prison in Tallahassee, Lowell CI Boot Camp and Sumter Boot Camp. Additionally the Department will move close management inmates out of Charlotte CI in Punta Gorda to three other prisons.

The department has a surplus of beds for the first time in recent history.

The phase out plan will begin immediately with a target completion date of June 30, 2011.

The Florida Senate approved a constitutional amendment that would cap government spending, a variation of the “Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights,” or TABOR, Colorado instituted in 1992 but repealed in 2005.

The so-called “Smart Cap” measure, sponsored by Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, limits future state spending to growth based on population and cost of living and constrains borrowing. Voters in 20 other states have rejected similar measures.

Opponents of the proposed amendment argued that the state constitution already curbs state spending by requiring a balanced budget and that the spending caps could harm the state’s most vulnerable in economic downturns like Florida is now experiencing. Lawmakers are struggling to slash at least $3.62 billion from last year’s budget.

The Colorado measure also capped local government spending increases, something not included in Bogdanoff’s proposal, and resulted in a dramatic decline in education and social services funding.

“We already have a revenue limit in Florida. We have repealed as much as $19 billion in taxes over the last 12 years. We simply don’t need an even more restrictive cap in the state constitution,” Senate Democratic Leader Nan Rich of Weston argued. “If you think we’ve had hard choices to make…over the past few years,
TABOR will only make it worse.”

But Bogdanoff insisted her bill is necessary to rein lawmakers in.

“We already have a cap in the constitution. But it’s not working. We need one that’s going to work better,” Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, said. “This is not Colorado. We have learned from the mistakes of other states.
We didn’t want to repeat what they had done…If government takes less, the people have more. and I don’t know about you but I’m okay with that.”

The measure passed with a 27-13 vote. Two Republicans, Sens. Paula Dockery of Lakeland and Nancy Detert of Venice, voted against it; one Democrat, Sen. Bill Montford of Tallahassee, voted in favor.

The proposal is one of Senate President Mike Haridopolos’ top priorities. Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, is running for U.S. Senate, and, if approved by the House, could join him on the November 2012 ballot if he wins what is expected to be a crowded GOP primary.

The House has not yet voted on the bill (SB 958). It would require 60 percent approval by voters to get into the state constitution if it makes it on the ballot.

Legislation allowing concealed weapons holders to openly carry their firearms sailed through a House panel Tuesday — nudged along by its sponsor, House Speaker-in-waiting, Chris Dorworth, R-Lake Mary.

The 10-3 vote in the Criminal Justice subcommittee came despite opposition from law enforcement, which also has been urging the Senate to shelve a similar measure, a favorite of the National Rifle Association and its state affiliate, Unified Sportsmen of Florida.

Hillsborough County sheriff’s officials Tuesday warned that allowing Floridians to openly wear a holstered sidearm would add a new level of uncertainty to many crime scenes. They said it might be tough for officers to separate the bad guys from a gun-toting civilian.

“In our business, the difference between living and dying on the job often is one moment of hesitation,” said Major Thomas Feeney.

Florida retailers and car dealers also are arguing against the legislation, saying they fear pistol-packing clients coming into their businesses.

Dorworth and supporters, though, say the legislation (HB 517) merely cuts some slack for permit-holders. It’s now possible, backers say, for those authorized to carry a weapon to be cited if the wind blows a jacket or shirt aside to expose their firearm.

Dorworth, like Senate sponsor, Sen. Greg Evers, R-Baker, has stripped from the bill a provision that would’ve allowed open-carry on college campuses. Supporters backed off following pleas from many campus police departments and the emotional testimony of the father of an Florida State University student accidently shot dead in January by another student.

The liberal group MoveOn is planning Tuesday rallies in Delray Beach and West Palm Beach to protest proposed Republican spending cuts at the state and federal levels.

The rallies are among 16 “Defend the American Dream” demonstrations scheduled around Florida on Tuesday, including a Tallahassee event to “show your opposition to the agenda of the far right wing currently running the legislature and governor’s office.”

