After being scolded by two Republicans, the Florida Senate sent to Gov. Rick Scott a second abortion bill this morning that would require women to have an ultrasound before they get an abortion.

Sen. Evelyn Lynn harshly rebuked her colleagues for wasting time with emotional issues and failing to do enough to create jobs and boost the economy.

“I didn’t come up here to come and tell you what you must do with your bodies,” Lynn, R-Ormond Beach, said. “I don’t want to have to continually talk about these issues on this floor when I have people pleading with me to help me please find money to keep my lights on…I will vote for every one of those bills. That’s not why I came up here. And I will vote no not only on this bill but every other bill we have on abortion. It is the wrong thing for us to be discussing and taking endless amounts of time on.”

Sen. Nancy Detert, a Venice Republican, said she resented having to vote on the issue.

“I personally resent writing legislation that acts like I’m too stupid to confer with my own doctor on what I should do. This is not what we were sent up here to do. I have no intention of telling you my faith, my personal problems, and I frankly don’t want to hear yours either,” Detert said.

The ultrasound bill (HB 1127) is one of four measures making it harder for women to get abortions lawmakers have passed during the legislative session making it more difficult for women to get abortions. Last year, Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed a measure similar to the ultrasound bill the Senate approved by a 24-15 vote, with three other Republicans joining Lynn in opposition. Gov. Rick Scott has said he would have signed the measure into law.
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The Florida Senate approved a measure that would make it harder for young women to get a judge to sign off on an abortion without her parents or guardians’ knowledge.

The Senate approved the measure (HB 1247) with a 26-12 vote with just one Republican, Sen. Evelyn Lynn of Ormond Beach, voting against it. The measure now goes to Gov. Rick Scott, who is likely to sign it.

Democrats argued that the many young women seeking the judicial waivers are afraid to tell their parents because they have been raped or abused by a family member and that the current parental notification law requiring a minor to go to a judge anywhere in the appellate district in which she lives is working. Last year, about judges issued about 300 orders allowing the procedure.

Sen. Gwen Margolis, a former Senate president, said she was around before the historic Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing a woman’s right to an abortion. Margolis spoke of a young friend who bled to death after trying to give herself an abortion because she was too scared to tell her parents.

“That’s what happens with a lot of these young women. They’re afraid to tell their families…This is the real world. In the olden days, we had lots of deaths because of this kind of action,” said Margolis, D-Miami.

But Sen. Alan Hays, the bill sponsor, said that abortion counselors are taking children across the state to judges who would be more likely to grant the waiver.

“I find it totally and completely repulsive that we would allow an adult to take one of these 13 or 14-year-old young ladies and drive her from Crestview to Fernandina Beach to get an abortion,” Hays, R-Umatilla, argued.

Stay tuned for the vote on a second abortion bill requiring women to have ultrasounds before they get abortions. The Senate is now debating the measure, similar to one vetoed by Gov. Charlie Crist last year.

With the Senate poised to pass an elections overhaul opposed by the League of Women Voters and other voting-rights groups, a labor union leader prompted Senate Democrats to ask loads of questions not just to find out more information about the bill (HB 1355) but to help prepare for lawsuits.

“The questions you ask lays the basis and foundation for the challenges on this,” Florida AFL-CIO president Mike Williams advised the Senate Democratic caucus this morning.

The sweeping elections package includes such strict regulation of third parties conducting voter registration drives that the League of Women Voters will likely no longer participate, the league’s lobbyist Jessica Lowe told the caucus.

Much of the caucus discussion this morning centered around a Medicaid overhaul crafted in secret by GOP House and Senate leaders over the past few days. The bill (SB 1972) is slated to be heard today in the Senate although it has not yet been released to the public. Senate HHS chief Joe Negron, R-Stuart, who’s crafting the proposal, spoke with Democrats this morning about it but failed to win support.

Democrats who wanted to file amendments to the bill were told they can’t until the original bill is filed.

Lawmakers remained divided Wednesday night on efforts to limit unemployment compensation in Florida — with the House reworking a Senate plan linking the number of weeks a jobless worker can collect benefits.

Instead, the House dug-in, mostly — around the plan it approved in the session’s opening week. The House wanted to reduce the state’s current 26 weeks of benefits to 20 — but boosted that by three weeks as the session’s horse-trading entered the homestretch.

