With the Miami Heat and Dallas Mavericks about to battle for the NBA title, Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Texas Gov. Rick Perry put their own state’s products, and bragging rights, on the line Tuesday.

Scott put up a key lime pie against Perry’s case of Texas barbecue sauce on the outcome of the best-of-seven-games series. Scott may have already tried to get inside Perry’s head by warning earlier this month that he wanted to top Texas’ best-in-the-nation for business title.

Perry, meanwhile, is talking about running for president. Scott is still dissecting last week’s Quinnipiac University poll and his cratering popularity level.

Welfare recipients, mostly women with children, will now have to be drug-free to receive cash benefits under a bill signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott today.

Under the new law, applicants for the benefits will have to pay for the drug tests but will get reimbursed if they are drug-free. If they’re not, their children will still be able to receive benefits through another family member or someone else designated by their parent.

More than 21,000 Floridians now receiving benefits as heads of households will now have to pay for and undergo the screening.

Scott and state lawmakers contend Florida needs the new law to stop welfare recipients from using the money to buy drugs. Opponents of the measure cite studies have shown that there’s no more widespread drug abuse among welfare recipients than the general public.

“While there are certainly legitimate needs for public assistance, it is unfair for Florida taxpayers to subsidize drug addiction,” Scott said in a press release. “This new law will encourage personal accountability and will help to prevent the misuse of tax dollars.”

The ACLU of Florida blasted the new law.

“The wasteful program created by this law subjects Floridians who are impacted by the economic downturn, as well as their families, to a humiliating search of their urine and body fluids without cause or even suspicion of drug abuse,” said Howard Simon, the civil rights organization’s executive director.

A federal court in 2003 struck down a similar law, finding that it violated Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable searches.

Scott is also requiring state workers to undergo random drug tests, prompting threats of lawsuits. The ACLU is making an announcement regarding that policy tomorrow morning, indicating a lawsuit is likely.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Scott today also signed into law a bill banning certain bath salts that have resulted in a rash of overdoses in Florida and other states.

Attorney General Pam Bondi in January issued an emergency order criminalizing the sale of “bath salts” made up of the dangerous synthetic drug Methylenedioxypyrovalerone, or MDPV. The drug cocktail apparently gives users super-human strength.

Florida poison control centers have reported 61 calls of “bath salts” abuse, the second-highest volume of calls in the nation, according to Scott’s office.

With House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan‘s spending plan and its controversial Medicare proposal igniting debate, state Senate President and Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Mike Haridopolos was asked how he would have voted in last week’s U.S. Senate vote on the Ryan plan.

His answer:

“I’m not in the U.S. Senate. I’m trying to get there. I really believe that he (Ryan) is having an honest dialogue. I think Tim Pawlenty‘s plan that came out has some merit as well. But I’ve been a part of solutions, not talking about what other people have done, but part of solutions.”

Read about how the Medicare issue is playing out in Florida’s GOP Senate primary.

Palm Beach County Republican Chairman Sid Dinerstein says presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, who headlined the local GOP’s annual Lincoln Day dinner in February, has “viability issues” after slamming the Paul Ryan Medicare plan as “radical” and “right-wing social engineering” and then backtracking on the criticisms.

And Dinerstein says Gingrich or Sarah Palin as the party’s 2012 nominee would distract efforts to defeat President Obama.

“If Newt Gingrich or Sarah Palin, who I like, were our nominees, then instead of the election being a referendum on the president, which is what we need it to be, it would be a referendum on them, which is what we don’t need it to be. And Republicans have to be sophisticated enough to make this election a referendum on the president,” Dinerstein said Thursday night before a Boca Raton Republican Club dinner.

Palin has been looking a lot like a candidate lately.

“I’m hoping that she doesn’t get in the race. I am a fan. She falls under the ‘Life’s not fair’ category that I have. But, yes, I don’t want her in the race,” Dinerstein said.

Dinerstein is neutral in the presidential primary, but he’s never been shy about prognosticating. Back in April 2007, Dinerstein said that eventual 2008 GOP nominee John McCain was “yesterday’s candidate” and Mitt Romney lacked “traction” while enthusing over Rudy Giuliani‘s prospects in Florida.

