House and Senate budget negotiators reached a deal Tuesday morning on a state budget — after leaders broke an impasse over health and human services funding and also tucked millions of dollars in hometown projects into the spending plan to satisfy key lawmakers.

The deal keeps lawmakers on track for an on-time adjournment Friday, the final scheduled day of the session. It also may allow Gov. Rick Scott to claim a modest achievement — with $308 million in tax breaks tucked into the proposal.

That’s far from the $2 billion Scott demanded. But Senate budget-writer J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, said the first-year governor should be satisfied.

“We all fight hard for the things we believe in,” Alexander said. “But at the end of the day, I think the governor has got a lot of the things he’s interested in, including some reduction in the corporate tax.”

Scott came into the session seeking a more than $450 million cut in the corporate income tax. Instead, lawmakers have advanced a $30 million reduction — a level close to what they’re also setting aside for a three-day back-to-school tax holiday in late summer.

In other issues, the Senate abandoned its push to slash spending on the state’s Medically Needy and Medicare Aged and Disabled programs, which serve 90,000 severely sick and elderly Floridians. Instead, the programs have maintained current-year funding.

But hospitals will absorb an even deeper reduction in Medicaid rate payments than earlier proposed by either the House or Senate. Hospitals will lose 12 percent of state reimbursement payments and nursing homes will absorb a 6.5 percent reduction.

The budget deal also was flavored with pork.

 The University of South Florida’s Polytechnic college in Lakeland, which has long been helped by Alexander, drew a stunning $46 million in state funding in the budget — about one-third of the state’s Public Education Capital Outlay (PECO) total — far outstripping the University of Florida, Florida State University and other bigger schools.

House budget chief Denise Grimsley, R- Sebring, also represents a district that includes a large chunk of Polk County.

“There’s a lot of advocates for every part of the budget,” Alexander said.

Senate budget chief-turned-immigration reformer JD Alexander filed a strike-all amendment this morning that would require work boards to check the immigration status of applicants but lacks any requirement that businesses use the federal E-Verify system to ensure hirees are in the country legally.

Alexander, a Republican farmer from Lake Wales, crafted the amendment to essentially leave the agricultural community out of the reforms because the vast majority of farm workers do not use the work centers to seek jobs.

The absence of the E-Verify requirement is a victory for the business community but puts the two chambers at odds: The House plan (HB 7089) includes E-Verify and the ability for law enforcement to request documentation of immigration status during criminal investigations.

In contrast, Alexander’s amendment, expected to be offered today, would require law enforcement officials to “make a reasonable effort” to ascertain immigration status after someone has been arrested.

Immigration advocates, who’ve thronged the Capitol for months and held daily press conferences pleading with lawmakers to
drop the reforms, had pushed for post-conviction rather than post-arrest checks of immigration. They contend the post-arrest component is problematic because driving without a drivers license, which some undocumented immigrants do, is a vehicle for racial profiling.

Manuel Pintado — the self-described “political activist” charged with sending an e-mail threat to state Rep. William Snyder, R-Stuart, because he disagreed with Snyder’s Arizona-style immigration bill — is expected to plead no contest today to a pair of felony charges and be sentenced to five years probation, TCPalm reports.

On Jan. 8 — shortly after the shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., in which six others were killed — Snyder received an unsigned e-mail that said: “You better just stop that ridiculous law if you value you rand your familie’s lives (expletive).”

Police say they traced the e-mail to Pintado, who was charged with felony counts of corruption by threat and written threat to kill or do bodily injury.

In Massachusetts, where the 47-year-old Pintado is a student at the University of Massachusetts, the Daily Collegian reported in February that friends and family describe Pintado as a pacifist who’s passionate about immigrant rights.

Florida lawmakers opened this spring’s legislative session with lofty plans for overhauling Medicaid, the health program serving 2.9 million low-income, elderly and disabled residents and absorbing $22 billion — about one-third of the state budget.

But Senate Rules Chairman John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, effectively said Monday night that the rewrite won’t be ready — for a while.

 A special session on Medicaid is likely to occur later in the year, Thrasher conceded.