“It has a long-term, positive effect on businesses, because it lowers the unemployment taxes,” said Rep. Doug Holder, R-Sarasota.

The Senate has resisted a direct cut in weekly benefits, instead tying the duration of benefits to the state’s unemployment rate. A full, 26-weeks would only be available to those out-of-work when unemployment hit 12 percent. The current 11.1 percent jobless rate would allow for 24 weeks.

The House also supports a sliding scale. But it wants to roll-back the maximum benefits to 23 weeks.

“How does this help the unemployed find jobs?” asked Rep. Joe Gibbons, D-Pembroke Pines.

The bill also demands that those seeking benefits take a skills test aimed at matching them to jobs. It also gives employers more authority to challenge a worker’s bid for benefits, with Florida’s biggest industry organizations saying the current system overly favors those out of work.

Holder, a Sarasota Republican, said he thought his Senate counterpart, Nancy Detert, R-Venice, would meet him on the middle-ground.

“We feel it’s an appropriate compromise,” Holder said.

 

 

 

 

The House gave Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, another of his ballot priorities — a proposed tough new state spending limit (CS/SJR 958).

In the latest of a series of votes divided along party lines, the House approved Haridopolos’ ‘Smart Cap’ ballot proposal 78-40, which would ask voters to limit future state spending to population growth combined with the cost of living, toughening a state revenue cap in place since 1994.

Opponents of the measure argued it will tie lawmakers’ hands into the future — making it difficult to adjust to changing economic conditions.

“Fiscally conservative doesn’t mean being fiscally irresponsible,” said Rep. Mark Pafford, D-West Palm Beach. “This will drive Florida back 40 years.”

The measure, modeled on a ‘Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights” (TABOR) limit approved by Colorado voters in 1992, and later eased because of budget problems it caused.

Rep. Chris Dorworth, R-Lake Mary, said voters should be given a chance to limit state spending.
“All the money we’re talking about here is taxpayer money,” Dorworth said. “It’s not our money. We can restrain our growth.”

But Rep. Elaine Schwartz, D-Hollywood, said the ballot proposal was designed chiefly to drive conservative, Republican-leaning voters to the polls during the November 2012 elections.

“It’s purely a political move that’s not good for this state,” Schwartz said. “And it’s not good for future leaders. You won’t be able to hand out the $100 million in member projects you needed for the budget.”

Haridopolos, who plans to be a U.S. Senate candidate sharing the November ballot with ‘smart cap,’ praised the vote.

“This has been an issue I’ve worked on since I was first elected to the Legislature a decade ago,” Haridopolos said. “I was confident that this day would come if we were able to transform the Senate to a more fiscally conservative body, and I am proud today to have won this debate on behalf of Florida’s taxpayers.”

UPDATE: Rep. William Snyder insisted late Wednesday night the Senate plan is a no-go in the House. “I think it’s thoroughly impossible,” Snyder said. Even if he had the two-thirds votes to take up the measure – which he said he does not – he likely wouldn’t because it’s nowhere near the comprehensive change he supports.

Senate President Mike Haridopolos urged the Florida House to take up and pass his chamber’s immigration proposal despite House GOP leaders’ insistence that the issue is off the table.

“This is an issue we’ve talked about for almost a decade. I would trust the House to take up that bill,” the Merritt Island Republican who is running for U.S. Senate told reporters late this evening. “I think it’s the right thing to do…I’d like to see them do it. These are common-sense items I think everybody would agree with.”

The Senate plan is too weak for conservative Republicans in the House and too strident for Democrats to get the two-thirds votes needed to consider the measure, according to Rep. William Snyder, R-Stuart, the House plan’s sponsor.

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The Senate plans to move ahead with an overhaul of  Florida’s Medicaid program Thursday — reviving an issue that went underground weeks ago, after the House and Senate approved rival plans.

Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, offered no details of what he described as an emerging compromise proposal. He also shrugged off questions about why the plan to revamp health coverage for 2.9 million low-income, elderly and disabled Floridians could only be settled far from the eyes of the public.

“There won’t be any new issues in there,” Haridopolos insisted. “We’ve been discussing it for two years.”