The pro-Israel odd couple of the Palm Beach County congressional delegation — Reps. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, and Allen West, R-Plantation — are teaming up for another event at Boca Raton Synagogue.

The pair appeared there together in April for a screening of Iranium, a documentary about nuclear ambitions and Islamic fundamentalism in Iran.

Now the congressmen are scheduled (with billing beneath Eitan Katz and band) to appear at a “Rally For An Undivided Jerusalem” on Wednesday at 6 p.m. at the synagogue at 7900 Montoya Circle in Boca Raton.

Gov. Rick Scott vetoed a record $615 million Thursday from the budget approved earlier this month by lawmakers — saying he was holding “special interests accountable.”

With Scott’s action, the budget shrinks to $69.1 billion, and reserves swell to about $2.8 billion.

“I campaigned on making the tough choices to turn our economy around,” Scott told a crowd at The Villages, the Central Florida retirement community Thursday.

College and university construction projects took a big hit in Scott’s veto list, with most of a more than $220 million approved list eliminated. Among those vetoed was $7.3 million for a Wellington campus classroom building at Palm Beach State College and $3.2 million for roofs and other work at Florida Atlantic University. 

Scott, who earlier called for even deeper cuts for education, urged lawmakers to redirect some of the vetoed dollars back into public schools — which face a $1.3 billion cut.

Representatives of business groups, lawmakers and Florida Republican Party Chairman Dave Bitner were the warmup act for Scott’s budget signing and vetoes under a sweltering midday sun. 

Speakers praised Scott and ridiculed Washington for overspending.

“The people in Washington, D.C., need to use Florida as an example of fiscal responsibility,” said Sen. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla.

The budget approved by lawmakers cuts $2.6 billion from schools, health and social service programs, bringing per-pupil funding to its lowest level in six years, while imposing deep cuts to hospitals, nursing homes and HMOs. Some economists warn the spending plan, which takes effect July 1, could slow the state’s recovery by adding more Floridians to the jobless ranks.

But among conservative tea party voters, who helped vault Scott to a narrow victory over Democratic opponent Alex Sink last fall, the Legislature’s spending plan was a failure.

The budget reduces the state’s workforce by 4,500 positions, to 122,236 employees. It also privatizes prisons in the state’s 18 southernmost counties, including Palm Beach and the Treasure Coast, clouding the future of about 3,000 corrections workers.

School districts also are looking to cut jobs in the face of a drop in state dollars. Palm Beach County is poised to close a $35.4 million budget hole by eliminating more than 700 positions, including custodians, classroom monitors and school police officers.

But in his budget proposal, released in February, Scott wanted more. He called for cutting 8,681 jobs across state agencies, while reducing $4.6 billion in spending.

Florida Democrats spent Wednesday firing off several thousand e-mails to the governor’s office, demanding that he veto the entire 406-page document.

“It is a budget that eliminates, and does not create, jobs for Floridians,” said Rep. Mark Pafford, D-West Palm Beach. “It is a sorely deficient budget that is inappropriately balanced on the backs of our middle class.”

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty‘s presidential campaign officially announced its key Florida members today, including former Jeb Bush campaign chairman Phil Handy as Pawlenty’s Florida chairman and national finance co-chairman.

Former Bush adviser and speechwriter Justin Sayfie, proprietor of the must-read Sayfiereview.com political site, will be a Florida co-chairman and former Bush fund-raiser Ann Herberger will be a national senior finance adviser.

In addition to those moves, which were reported here Tuesday, the Pawlenty camp announced that Gretchen Picotte will be Florida finance director. Picotte raised money for Gov. Rick Scott‘s 2010 campaign and was Florida finance director for Rudy Giuliani‘s 2008 presidential bid.

Handy was chairman of Jeb Bush’s 1994 and 1998 campaigns and a 2002 Bush co-chairman. He was state chairman for John McCain‘s 2008 presidential campaign. Handy was chairman of the Florida Board of Education from 2001 to 2007.

Gov. Rick Scott‘s got the $69.7 billion budget to sign today, but the state’s spending plan will likely be considerably leaner after the first-year governor is done.