“Medicaid’s too big of a deal,” Thrasher said. “This is something we need to thoughtfully consider and frankly, if it were left up to me….I’d of had a (negotiating committee) on this. I think Medicaid is that important that a couple of people ought not sit around and try to work it out.”

Senate Health and Human Services budget chairman Joe Negron, R-Stuart, and his House counterpart, Rep. Rob Schenck, R-Springhill, have purportedly been talking about resolving the myriad differences between the dueling approaches to Medicaid. None of the huddles have been public — and no progress has been reported, other than anecdotal claims from Negron, Schenck and House Speaker Dean Cannon, that progress is being made.

Thrasher’s apparently had enough.

“I think it’s that important to have an open dialogue, an open debate, and have as much transparency on it as possible,” he said. “It’s our largest piece of our budget. And we’re trying to cope with some really important issues. If that means coming back later, so be it.”

The House and Senate reached a compromise on one of House Speaker Dean Cannon’s priorities that would have split the Supreme Court.

Instead, the proposed constitutional amendment (HJR 7111) would give lawmakers more control over court rules, require Senate confirmation of gubernatorial appoints to the high court and allow the Florida House to scrutinize judicial complaints.

What the bill doesn’t do – split the court in two and set a fixed amount of funding – permitted its passage by a 28-11 vote Tuesday evening.

Cannon’s accepted the deal, his spokeswoman said.

“The Speaker will consider the proposed Court Reform Amendment a win with or without the Supreme Court component. It does not appear that the Senate will go as far as the House in terms of bold reform, but Speaker Cannon believes in all of the policy and is proud of the debate that was initiated,” Cannon, R-Winter Park, spokeswoman Katie Betta said in an e-mail.

House and Senate leaders are close to reaching agreement on a pill mill crack-down package, according to Sen. Mike Fasano, the Senate sponsor.

“We’re almost there,” Fasano, R-New Port Richey, said Tuesday evening.

The final bill will likely do away with the House’s cap on the number of doses pharmacies can dispense of highly addictive pain medications, including oxycodone; include the House’s prohibition on using pharmaceutical manufacturers’ money to pay for the state’s drug database; and include a compromise on the House’s ban on physicians dispensing powerful pain medications.

The deal now would exempt physicians who perform surgery in their offices from the dispensation ban, including those who use local anesthesia, Fasano said.

The House already passed its version (HB 7095). The Senate could vote on Fasano’s bill (SB 818), make the changes, and send it back to the House as early as tomorrow.

With House-Senate budget talks stalled — or, at least far from the prying eyes of Floridians — House Speaker Dean Cannon said Monday that prospects for an on-time finish Friday are dimming.

Hundreds of millions of dollar in health and human services programs, an overhaul of Medicaid, and scores of lesser issues are dividing lawmakers.

“My gut tells me it’s going to be a photo-finish,” said Cannon, R-Winter Park. “I certainly hope we can get done on time. But it’s more important that we get it done right than we get it done quickly.”

Already Cannon’s puzzling about how to head into overtime — if chances for the photo-finish fades. Lawmakers could extend the session by a day, conclude all bills but the budget Friday and return to the Capitol next week for a budget vote, or — who knows?

“By talking about that, I don’t want to give anyone the impression that I don’t think it’s possible we don’t get done on time,” Cannon conceded.

Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, also said Monday night that odds were getting long for an on-time finish Friday.

He’s been fuming about the House failing to move forward with decent offers — especially on health and social services spending, where hundreds of millions of dollars in differences divide lawmakers in the state’s Medically Needy program, Medicaid Aged and Disabled prescription drug services, and rates for hospitals, nursing homes and HMOs.

“Hopefully,we’ll be able to get it wrapped up soon,” Alexander said. “That’s our great desire.”

A recurring subtext to settling on a $67-billion-plus budget that closes an almost $3.8 billion shortfall is Gov. Rick Scott’s steady push for a cut in the state’s corporate income tax. Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, said he didn’t expect the reduction to happen.

Scott has suggested he might veto any budget that didn’t include the business tax break.

 ”My song has not changed one bit from 10 weeks ago to today,” Cannon said. “It’s just an awfully heavy lift.”

Cannon said lawmakers have explored the idea of structuring a corporate income reduction around exempting some lower-income businesses from the levy. But the speaker acknowledged he didn’t know how that might be received by Scott.