Senate health and human services budget chief Joe Negron, R-Stuart, and his House counterpart, Rob Schenck, R-Spring Hill, have been saying discussions were going well.  But neither would say a word about the talks.

Senate Rules Chairman John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine,  said earlier this week that to approve a Medicaid revamp now — in the waning days of the session — would be inappropriate.  Instead, Thrasher said he expected a special session to be called in coming weeks.

The House and Senate both want to put most Medicaid patients into managed care programs in a bid to save money. But similarities end there.

The Senate would’ve divided the state into 19 regions,based on state court circuits. The House proposed eight regions, with Palm Beach County included with Broward, Martin, Glades and Hendry counties.

The Senate excluded developmentally disabled Floridians now served by Medicaid — a stance Haridopolos hinted Wednesday night he expected to hold in the soon-to-be-sprung compromise plan.

A rewrite of elections law in the nation’s largest presidential toss-up state edged closer to completion Wednesday, with the Senate moving closer to the House on a package derided by Democrats and vote-gathering organizations.

The Senate positioned the legislation (CS/HB 1355) by adding some of its early voting priorities to a measure that puts tight restrictions on so-called third party voter organizations — making the League of Women Voters, unions, the NAACP and others submit lists of prospective new voters to elections supervisors within 48 hours, or face $1,000 fines.

The Senate had earlier proposed shortening the time allowed for early voting. But Wednesday, Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, came up with what he cast as a compromise that would maintain the current 96-hours of early voting allowed, but shorten the number of days available to vote before Election Day.

Gaetz’s provision — adopted by the Senate — would reduce the current two-week early voting period to 10 days, but extend the daily hours. The full measure still awaits a Senate vote — and must return to the House, which is likely to accept the changes.

County elections supervisors have questioned the change. Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher estimated the changes could cost county taxpayers $941,000, by forcing officials to open more early voting locations and pay poll-worker overtime costs.

The measure coming out of the Senate coincides with the House approach on allowing only voters who’ve moved within a county to cast regular ballots at their new precincts on Election Day. Voters who’ve relocated from another county, but haven’t changed their registrations, could cast only provisional ballots in their new counties.

Democrats argue the change will make it harder for Democratic-leaning college students to cast ballots.   Some counties also tend to eliminate substantial numbers of provisional ballots because voters cannot submit proof that they’re eligible voters, opponents said.

Ruling Republicans, however, have argued that the changes are only designed to stamp out voter fraud and assure that only eligible voters cast ballots.

Florida lawmakers are poised to make the state’s parental notification of abortion laws stricter, making it more difficult for a minor to get a judges’ approval for the procedure.

By a 20-19 vote today, the Florida Senate rejected an amendment that would have kept the current law allowing minors to get a waiver from a judge anywhere in the appellate circuit in which she lives. The bill (SB 1770, HB 1247) instead would limit girls seeking the waiver to the circuit court.

That’s problematic for minors who live in rural communities or small counties whose family members are likely neighbors of or on close terms with courthouse workers or observers, argued Democrats and some Republicans, putting her confidentiality at risk. Many of the young women seeking the judicial permission for the abortions are victims of rape or incest, they said.

“I’m sorry that some people in here don’t understand that there are families where if a young woman goes to them she could be beaten or even killed because of…incest or rape,” said Senate Democratic Leader Nan Rich of Weston. “We should not be doing anything to place further barriers in front of these young women…There is no need to change this.”

But Sen. Alan Hays, who sponsored the bill, said that young women have plenty of opportunity to see a judge in their own community and should not be allowed to judge-shop.

“I find it preposterous that a young lady…might be put in a vehicle and transported all the way from Escambia County to Duval County just so she can get an abortion without her parents knowing about it,” Hays, R-Umatilla, said.

Abortion rights advocates contend that the measure, already approved by the House and expected to be passed by the Senate tomorrow, would make Florida’s parental notification laws the strictest in the nation.

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The House joined the Florida Senate in approving a measure Wednesday making mostly modest changes to city pension plans — backing away from more sweeping approaches proposed earlier to stabilize some of the financially troubled funds.

The only major overhaul included in the legislation (CS/SB 1128) limits overtime pay to 300 hours per year for benefit calculations for police, firefighters and other municipal employees. The cap would stop government workers from using what critics say is a common pension-boosting practice.