Scott is expected to make history by red-lining in excess of Gov. Charlie Crist‘s record-setting $459.2 million in vetoes in 2007, also the governor’s first year as state CEO.

Scott’s turned the budget signing ceremony into a public spectacle in The Villages, a favorite stumping ground for the conservative Republican, where he’ll be surrounded by tea party supporters. Previous governors have held more subdued signing events inside the Capitol.

Those who can’t make it to Central Florida can watch Scott wield his veto pen via the internet.

Log onto http://www.rickscottforflorida.com/livestream/ shortly before 1 p.m. to join in.

With Rick Scott poised to sign into law a new state budget, the focus Thursday morning remains on whether the first-year governor might also be out to set a new state record.

Scott has said — without providing details — that he plans to veto portions of the $69.7 billion spending plan approved earlier this month by lawmakers.

Tea party activists are expected to form a large share of the audience at today’s signing ceremony. And leading lawmakers think Scott could make a political statement by axing hundreds of millions of dollars in proposed spending.

Could he top former Gov. Charlie Crist’s $459.2 million record for vetoes?

“That wouldn’t surprise me,” said Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, chairman of the Senate’s Health and Human Services budget committee. “I think there’s a real possibility that the veto amount exceeds $459 million.”

The budget approved by lawmakers cuts $2.6 billion from schools, health and social service programs, bringing per-pupil funding to its lowest level in six years, while imposing deep cuts to hospitals, nursing homes and HMOs. Some economists warn the spending plan, which takes effect July 1, could slow the state’s recovery by adding more Floridians to the jobless ranks.

But among conservative tea party voters, who helped vault Scott to a narrow victory over Democratic opponent Alex Sink last fall, the Legislature’s spending plan is a failure.

“We were all disappointed that the House and Senate came out with a much higher budget than Gov. Scott proposed,” said Robin Stublen, a leader of the Charlotte County Tea Party, who helped draw supporters to Thursday’s signing event at The Villages, the Central Florida retirement community.

“But I think (Scott) will do what he thinks is right,” Stublen added. “He’s not concerned with his poll numbers or his next election.”

President Obama‘s approval rating is back above water in a Quinnipiac University poll released this morning. Floridians approve of Obama by a 51-to-43 percent margin, up from a 44-to-52 percent score last month.

It’s Quinnipiac’s first Florida survey since Obama ordered the May 1 raid in Pakistan that killed Islamist terror mastermind Osama bin Laden.

“Whether these numbers represent a ‘bin Laden bounce,’ President Barack Obama’s popularity is up in Florida, which will be a crucial state for him in the 2012 campaign,” said Quinnipiac’s Peter Brown. “The good news for the president is that by 50 – 44 percent Florida voters say Obama deserves a second term in the Oval Office, compared to April when they said 51 – 42 percent that he did not.”

Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, meanwhile, holds leads of at least 20 percent in hypothetical match-ups against each of the three Republicans vying to challenge him in 2012: Mike Haridopolos, George LeMieux or Adam Hasner.

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CORAL GABLES — Some Republicans might be nervous about House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget plan after a formerly safe GOP congressional seat was captured by a Ryan-bashing Democrat in a Tuesday special election in western New York.

Adam Hasner isn’t one of them.

“A lot of Republicans are starting to waffle on this question,” former state House Majority leader and 2012 Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Hasner told a Florida TaxWatch lunch today at the Biltmore hotel.

“Some are backing away, some are hedging their bets, some are sticking their finger in to test the political winds. I want you to know that I fully support the Paul Ryan plan,” Hasner said. “If I had any criticism whatsoever over the plan it’s that it just doesn’t go far enough fast enough.”

One of Hasner’s GOP primary rivals, former appointed Sen. George LeMieux, stopped by the TaxWatch conference earlier in the day and said the Ryan plan was better than anything Democrats have proposed. But LeMieux didn’t offer an unqualified endorsement.

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Florida voters disapprove of the way Gov. Rick Scott is handling his job by a 57-to-29 percent margin and a majority think the state’s new budget is “unfair” to people like them, according to a poll released this morning by Quinnipiac University.

Scott has the worst score of any governor in the seven states Quinnipiac regularly surveys.