“We’re going to write the best general appropriations act we can with the money we’ve got, and we’ll see where it goes from there,” Cannon said.

The closest vote of the 2011 session ended Monday with the House approving a repeal of red-light cameras OK’d for cities only a year ago.

House sponsor of the measure, Rep. Richard Corcoran, R-New Port Richey, is a first-year lawmaker already selected as a future House Speaker. But he needed whatever political muscle he could exert in getting his repeal proposal approved on a 59-57 vote.

“Pretend you are a jury and you’re going to base your decision on empirical evidence,” Corcoran told the House. “Are intersections safer or less safe” because of the cameras?

Corcoran said data suggesting a decline in accidents at intersections with cameras is largely driven by “companies that are making millions of dollars off these cameras.”

Critics said the cameras violate the constitutional rights of motorists. They also accused city officials of expanding camera-use chiefly to pad municipal treasuries under the guise of traffic safety. Dozens of Florida cities, including several in Palm Beach County, are using the cameras since lawmakers approved their installation last year.

Florida House Republicans typically vote in lockstep on most issues, as do Democrats. But the battle over the future of cameras fragmented the usual alliances.

“I’ve got a red light in front of my funeral home,” said Rep. Ken Roberson, R-Port Charlotte, a funderal director. “And you can stand outside and watch people run red lights all day…These cameras modify behavior over time and will save lives.”

The Senate, though, has shown little interest in the repeal. And Monday’s floor fight and dramatic vote is considered likely the last time the repeal effort will surface this session. (more…)

Hundreds of immigrants continued their protests inside the Capitol on Monday as Senate GOP leaders craft reforms that would ease up on the House’s penalties against businesses that don’t use the E-verify system.

Senate President Mike Haridopolos said this afternoon that the Senate will take up and vote on its bill (SB 2040) tomorrow.

Before and after the Senate’s lunch break, immigrants – many of them children – and knelt in prayer outside the hallway leading into the back entrance to the chamber.

During the recess, they swarmed senators’ offices – including Palm Beach County’s Lizbeth Benacquisto’s – pleading with them to abandon their effots.

Senate budget chief JD Alexander, in charge of the chamber’s immigration package, has yet to release his proposal. During the lunch break, U.S. Sugar – one of the many agricultural businesses opposed to the reforms – lobbyist Robert Coker was inside Alexander’s office as immigrants lined the walls outside.

Alexander’s proposal is likely to include a modification of the House’s plan that would require businesses to use E-verify when hiring new employees and punishing those who do not use the federal system by yanking their licenses to do business in Florida. His plan include a fine for businesses that don’t comply with E-verify and take out the licensing provision, said Senate GOP leaders and business lobbyists working on the deal.

(more…)

The Florida Senate may “the most conservative Senate ever,” as President Mike Haridopolos boasted at the onset of the legislative session.

But it’s apparently not conservative enough to pass House Speaker Dean Cannon’s sweeping overhaul of the Supreme Court that would, among other things, split the court in two.

As the clock winds down until lawmakers sine die on Friday, the Senate plan today is to remove at least that part of the proposed constitutional amendment, keep the provision allowing the legislature to have control over the court’s rules and send it back to the House for another vote.

“Our members have felt pretty strongly about splitting up the Supreme Court,” Senate Majority Leader Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, said. “What you’re going to see is an option sent back to the House.”

Senate GOP leaders (who have a 28-12 majority) won’t say out loud that they don’t have the 24 votes needed to pass the proposed constitutional amendment.

But Gardiner, whose job is to count votes and corral the GOP caucus, conceded the speaker’s priority measure wouldn’t pass as is.

“You never count out votes until you sine die but I do think there’s a strong sense amongst our members about the Supreme Court piece,” Gardiner said.

U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, came within about 30 miles of Osama bin Laden‘s in-plain-sight hideaway when he visited Pakistan two weeks ago as part of a congressional delegation.

“I’m not surprised that he was in Pakistan. I’m surprised at the kind of place where he was,” Rooney said today of bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, a town that includes a large Pakistani military base and a military academy.

Rooney, a member of both the House Armed Services Committee and the House Intelligence Committee, visited Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan last month.