The legislation was approved 80-35 and sent to Gov. Rick Scott, who is expected to sign it into law. The bill also requires more oversight from the state’s Department of Management Services of the hundreds of local funds, including posting a five-year history of each plan’s financial status.

But it stops far short of what many cities had earlier proposed. The Florida League of Cities had wanted lawmakers to rework a 1999 law that fattened the pensions of police and firefighters that had been spearheaded by former Gov. Jeb Bush.

The lucrative pension provision was the first bill signed into law by the former two-term governor, who had been endorsed by the Florida Police Benevolent Association and Florida Association of Professional Firefighters in the governor’s race the previous fall. (more…)

Florida voters will be able to decide whether first-time homebuyers and non-homesteaded property owners should get a tax break under a proposed constitutional amendment headed to the November 2012 ballot.

The Florida Senate narrowly approved the joint resolution by a bipartisan 25-12 vote, one more than needed for the measure to pass. Some argued that the measure would create further inequities in the state’s tax structure that creates a disparity between property owners depending on how long they’ve owned or lived in the structures and that it would not help create jobs.

“I have not had one person call me up and say ‘Please reduce my property tax,’” said Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice, one of the three Republicans who voted against the amendment. “In your heart, you all know it’s a cop-out to say let’s let the voters decide.”

But supporters said the proposal would infuse life into the anemic real estate market.

“We have literally tens of thousands of unoccupied homes in the state,’’ said the bill’s sponsor Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey. “We’ve got to create some incentives.”
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With no debate, the Florida Senate quickly and quietly approved an immigration measure, keeping alive for now the issue the GOP-dominated legislature is unlikely to ultimately agree on.

The Senate measure, finalized yesterday after an emotional floor debate, would require work force boards to use E-Verify to check the immigration status of potential workers before referring them to employers and prohibit undocumented residents from receiving state or federal benefits. It would also allow nonviolent criminals to serve shorter sentences if they agree to be deported. And it would require law enforcement officers to make a “reasonable effort” to ascertain immigration status after someone has been arrested and detained.

The Senate approved the bill (SB 2040) by a 23-16 vote as dozens of immigrants and their children sat in the public gallery overlooking the chamber. The immigrants, a continuous presence in the Capitol who have stepped up pressure on lawmakers to abandon the issue over the past two weeks, left singing a song about freedom.

Despite the Senate’s action today, chances of the two chambers reaching agreement on the thorny issue remain close to nil.

House GOP leaders said they do not believe they have the votes to take up the Senate’s much weaker version of their proposal (HB 7089) that would require businesses to use E-Verify and give sheriffs, deputies and police officers the authority to ask for immigration documentation when they are pursuing a criminal investigation.

An Arizona-style immigration law is off the table in Florida, and any immigration overhaul is likely doomed, GOP lawmakers said yesterday after the Senate killed a watered-down E-Verify amendment.

During debate on the amendment, its sponsor John Thrasher argued that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks may have been avoided had the federal verification system been in effect at the time.

“I want to remind everyone in here that 10 of the 19 terrorists who attacked our country, directed by Osama bin Laden in doing that, lived in the state of Florida. I wish we would have had the E-Verify system … we might have saved the lives of 3,000 Americans,” Thrasher, a St. Petersburg Republican and one-time House speaker who recently served as the Republican Party of Florida chairman.

Thrasher prefaced his comments by asserting he wasn’t being “overly dramatic” but was he?

The St. Petersburg Times PolitiFact gave Thrasher’s assertion a “Pants on Fire” rating:

“Hijackers did live in Florida and obtain Florida driver’s licenses. But in order to potentially be flagged by the E-Verify system, they would have had to work in the state. There is no record that any of them ever tried to get jobs here. And as such, E-Verify — had it been used by Florida employers as Thrasher wanted — wouldn’t have found them or stopped their plotting. We rate this claim Pants on Fire!”

Sen. Chris Smith, whose district includes part of Palm Beach County, will head up the Senate Democratic caucus next year as the minority party tries to make inroads in a post-redistricting era.

With a 28-12 partisan split, Smith takes the reins of a caucus from Nan Rich in a GOP-dominated chamber. But by working with moderate Republicans, Democrats have helped put the brakes on conservative issues such as House Speaker Dean Cannon’s Supreme Court overhaul and a thorny immigration bill.

