U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, turned down several TV appearances Wednesday in the aftermath of his scathing email to U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston. But he went ahead with a previously planned evening radio interview with conservative talker Mark Levin and said that, as a black conservative, he’s subjected to a double standard in the politics of victimization.

“The thing that really most aggravates me is that there’s this double standard in that the people on the hard left can continue to attack conservatives and especially minority conservatives and female conservatives, but yet when all of a sudden you stand up and you say that you will not tolerate this any more, then they claim to be a victim, which I find just absolutely laughable,” said West, whose attack on Wasserman Schultz has been branded “sexist” by some of his foes.

West also said: “People who are black conservatives — I grew up in the inner city, strong values, came from a strong military family and background — you know, what we do is we totally invalidate the liberal social welfare policies and programs.

“And you know, I’m a threat because I’m the guy that got off their 21st century plantation and they cannot afford to have a strong voice such as mine out there reverberating and resonating across this country. And even more so, they’re not used to anyone that says ‘I’m going to fight back against you.’ That is absolutely reprehensible to them.”

Mandy Dawson, a former state senator whose district included part of Palm Beach County, was arrested yesterday on a federal income tax charge, the Sun Sentinel is reporting.

Dawson was implicated in a federal public corruption probe into Alan Mendelsohn, a Hollywood eye doctor and major political fundraiser with ties to politicians in both parties.

Mendelsohn told federal investigators that he paid Dawson $82,000 through an intermediary in 2003 and 2005 in an effort to persuade her to support legislation he was backing. Dawson left office in 2008 due to term limits.

Dawson, 55, now lives in Daytona Beach, where she was arrested Wednesday morning.

Read the Sun Sentinel story here.

The state’s largest teachers’ union filed a lawsuit Wednesday to strip from next year’s ballot a measure allowing state money to go to religious institutions, a proposal they warned would open the door to more private-school vouchers.

Joining the Florida Education Association in challenging the proposed Amendment 7 are a half-dozen religious clergy and the current chairman of the Florida School Boards Association.

“Those of us who work to make public schools a priority know this is designed to open the door to vouchers,” said Andy Ford, FEA president.

A lawyer for the association, Ron Meyer, also condemned state lawmakers for crafting a ballot measure that misleads voters. “Instead of trying to hide the ball and playing word games, they should tell people they will empower religious organizations to extract tax dollars,” Meyer said.

The proposed constitutional amendment would effectively lift a century-old provision, dubbed the “Blaine Amendment,” which prohibits tax dollars from directly or indirectly going to religious organizations.

Millions of state dollars are budgeted each year for programs serving foster children, inmates, and low-income and elderly Floridians that are run by religious-affiliated organizations. Supporters of the amendment say they are merely looking to clarify state law, to avoid putting these services at risk.

Florida’s Blaine amendment first gained prominence during the 2006 challenge to the state’s private school voucher program. The First District Court of Appeal ruled that then-Gov. Jeb Bush’s first-in-the-nation statewide program violated the no-aid provision.

But by the time the case got to the Florida Supreme Court, justices instead ruled vouchers unconstitutional because they violated another constitutional standard –one requiring that the sttte provide a “uniform system of public schools.”

The Blaine amendment came back into prominence in 2007, when the Council for Secular Humanism, a New York nonprofit which advocates a “non-religious lifestance,” sued the state’s Department of Corrections over substance abuse housing programs provided by a pair of faith-based organizations.

Here’s something you don’t hear often from a potential candidate:

“The Emmys are Sept. 18 and I’ll probably make a decision after that.”

So says Delray Beacher Nick Loeb, the boyfriend of Modern Family actress and Emmy nominee Sofia Vergara, when discussing the possibility he’ll enter the 2012 race for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination. Loeb flirted with a Senate run earlier this year, then appeared to drop it. But after Mike Haridopolos quit the race Monday, Loeb said on Twitter that he’s looking “more closely” at running.

“Now that Mike Haridopolos has dropped out of the race I’m sure there’s going to be other people who are interested in running,” Loeb said today. “I probably won’t be making a decision until sometime after Labor Day. I would say more toward the end of September…The Emmys are Sept. 18 and I’ll probably make a decision after that. Right now I’m supporting Sofia and her career.”

UPDATED with response from West’s office.

EMILY’s List, the political action committee that backs female candidates (almost exclusively Democrats) who support abortion rights, accused U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, of a “sexist, ugly attack” for his scathing Tuesday e-mail to U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston.