The group flew out of Islamabad, which is about 30 miles from Abbottabad as the crow flies or about 72 miles by car. Rooney’s congressional district stretches about 145 miles from northern Palm Beach County across the state to Port Charlotte.

Florida voters would get a chance to reduce property taxes on commercial buildings, second-homes and other investment purchases under legislation Monday clearing the House 105-11.

The measure, targeted for next year’s presidential primary ballot, now slated for Jan. 31, would reduce the annual growth in assesed value from 10 percent to five percent. The legislation also allows for a first-time homebuyer’s tax break amounting to 50 percent of the median value of homesteaded property in a county.

“This is the jobs vehicle that you’ve heard discussed,” said Rep. Chris Dorworth, R-Lake Mary, sponsor of the measure (CS/HJR 381), which still needs Senate approval. “When (businesses) can shift tax payments to new capital, you’re going to get jobs.”

Before the House vote, Dorworth mentioned several members of the Florida Realtors as instrumental to the legislation. Florida Realtors steered millions of dollars to the state Republican Party for last fall’s elections, and have pushed the measure as a means to help kick-start an economy awash with a backlog of homes in a state that is among the nation’s leaders in foreclosures.

Opponents said the proposed constitutional amendment — if approved by 60 percent of voters — would only build on property-tax inequities in the state’s Save Our Homes standard, approved by voters almost 20 years ago.

“There are better ways to get at attacking the tax inequities in Florida,” said Rep. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth.

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson used the years-long covert operation that culminated last night in the death of the country’s No. 1 enemy to slam a GOP-backed elections overhaul the Senate is slated to vote on today.

“We have cut off the head of the snake,” said Nelson, joined in the Capitol by a host of fellow Democrats, voters rights groups and civil rights advocates at a previously-scheduled press conference about the elections package.

After congratulating President Barack Obama and the White House administration for killing Osama bin Laden, Nelson paralleled the fight for democracy overseas to Democrats’ fight against the elections package.

“Now in an effort of 10 years, ever since Sept. 11, 2001, protecting our democracy, protecting us from those that would do harm and who provide this protection because our democracy is unique, we find ourselves gathered in our Capitol city of this state again here to protect our democracy,” he said. “Now we are here for another reason of protecting our democracy and that is to keep the right to vote. Don’t make it harder to vote. Don’t make it harder to register to vote and don’t make it harder to try to count your vote. And that’s what we have in front of the legislature right now.”

Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, the bill’s sponsor, file a 154-page strike-all amendment bringing his plan (SB 2086) more in line with the House proposal (HB 1355), already approved by a partisan vote. Democrats object Republicans crafted both bills to suppress voter turnout in the 2012 election.

Among the most contentious components of the bills are rigorous new standards on third-party voter registration groups that helped drive Democratic turnout in 2008.

Swing state Florida, and the 29 electoral votes it will have in 2012, is considered by many a must-win for President Obama next year, intensifying the partisan divide over the bill’s changes to early voting, third-party registrations and provisional ballots.

The measure would force voters who have moved from one county to another to cast a provisional ballot on election day if they have not already changed their voter registration.

Nelson said that could have a chilling impact on the very men and women who helped bring bin Laden down.

“What about the armed services member overseas whose name has been changed because they got married?” Nelson said, adding that 55 percent of provisional ballots cast in the 2008 presidential election were not counted. “This is a personal attack on the people of Florida.”

Former Attorney General Bob Butterworth also used the national news to drum up opposition to the elections revamp.

“When you take so many nations on the globe, this planet Earth and compare them to the us, the big difference is that we respect the rule of law,” Butterworth, a Democrat, said.

Butterworth predicted the bill would be challenged in court if it becomes law and may not pass the U.S. Department of Justice pre-clearance requirements.

A day after Senate President Mike Haridopolos toughened his stance against the governor’s must-have corporate income tax cut, Republican Rick Scott said Monday that he still expected lawmakers to take steps to reduce the $1.8 billion levy.

A roughly 25 percent reduction in water management district property-tax collections was agreed-on Sunday by House and Senate budget negotiators. The cut was part of Scott’s wide-ranging $2 billion plan for slashing taxes. But is the water management district cut enough for Scott to declare victory?