“Our numbers are few but we’ve been able to build coalitions,” the Fort Lauderdale lawyer said.

In a typical election year, Smith’s priorities would be to regain the two seats lost to Republicans last year – including former Sen. Dave Aronberg’s District 27 seat won by Lizbeth Benacquisto – or capture others.

But redistricting and the presidential elections leaves much of the 2012 work up in the air, Smith said.

“It changes so much with the political landscape. I’m sure two years ago Nan didn’t know the tea party was going to be so front and center. So who knows what’s going to happen in ’12. Hopefully after the Obama reelection the tea party will realize their five minutes of fame are up, we’ll be able to get down to some serious agenda of governing the state,” he said.

CIA Chief Leon Panetta told NBC News that waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques yielded some of the information that helped the U.S. find and kill Osama bin Laden.

Panetta said it’s an “open question” whether the same intelligence could have been obtained through other means.

Earlier in the day, U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, said he favors “any means that ensures that the American people are protected.” West’s 22-year Army career ended after a 2003 incident in which he fired a pistol near the head of an Iraqi detainee to get him to talk about a suspected ambush.

In an interview Tuesday with online PJTV, West was asked about the harsh interrogation techniques that were approved by former President George W. Bush and criticized by President Obama.

Said West: “Any means that ensures that the American people are protected, they are safe, as well as our allies are safe, I’m all for that. And I don’t see anything wrong with waterboarding. I think that when you look at these non-state, non-uniform belligerents that we are capturing on the battlefield, we need to prosecute every means possible that we can ensure that we are protecting the American people.

“I think that this administration needs to stand up and understand this is not about appeasing their left-wing liberal base. He’s the president of the United States of America, not just the president of the liberals.”

Palm Beach Town Councilman Bill Diamond has been named a Florida co-chairman of the Draft Trump 2012 campaign.

“I think it’s important that he get in the race. We need as many good Republicans as we can get,” said Diamond, who said he’s known Donald Trump‘s family for 50 years.

In Florida presidential politics, Diamond is best known as a Rudy Giuliani guy. He served in former New York Mayor Giuliani’s administration as commissioner of administrative services from 1994 to 2001. Giuliani officiated in 1996 when Diamond married Regine Traulsen at Gracie Mansion. And Diamond was one of Giuliani’s key Florida financiers during Giuliani’s unsuccessful 2008 GOP presidential bid.

Giuliani hasn’t completely shut the door on a 2012 presidential run. Who would Diamond support if both Trump and Giuliani run?

“Both,” he replied today.

The Florida Senate came closer to finalizing its immigration reforms after killing an amendment proposed by powerful Senate Rules Chairman John Thrasher.

Thrasher’s plan would have fined businesses that hired workers in the country illegally but would not have required business owners to use the federal E-Verify system.

Trying to convince senators to support his amendment, Thrasher implied that the 9/11 terrorist attacks might not have happened nearly a decade ago if Florida had the E-Verify system in place.

“I will remind everybody in here that 10 of the 19 terrorists that attacked our country that were directed by Osama bin Laden to do that lived in the state of Florida. I wish we had had an E-Verify system because some of them were working. We might have saved the lives of 3,000 Americans,” said Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, a former House Speaker who also recently served as chairman of the Republican Party of Florida.

The Senate killed the amendment by a 23-16 vote after more than an hour, including a heartfelt speech by JD Alexander, the Senate’s immigration reform architect.

Alexander, a citrus farmer who also raises blueberries, crafted a measure that, among other things, would essentially exempt agricultural businesses like his from having to verify workers’ immigration status.

But he objected to Thrasher’s amendment after saying he could not find enough legal immigrants – or other workers – to pick his blueberry crop during the season that ended this week and expressing frustration that the federal government’s inaction on the issue was forcing state lawmakers to acting because of political pressure from tea party activists.

“Quit all these one-sided political arguments,” said Alexander, who is term-limited out of office next year. “I don’t believe it’s the right thing to do. The federal government should stop it tomorrow without a doubt. But we’re not talking about that…This is not our problem and we’re having this problem put on our shoulders and I resent it. And I resent it because we’re asked to choose between hard-working people and somebody’s uninformed knowledge” of illegal immigration.