Not long after the PAC put out its statement, Democratic candidate Lois Frankel — who has been endorsed by EMILY’s List and used it for money-raising help in her primary against Patrick Murphy — weighed in with a statement criticizing West’s “out of control, rude, sexist and completely inappropriate remarks.”

Murphy piled on this morning, saying the House should censure West.

(more…)

U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, fired off an e-mail calling U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, “the most vile, unprofessional and despicable member of the U.S. House of Representatives” after she criticized West without naming him on the House floor late this afternoon.

The exchange between South Florida’s two most prominent congressional talking heads came during the House debate on a Republican “Cut, Cap and Balance” bill to slash the size of government in exchange for increasing the federal debt ceiling.

Wasserman Schultz, who’s also chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, blasted the GOP legislation and, clearly refering to West, called his support for the measure “unbelievable for a member from South Florida” because she says it will “end Medicare as we know it.”

West wasn’t present for Wasserman Schultz’s remarks, but quickly got wind of them and sent an e-mail to her a few minutes later, sending copies to House leaders from both parties.

“You are the most vile, unprofessional ,and despicable member of the US House of Representatives. If you have something to say to me, stop being a coward and say it to my face, otherwise, shut the heck up…You have proven repeatedly that you are not a Lady, therefore, shall not be afforded due respect from me!”

Read Wasserman Schultz’s remarks, West’s e-mail and other reactions after the jump…..

(more…)

The Florida ACLU and Palm Beach County Medical Society are among a half-dozen organizations that Tuesday sought to join a lawsuit aimed at stopping a new state law restricting health care professionals from asking patients about firearms in their homes.

“The government is trying to play referee on conversations by ruling some topics out of bounds while other subjects or speakers are allowed,” said Howard Simon, the state ACLU’s executive director. “That’s why we have a Constitution – to make sure the government can’t use the power of law to restrict speech – especially on politically sensitive speech such as guns and ammunition.”

Under the law, doctors and other health care professionals will face sanctions including fines and losing their licenses if they ask patients about guns in the home without a direct belief that the inquiry is relevant to the patient’s safety or health. Pediatricians say the law keeps them from doing their jobs.

The National Rifle Association spearheaded the push for the legislation’s passage last spring. Supporters said the measure (HB 155) was designed to stop doctors from giving patients anti-gun lectures.

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and three physician organizations sued the state in Miami federal court last month to block the law. Also looking to join the suit Tuesday are the University of Miami School of Law Children and Youth Clinic, Children’s Healthcare Is a Legal Duty, Inc., the Early Childhood Initiative Foundation, Broward County Medical Association and the  Broward County Pediatric Society.

Once known for its robust growth, Florida’s government is bracing for what has become a new annual tradition — the 10 percent budget cut exercise.

Budget directors for Gov. Rick Scott and legislative leaders have sent a memo to state agencies demanding that they produce budget proposals for next year that reduce spending by 10 percent. The spending plans are due Sept. 15.

Florida’s $70 billion budget this year is down from a peak of about $77 billion achieved during the last go-go pre-recession year, 2007. Since then, spending reductions have become the norm — with agencies asked to submit leaner proposals each year.

Last year, House Republicans upped the ante — asking committees to examine how agency budgets could be cut by 15 percent, an approach that sparked rebellion from House Democrats, who refused to take part.

 Cuts came anyway last spring. Lawmakers struggled to close an almost $3.8 billion budget shortfall by slashing deeply into education and health and human services, while pulling more than $1 billion in employee pension contributions from those in the Florida Retirement System.

In his latest weekly update to constituents, U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, calls the debate over the federal government’s debt limit “the ultimate ideological clash in America…between those who believe in principled fiscal policies and those desiring the socialist bureaucratic nanny-state.”

He rips President Obama‘s handling of fiscal affairs and the economy and offers this critique of Obama’s supporters:

“I must confess, when I see anyone with an Obama 2012 bumper sticker, I recognize them as a threat to the gene pool.”

West’s weekly update also runs here on the conservative RedCounty.com site.

FreedomWorks, the Washington-based group that has played a key role in advising and organizing the tea party movement, is endorsing former state House Majority Leader Adam Hasner in the 2012 GOP Senate primary after finding “overwhelming” support for Hasner among its Florida members.