Probably not, the governor said.

“I’m glad that they are doing the right thing in regards with water management districts,” Scott said. “And I remain confident that we’re going to start the process of eliminating the business tax. It’s clearly the way to get our state back to work.”

Would he veto a budget that didn’t make room for the tax cut, as the governor has hinted in radio addresses and interviews?

“I focused on three things with this budget,” Scott said. “Step one, we need to reduce the size of this budget.

“Everything I’m doing, as you know, as governor, is to get our state back to work….We still have a million people without a job. The budget that I expect to sign will reduce the size of government, the cost of government, and the business tax.”

Haridopolos on Sunday said he didn’t think the Senate would go along with cutting the corporate tax, although he conceded that he and Scott’s office had been working on some reduction plans.

 Scott’s proposal would have reduced the tax by $333 million next year– but Haridopolos said the Senate is more inclined to look at other reductions, leaving the 5.5 percent corporate income tax at its current level.

That didn’t take long.

Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Adam Hasner of Boca Raton this morning sent out a letter that hails the U.S. killing of Islamic terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden as “a significant victory in America’s war against radical jihadists.”

The body of the letter doesn’t specifically mention former House Majority Leader Hasner’s Senate bid, but there’s a large “DONATE” button at the end to make a contribution to Hasner’s campaign.

Click here to read the letter.

There’s been tough talk. Ignored priorities. Charges of flip-flopping. Even a lawsuit.

But the political marriage of Republican Gov. Rick Scott and the GOP-dominated Legislature may yet end its rocky honeymoon stage with the first-year executive claiming some big victories and the party powerfully positioned for next year’s elections.

And, in the nation’s biggest toss-up state, the sharply right policies advanced by Scott and Republican super majorities in the House and Senate also will give Democrats potent weapons for next year’s campaigns.

“It’s been mean-spirited and an overreach by the Republicans,” said Rich Templin, a spokesman for the Florida AFL-CIO, a labor union allied with Democrats. “I think we’re going to be able to say to voters, ‘Look what they did. Who do you think cares about working families of Florida?’ “

But House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, said he’s not worried.

“Two-thirds of the legislative branch is Republican so clearly, the people have sent a more Republican group of representatives to their government,” Cannon said. “So I think it’s only natural that you would see initiatives or proposals that will reflect that.”

Story

“Justice has been done,” President Obama said late Sunday night from the White House in announcing that a U.S.-led operation had killed Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan.

Florida Sens. Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson and U.S. Reps. Tom Rooney and Allen West were quick to issue statements. U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch and Gov. Rick Scott have also weighed in.

Read their reactions after the jump….

(more…)

House and Senate budget negotiators agreed Sunday night to give Gov. Rick Scott one of his tax-cutting proposals — a roughly 25 percent reduction in water management district property taxes.

House budget chief Denise Grimsley, R-Sebring, advanced the offer — which was similar to an even deeper property tax cut and takeover of water management district budgets that had been pushed by her Senate counterpart, J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales.

Florida’s five water management districts collect over $1 billion in property taxes, with the South Florida Water Management District collecting $411 million, alone. But SFWMD’s collections would be capped at $285 million under the deal reached Sunday, roughly a $126 million reduction in the district’s dollars.

Alexander, a citrus grower whose district includes Okeechobee and Glades counties,  has been pushing to more tightly restrict water management district spending for months.  He’s said districts have been sitting on reserves that could be used to cover existing costs and make room for the property tax break.

The South Florida district has $346 million in reserves, according to Alexander.

Environmentalists have said they feared the tax-cut package could threaten Everglades restoration, whose final dollar level is still being negotiated. The Senate has proposed $20 million, and the House $25 million to continue the ambitious state-federal Everglades project.

The water districts tax cut drew resistence earlier this spring from the state House Select Committee on Water Policy, whose chairman, Rep. Trudi Williams, R-Fort Myers, is a former South Florida district governing board member.

She questioned whether the agency could carry out its flood control and maintenance responsibilities with a steep reduction in revenues. Because of slumping property-tax values across the region, tax revenue collected by the district has already dropped about $150 million, from $549 million in 2007-08.