Senate Rule Chairman John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, filed an amendment to the immigration bill (SB 2040) that would fine businesses up to $1,500 for each unauthorized worker hired after July 1, 2012.

Thrasher’s amendment would not force business owners to use the federal E-Verify system – which could cost up to $60 per hiree for small businesses – but would fine those who hire undocumented workers $500 for the first offense, $1,000 for the second and $1,500 after that.

Thrasher’s amendment also would force state agencies to use E-Verify before hiring new employees, something Gov. Rick Scott has done for current state workers.

Meanwhile, national groups are threatening to boycott Florida as they did Arizona if lawmakers approve legislation they deem would be a vehicle for racial profiling. The legislature’s Hispanic caucus also came out in opposition to the reforms today.

Left-leaning organizers, moveon.org, held a telephone conference this morning warning they are mobilizing boycotts and voter registration drives. They said the Arizona boycotts cost that state hundreds of millions of dollars.

“Our members in Florida and around the country are watching the legislature very closely today,” said Moveon.org executive director Justin Ruben. “Our members will take their business and their tourism dollars elsewhere.”

The Senate is slated to take up Senate budget chief JD Alexander’s proposed immigration reform today as Friday’s end to the legislative session approaches. Alexander, a farmer, filed a proposal that would essentially exempt the agricultural industry from the reforms but includes a variety of other measures that would make it easier to deport criminals who are in the country illegally after their sentences are complete. They could also serve reduced sentences if they agree not to fight deportation.

The House’s version, sponsored by Stuart Republican William Snyder, goes much farther and would allow law enforcement officials to request documentation if the individual is the subject of a criminal investigation. Snyder’s proposal (HB 7089) would also require that all businesses use E-Verify.

If there’s any doubt lawyers distrust of doctors has reached a fevered pitch, consider the outrage that gripped the legal community over the weekend when attorneys learned the Palm Beach County Medical Society was planning to interview those seeking to be tapped to replace retiring Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Jack Cook.

“I know what the motivation is. They want judges who are favorable to doctors and hospitals,” said attorney Spencer Kuvin, president of the Palm Beach County Justice Association.

By interviewing the candidates behind closed doors, the doctors hoped to hand-pick a judge who would crack down on medical malpractice cases, making it even more difficult for lawyers to sue on behalf of injured patients, he and other lawyers insisted.

However, Dr. Maureen Whelihan, said nothing so nefarious was planned.

In the past, the medical society has interviewed state House and Senate candidates running for election, said Whelihan, a West Palm Beach gynecologist who is past president of the society. When the society’s legal committee heard candidates were vying for Cook’s seat, they decided it might be good to weigh in.

At a meeting Monday night, the executive board decided to cancel the interview session planned for next Monday. Members explained that lawyers complained that the interviews could spur other groups, such as insurance or real estate agents, to do separate interviews, complicating and possibly tainting the selection process. The concerns were reasonable, doctors agreed, so they cancelled the interviews, she said.

“Absolutely, we shouldn’t do it,” Whelihan said of the attitude doctors expressed.

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Within hours of legislative budget-writers declaring they had reached a deal Tuesday, Gov. Rick Scott was praising it — although it only gives him about one-sixth of the tax breaks he demanded.

“These are great first steps and will move our state in the right directions,” Scott said, adding that the budget proposal meets his “core principles” of shrinking government, cutting taxes and overhauling public pensions.

Lawmakers are likely pleased with Scott’s early take, especially because — by the numbers — the first-year governor falls short of what he was wanting. Scott sought a $459 million, first-year reduction in the state’s corporate income tax, by reducing the state’s 5.5 percent rate to 3 percent.

Budget-writers, though, have agreed to a $30 million cut — fueled by increasing the state’s exemption on corporate taxpayers.

Currently, taxes aren’t owed by companies whose payments would total less than $5,000; lawmakers would boost that exemption to $25,000, with supporters saying it effectively exempts almost half of Florida’s businesses, most of them smaller companies.

Scott’s biggest tax-cut victory is in reducing water management district property-tax rates by more than $200 million. Other reductions include a $25.6 million back-t0-school sales tax holiday — which Scott didn’t even include in his wide-ranging tax-cut package.

But Scott seems happy. The proposal, he said, sends a message to other states, “that we are clearly open for business.”