The endorsement from FreedomWorks PAC comes as the Hasner camp seeks to define the four-candidate GOP Senate primary as Round Two of the Marco Rubio-Charlie Crist 2010 GOP primary. With Mike Haridopolos dropping out today, Hasner adviser Rick Wilson called chief Hasner rival George LeMieux “the original Charlie Crist Republican.”

Sen. Mike Haridopolos’ abrupt departure from the Republican field prompted Florida Democrats to question whether it could be linked to his association with former state Republican Party chairman Jim Greer, who faces six felony counts of grand theft, money laundering and attempted fraud involving a consulting company he formed in 2009 that drew $200,000 from the party.

Greer is suing the party to recover about $124,000 in severance, which party leaders say was never approved.  Haridopolos’ signature is on the severance, but the Senate president has denied approving a pay-out to the former party chief.

Tim Baker, a Haridopolos spokesman, denied any connection to the candidate’s folding his campaign, with $2.4 million in his war chest — and the Greer case.

But Haridopolos is expected to give a deposition in late August to Cheney Mason, one of Greer’s lawyers, who recently completed a lead role as defense attorney for Casey Anthony.

Damon Chase, a Lake Mary attorney also representing Greer, said Monday, “I think the timing is significant. He knows his deposition is coming up and it’s going to be a videotaped deposition that the press will have as soon as it’s finished. He knows it’s going to leave Florida voters thinking, ‘is this the kind of liar we want representing us in the Senate?” (more…)

Florida drew a rare rebuke Monday from the federal Chemical Safety Board, for failing to enact workplace protections for state and municipal employees, following the deaths in 2006 of two plant workers at a Daytona Beach wastewater plant.

In a letter to Gov. Rick Scott, CSB Chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso said that legislation providing workplace protections failed to pass in 2009 and 2010. Last spring, no legislation was even introduced.

In issuing its first ever “unacceptable response,” to a state and its Legislature, the non-partisan safety panel again called for lawmakers to approve standards similar to those in place for private employees under the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

“The board maintains that implementation of these recommenations is necessary to secure the health and safety of Florida’s public employees. We therefore strongly encourage you and your colleagues in the state Legislature to reconsider the CSB’s recommendations,” Moure-Eraso wrote Scott.

Doug Martin, lobbyist for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), said the slap by the federal agency was deserved. The Florida League of Cities has fought state recommendations developed by a task force comprised of leaders from the public and private sector.

The issue was shelved this year, though, as lawmakers steered clear of enacting  measures the League of Cities has insisted would prove too costly for cities, Martin said. Experts said the two workers killed in the Daytona Beach explosion, and a third badly burned, may have been spared if they had been better trained in safety procedures.

“Florida is a national embarrassment,” Martin said.

Independent pharmacies, concerned that Florida’s planned Medicaid overhaul could elbow them out, are forming a consumer-business coalition to keep their side in talks about the drive to put 3 million Floridians into managed care.

At public hearings across the state in June, pharmacies warned they could lose out when HMOs and other managed care networks gain authority over Medicaid dollars. Many of the hometown drug stores worry that the Legislature’s refusal to order managed care companies to use pharmacies as providers would mean they could lose business to mail-order drug companies.

Managed care companies could even keep more profits in-house by owning prescription-by-mail services, druggists warned Monday.

“The business that my family has owned for more than five decades is in serious danger of having to shut our doors due to new laws that do nothing to save costs in Medicaid and needlessly ship jobs to out-of-state mail order companies,” said Alexis McMillan, a pharmacists at Economy Drug Store in Tallahassee.

The druggists have formed under the banner Pharmacy Choice and Access Now. They want assurances from state officials that Medicaid patients would be allowed to have prescriptions filled at whatever pharmacy they choose; end mandatory mail-order prescrptions for Medicaid patients and state workers; and allow Medicaid patients to have prescriptions filled in-person.

The state’s Agency for Health Care Administration is submitting a proposal for the Medicaid overhaul by Aug. 1 to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which must sign-off on the Legislature’s plan.

The new standard builds on the HMO-styled plans introduced for Medicaid patients in Broward, Baker, Clay, Nassau and Duval counties, beginning in 2006, but which have drawn poor to mixed reviews from policy analysts.

Barbara Feingold, a Delray Beach health care administrator, was named Monday to the state’s Board of Education by Gov. Rick Scott.

Feingold replaces former Gulf Power executive Susan Story for a two-and-a-half-year term, ending in December 2013.

Feingold is an administrator for Dentaland Dental Centers and a vice president of MCNA Health Care Holdings LLC, a Medicaid and commercial dental insurance company in Fort Lauderdale. She also serves on the Board of Directors of MCNA Dental Insurance Company.