In Palm Beach County, an enterprising demonstrator might be able to make it to both rallies. The Delray Beach event begins at 4 p.m. at the corner of Atlantic Boulevard and Swinton Avenue near Old School Square while the West Palm Beach event starts at 5:30 p.m. at the city library courtyard.

House Speaker Dean Cannon  and Senate President Mike Haridopolos sent memos Monday to  lawmakers, noting they could still consider a number of overrides to vetoes made last spring by former Gov. Charlie Crist.

But is the real target here new Gov. Rick Scott?

The memos warning that the Republican-led Legislature is ready to exert its muscle, follows Scott’s decision Friday to freeze at least until July $235 million in contracts for SunRail, the Central Florida commuter rail hailed by Cannon, Haridopolos and most other Orlando-area lawmakers.

 The delay threatens the $1.2 billion rail project. And it comes just weeks after the Republican governor antagonized many lawmakers — and was unsuccessfully sued by two of them — after refusing the federal government’s offer of $2.4 billion for high-speed rail linking Tampa to Orlando.

The two leaders’ notes are worded cautiously. But the intent is clear: Scott can mess with lawmakers, but they can mess right back.

” I am directing the committee chairs to evaluate potential veto overrides in their area and, should they find a candidate for an override, to conduct a public hearing on the bill,” Cannon wrote. ” The House will take up any override formally recommended by a committee.”

Haridopolos wrote, “Over the past few weeks, several members of the Senate have also expressed an interest in considering some of the remaining vetoed bills, and it is my desire to be open and inclusive in considering these requests.”

 Budget vetoes and slightly more than a dozen bills are eligible for override, the leaders wrote. Included are one measure that would shift the state’s Department of Management Services away from sole oversight by Scott and put it under the authority of the governor and the three independently elected Cabinet officers.

Another would create so-called leadership funds. These accounts would give legislative leaders total control of what typically is millions of dollars in campaign cash they raise but must deposit within the state’s political parties.

The House version of a sweeping rewrite of Florida’s Medicaid program is poised for a vote this week — the first step toward a legislative end-game with the Senate aimed at yielding a statewide managed care program for the state’s low-income poor, disabled and elderly.

At some point, the federal government is going to have to give its OK to whatever Florida lawmakers agree on.

 But House Health and Human Services Chairman Rob Schenck, R-Spring Hill, said it’s clear state lawmakers agree the goal is to get a handle on a program on track to absorb one-quarter of the state’s roughly $66 billion budget.

“I’m more focused on changing the Medicaid model at its core for generations to come,” said Schenck, who also said “this is a new day for Medicaid.”  (more…)

The Senate Health Regulation Committee approved two anti-abortion measures this afternoon, including a proposed constitutional amendment banning public financing of abortions even in the case of rape or incest.

The other measure (SB 1414) would prohibit private health insurers from covering abortions.

Both measures were approved by a 9-3 vote, with the two Democrats on the committee voting against them.

One of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s top priorities – a bill enhancing penalties for pill mill doctors and operators – received unanimous approval in its first Senate committee hearing this afternoon.

The measure (SB 818) would require the Board of Medicine to suspend a doctor’s license for six months and impose a minimum $10,000 fine for violating the state’s 72-hour dosage limit for pain management clinic docs.

Bondi said the harsher penalties – and more provisions in the yet-to-be-implemented prescription drug database included in the bill – will help her combat the state’s reputation as the nation’s illicit drug capital.

“We have become the destination for drug dealers,” Bondi said. “This is a horrible, horrible problem. Because the drug dealers are flying to Florida now to buy these drugs and take them back to other states. You are truly impacting lives today.”

The bill also enhances provisions in current laws related to the prescription drug database although the system has yet to get up and running two years after lawmakers created it.

The database is under fire from the Florida House where a committee last week passed a measure doing away with all regulation of pain clinics and replacing it with a ban on dispensing practitioners, who are responsible for only 16 percent of the oxycodone. The rest – 84 percent – comes from pharmacies.