Republican Scott, elected in November with 48.9 percent, has never had much of a honeymoon. He had 35 percent approval scores in Quinnipiac’s February and April polls, while his disapproval scores have climbed from 22 percent in February to 48 percent in April to this month’s solid majority.

About the only good news for Scott, according to Quinnipiac’s Peter Brown, is that “he has three and a half years to turn public opinion around.”

Sen. Joe Negron slammed Florida TaxWatch’s annual budget “turkey” list, calling it a “media gimmick” based on the “mistaken rationale that budget decisions originating from the executive branch come clothed with a presumption of correctness while ideas from the elected representatives of the people should be viewed with suspicion.”

TaxWatch released the list to help Gov. Rick Scott with his veto pen. Scott is expected to sign the budget and red-line items of his choice Thursday afternoon.

Negron, a Stuart Republican who chairs the Senate Health and Human Services Appropriations Committee and was once the House’s budget chief, called out TaxWatch staff for the manner in which they arrived at $203 million in pork.

TaxWatch’s turkey criteria include items – more than half the total turkey list – that landed in the budget during or after conferences where budget negotiators from the House and Senate resolve differences between their two spending plans. Many of the items that eventually wound their way into the budget that way had never previously been discussed or proposed by either chamber.

TaxWatch’s “added in conference” category is “a flimsy basis to disparage a budget expenditure,” Negron said in a statement.

“The conference process is a meaningful and significant component of the appropriations enterprise. Conference provides an open and transparent opportunity for the House and Senate to negotiate an agreed upon budget and to take a concluding look at the Appropriations Act to determine final priorities. Many proposed funding items are reduced or eliminated during this review process,” he wrote.

In another lively weekly newsletter to constituents, U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, accuses President Obama of “nefarious and malicious intent” toward Israel for suggesting that the Jewish state’s pre-1967 borders, “with mutually agreed swaps,” should be the basis for any deal to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Conservative favorite West also indicates he might part with many on the right on an upcoming vote to extend the Patriot Act.

Says West:

Lastly, we may have a vote at the end of next week on three key provisions of the PATRIOT Act (record checks, roving wiretaps, and lone wolf provisions). I voted back earlier this year for a 90-day extension. The Congressional Leadership seeks a four year extension to these provisions. Let me make myself clear, there is no one more focused on the security of the United States, but I also believe in preserving the liberty of our citizens. The record checks and roving wiretap provisions cause me concern, resulting from my research and query of local and federal law enforcement officers. Over the coming days, I will be reviewing documents to make a careful assessment so I can determine my support or opposition to this further extension to the PATRIOT Act.

Read West’s entire weekly wrap-up after the jump….

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Florida TaxWatch, the business-backed government spending watchdog, spotted $203 million in “turkeys” in the $69.7 billion budget awaiting Gov. Rick Scott’s signature – and line-item vetoes.

That’s the most pork in the budget the group, which conducts the exercise annually, found since 2007, according to a press release.

Unfortunately for Palm Beach County, included in the pork projects is $7.3 million for a Wellington-area campus of Palm Beach State College. Gov. Charlie Crist last year vetoed $19 million – the total cost of the project – for the new campus.

Also on the list: $1.4 million for the Glades Senior Community Center. The county wants to convert the existing senior center to a homeless resource center.

Both projects are Palm Beach County priorities.

Here’s the full list.

Gov. Rick Scott unsuccessfully tried to privatize Florida’s three remaining state mental hospitals.

But Monday, those same facilities in Gainesville, Chattahoochee and Macclenny look like they’re going to absorb the brunt of some 500 layoffs planned by the Department of Children and Families to cover a $48 million agency reduction, included in the $69.7 billion budget now before Scott.

DCF Secretary David Wilkins sent a memo to the agency’s 13,000 employees Monday outlining the effort to spare “front-line” employees “who are acting as first responders for children, adults and families in need.”

“However, we have many opportunities to improve our administrative operations. By consolidating many back office services, improving automation and simplifying many of our processes,” he added.

The layoffs are expected to take place by June 30, Wilkins pointed out. That’s the end of the state budget year. (more…)

Road builders are upping the pressure on Gov. Rick Scott to veto the Legislature’s decision to pull $150 million out of the state’s transportation trust fund and scatter it across the budget, filling holes.