Feingold is a former speech pathologist in Broward County who worked with school children. She also worked as a school speech pathologist in Newark, N.J., according to the governor’s office.

State campaign finance records show Feingold contributed $2,400 last year to the campaign of U.S. Rep. David Rivera, a Miami Republican.

Feingold joins the seven-member board, which guides education policy for Florida schools, just as one member is about to leave. Mark Kaplan announced last week he was leaving the board Wednesday for a new job with his company, Mosaic Co., in Minnesota.

Senate President Mike Haridopolos sent a shudder through Florida’s political world Monday, announcing that he was dropping out of the Republican race for U.S. Senate.

Haridopolos, who was the leading fund-raiser in a crowded GOP field looking to challenge Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, acknowledged that he was unable to juggle the jobs of legislative leader and statewide candidate.

“I truly believed I could handle both jobs, but I was wrong,” Haridopolos said in a brief statement.  “Now I am determined to make it right.”

Haridopolos also said he would not run for any other office in 2012. Instead, the term-limited senator said, “I am rededicating myself to finishing the job you sent me to do here in Florida.”

Haridopolos’ withdrawal sent a jolt through the Senate race. It also leaves former House Majority Leader Adam Hasner of Delray Beach, former Gov. Charlie Crist’s brief U.S. Senate appointee, George LeMieux of Fort Lauderdale, and newly announced former Ruth’s Chris Steak House CEO Craig Miller as the leading contenders to take on Nelson.

Haridopolos’ announcement, in a video his campaign released Monday morning, caught supporters by surprise.
“It’s a good day for George LeMieux and Adam Hasner,” said Fred Leonardt, an Orlando lobbyist and fund-raiser, who was among the early signers-on to the Haridopolos campaign.

Brian Ballard, a Tallahassee lobbyist and Haridopolos supporter, said he had spoken with him this morning.
“He’s just going to focus on being Senate president,” Ballard said. “He’s going to do the right thing.”

Haridopolos raised $900,000 in the quarter ending June 30, second behind LeMieux’s $950,000. But Haridopolos boasted that the $2.4 million he had banked was tops in the GOP field.

But Haridopolos’ didn’t seem to be scaring off rivals. Miller jumped into the race just last week, joining Haridopolos, LeMieux, Hasner and Mike McCalister, a Tea Party favorite who drew 10 percent of the vote in last year’s Republican primary for governor.

Those close to Haridopolos conceded that even if the Senate president managed to emerge victorious in next year’s primary, he’d likely be politically damaged going up against Nelson.

Haridopolos has weathered tough criticism for a lucrative book deal he had with his former employer, Brevard College, and for being reprimanded by his own Florida Senate for filing flawed financial disclosures over a five-year period.

Haridopolos’ communications director and prominent GOP consultant Pat Bainter, a longtime ally, left the campaign last week — in what may have proved harbingers of Monday’s announcement.

Nelson, meanwhile, welcomes the disorder in the rival field.

“As I’ve said a bunch of times before, the election is a long ways off. Right now I’m just focused on doing my job,” Nelson posted on Facebook after Haridopolos dropped out. “Come Election Day if folks like the job I’ve done, the politics will take care of itself. “

The League of Women Voters and other voter-advocacy organizations urged Justice Department officials Friday to reject the state’s new elections law, arguing that it creates hurdles for minorities and low-income voters.

The Brennan Center for Justice, Democracia USA and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law wrote federal officials critical of the new legislation, which is already subject of a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and other groups.

In their 25-page letter, the organizations contend the law violates the Voting Rights Act.  The league and others are asking that Justice Department officials examine three areas, alleging:

The law will restrict the opportunity and ability of citizens and grassroots organizations to conduct voter registration drives by imposing burdensome and wholly unnecessary regulations and red tape;

The law will reduce the number of days in the state’s early voting period, and possibly cut early voting hours as well; 

The law will make it impossible for registered voters who have recently moved within Florida, from one county to another, to provide notice of their change of address on election day and still cast a regular ballot.

Two Palm Beach County House Democrats are among those urging the Obama administration to deny the Republican-led Legislature’s bid to revamp Medicaid by steering 3 million low-income and elderly Floridians into managed care by 2013.

Among the reasons cited by the lawmakers in calling for federal rejection of the plan are the state’s experience across five counties, including Broward, where Medicaid patients have been placed into HMOs since 2006.

“The new legislation builds on a failed managed care platform, expands its scope introduces additional experimental elements and dramatically accelerates its implementation but without resolving the outstanding problems and concerns of the current pilot,” the lawmakers wrote the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The letter was signed by Reps. Mark Pafford, D-West Palm Beach, Steve Perman, D-Boca Raton, Elaine Schwartz, D-Hollywood, and Mia Jones, D-Jacksonville. The lawmakers serve as ranking Democrats on various health and human services committees.

The Florida legislation (CS/HB 7107, 7109) was signed into law last month by Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican who earned millions of dollars as a health care executive before his election.

The new standard builds on the HMO-styled plans introduced for Medicaid patients in Broward, Baker, Clay, Nassau and Duval counties, beginning in 2006, but which have drawn poor to mixed reviews from policy analysts.

The proposed expansion, which needs federal approval, also has drawn heat in public hearings around the state.

The letter drew a quick rebuke from House Majority Leader Carlos Lopez-Cantera, R-Miami, who called the Democratic authors “reckless and irresponsible.”

“The Florida Legislature just faced one of the toughest financial legislative sessions over the past decade. That these leaders would recommend to the federal government that Florida should continue with an outrageously expensive, fraud-laden Medicaid system, almost certain to throw our state into a financial abyss, is indefensible and a political tactic that will only jeopardize Florida’s financial stability and future,” Lopez-Cantera said.

Florida congressional Democrats and Republican have been sparring over who to blame if the standoff over raising the debt ceiling leads to a government default.

But a Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday shows President Obama may be winning the war of words.

The survey of 2,311 voters across the nation, shows:

*Voters will blame Republicans over Obama 48 – 34 percent if the debt limit is not raised;

* Voters say 67 – 25 percent that an agreement to raise the debt ceiling should include tax hikes for the wealthy and corporations, not just spending cuts;

* Voters say 45 – 37 percent that Obama’s proposals to raise revenues are “closing loopholes,” rather than “tax hikes.”

And who do voters blame for the nation’s lousy economy? 

“”Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of President Obama’s handling of the economy, but by 2-1 they pin the blame on former President George W. Bush rather than Obama, who is now more than 60 percent through his term of office,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

When the Florida Panhandle was staggered by the effects of last summer’s BP oil spill, hotels, restaurants and other employers along the coast laid-off workers and braced for economic calamity.

But state analysts looking to put a price on how much financial damage Florida absorbed remained puzzled Thursday by a recurring number. The state’s employment office, the Agency for Workforce Innovation, reports that only 735 unemployment claims have been directly linked to the oil spill.

Tom Clendenning, AWI’s chief-of-staff, told the state’s revenue estimating conference that 7,778 workers also were let go last year by the same employers who laid-off the 778. A survey is now being conducted to learn whether the 778 lost jobs should be increased — with the bill going to BP. 

Clendenning said that $2.3 million in unemployment benefits have been paid out related to the oil spill. Estimators are trying to determine how much in taxes and fees Florida taxpayers lost last year, in addition to benefit payouts.

One item estimators took off the table Thursday was lost revenue in traffic tickets, due to lost traffic. Estimators seemed to think that was too tough to quantify.

BP last week asked the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, which oversees claims, to reduce damage payments because the British oil giant said the region’s tourist economy has recovered and fisheries are back to work.

Florida U.S. Sens. Bill Nelson, a Democrat, and Republican Marco Rubio are among officials disputing BP’s stance, saying there is too much uncertainty to claim the spill poses no future financial risk for coastal communities.

BP said it has paid Florida cities and counties about $10.6 million for revenue losses, in addition to millions more for cleanup, expenses and tourist promotion.

Former West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel said Wednesday that she collected $440,000 for her congressional campaign over the past three months, keeping pace with Democratic rival Patrick Murphy, who earlier reported pulling in $450,000.

First-term Republican U.S. Rep. Allen West of Plantation, who Frankel and Murphy are targeting, eclipsed his rivals by collected $1.5 million during the year’s second quarter.

“We are working hard to make sure we have the resources necessary to communicated our message to voters in South Florida and send Congressman Allen West packing,” Frankel said.

West’s campaign said his latest round of fund-raising reflects cash came from 23,500 contributors — what it took as a sign of widespread support. Frankel, too, pointed to the scope of her donations, saying 90 percent came from Florida, with most coming from Palm Beach and Broward counties, which the 22nd district spans.