The Florida Transportation Builders Association delivered close to 3,600 petition signatures to Scott on Monday, urging he strike the fund shift. Builders say losing the money will hurt construction efforts and cost 8,400 jobs.

The association’s president, Bob Burleson, said in a letter to Scott the move “will only add to Florida’s strained unemployment compensation and healthcare systems.’

Joining Burleson in the pitch are six transportation building organizations, along with Associated Industries of Florida and Florida TaxWatch. The $69.7 billion budget now before Scott is almost certain the cause more layoffs in Florida economists warn,  even as the state’s April unemployment level fell to 10.8 percent, its lowest level since September 2009.

Scott, though, has voiced little support for public spending as an economic driver. “I”m focused on building private sector jobs,” Scott said last week, when he raised the possibility of vetoing millions of dollars spending on university and college construction.

At the time, Scott said he worried about deepening the state’s debt — which may help road builders seeking to erase the $150 million trust fund shift. Those dollars are generated chiefly by motorists paying gas tax.

With former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty making a beeline to Florida for a Tampa fund-raiser on the heels of making his presidential candidacy official Monday, Florida’s own former Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, was — again — quick to rule out his own potential run.

“While, I am flattered by everyone’s encouragement, my decision has not changed. I will not be a candidate for president in 2012,” Bush said in a statement.

With the GOP White House field seen as unsatisfying to many party faithful, Florida Republicans are among those who see Bush as having the supernova quality needed to reroute President Obama’s trajectory toward re-election next year.

Having the Republican National Convention in Tampa only adds to the wish-upon-a-star dreams of some within the party. A poll of Florida voters last month by state Republican operatives, Public Concepts, LLC, and Data Targeting, Inc., even gave Bush a 19 percentage point lead over Obama in the nation’s biggest toss-up state.

Bush, who’s gained increased attention as many of the education initiatives he debuted in Florida gain traction in other states — and even with the Obama administration –is clearly wary. And, perhaps, with good reason.

A Gallup poll in April showed Bush’s unfavorable rating among nationwide voters is 44 percent, compared with 35 percent who have a positive view of the former chief executive. Fox News in February also found Bush trailed Obama by 20 percentage points, on a list of potential GOP contenders.

Far closer for Fox, then, was a candidate who actually is running — former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who only trailed Obama by 7 percentage points at the time.

Florida Baptists are weighing in with budget advice for Rick Scott, urging the governor to veto a $400,000 provision for a comprehensive gambling study pivoted around a plan to bring resort casinos to Florida.

Bill Bunkley, lobbyist for the Florida Baptist Convention, has written Scott asking him to veto the Legislature’s assignment for the Office of Program Policy and Government Accountability (OPPAGA).  Baptists also want Scott to increase funding for the state’s compulsive gambling program, which absorbs about a two-thirds reduction — to $264,700 — in the budget.

But the resorts casinos idea draws the Baptists sharpest criticism. The Las Vegas Sands promoted the casino-convention center-resort idea as a potential Miami Beach draw. It also muscled-up its lobbying lineup during the recently completed legislative session and is positioned for a return fight next spring.

Supporters see the OPPAGA study as bolstering the effort. But the Baptist Convention sees no reason for taxpayers financing the research.

“The language directs a taxpayer study via the implementing language to determine the benefits of these gambling activities to the state of Florida,” Bunkley wrote Scott. “Nothing is mentioned in the implementing language to generate a balanced report that also explores the huge social costs which the state will without a doubt also be picking up the tab for.”

Bunkley said lawmakers over the coming year also should work to restore the almost two-thirds cut imposed on the state’s compulsive gambling treatment services, reduced in the budget before Scott from $750,000 last year.

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty released a video Sunday night officially declaring that he’s seeking the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Pawlenty’s first in-the-flesh announcement is scheduled for today in Iowa.

He’s heading to Tampa for a fund-raiser tonight, then to Coral Gables on Tuesday for a Facebook town hall.

Pawlenty’s long-anticipated entrance comes after an eight-day stretch in which Republicans Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump and Mitch Daniels passed up the race.