With Florida setting a Jan. 31 presidential primary date, CNN and the Republican Party of Florida announced today they will cosponsor a late-January debate of GOP candidates in Jacksonville.

An exact date isn’t specified in a release from CNN this afternoon.

“With the Florida Republican primary now scheduled for Jan. 31, that state’s central role in helping Republicans choose a nominee is now secure,” said Sam Feist, CNN Washington bureau chief and senior vice president. “CNN is proud to present voters in Florida an opportunity to hear from the candidates one final time before they head to the polls.”

Florida has already been the site of two 2012 debates: a Sept. 12 faceoff in Tampa and last week’s nine-candidate smackdown in Orlando.

A new survey by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling finds Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott‘s approval ratings ticking upward from a dismal 32 percent in June to a slightly less-dismal 36 percent in a survey released today.

Scott’s disapproval score has dropped from 59 percent to 52 percent.

That means Scott is viewed with slighly less scorn than Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich, whose 53 percent disapproval makes him the least-popular governor in the states that PPP surveys.

The Democratic firm’s measure of Scott isn’t much different from nonpartisan Quinnipiac University poll last week that showed Scott with 37 percent approval and 50 percent disapproval.

The new PPP poll finds Scott would lose by a 52-41 margin to 2010 Democratic rival Alex Sink if the election were rerun today. And if Republican-turned-independent former Gov. Charlie Crist switched to the Democratic Party, he’d beat Scott by a 51-38 margin, the PPP poll says.

Amid some last-minute wrangling, a special commission Friday agreed to set Jan. 31 as the date for the state’s presidential primary — risking penalties from the national parties but giving what supporters said is Florida’s rightful, powerful place in selecting the nominees.

With President Obama assured of being renominated, the early date controversy largely focused on Republicans. The Jan. 31 date was set on a 7-2 vote by the commission, with the only opposition coming from a pair of Democrats on the panel.

“I don’t want to see the voices in Florida diminished and be penalized because we didn’t follow the rules,” said Rep. Cynthia Stafford, D-Miami, who joined with Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando, in voting against the early date.

Stafford and Siplin had pushed for a March 6 primary date. Former Sen. Al Lawson, another Democrat on the panel, had proposed a Jan. 3 primary — before siding with the majority on the Jan. 31 date.

Both national parties last year approved a rule barring states from holding primaries before March 6, with the exception of the traditional early-voting states, Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. Those states are now expected to advance their primary and caucus votes ahead of Florida — resulting in a spate of January voting dates that the Republican National Committee had sought to avoid.

Florida’s move was sparked, at least in part, by Arizona, Michigan and Missouri, which recently also leapfrogged the early states to schedule delegate-selection contests in February. House Majority Leader Carlos Lopez-Cantera, R-Miami, said such shifting effectively forced Florida’s hand.

“I believe the voters in Florida need to be heard as loud and as impactful as possible,” he said. “I respect the Republican National Committee, I respect the institution of the party, but at the end of the day, I have a constitutional duty to the citizens of this state, who are paying for this election.”

Florida and other states jumping forward face the loss of half their delegates to the Republican Party’s nominating convention next summer in Tampa. Some critics say that could blunt Florida’s allure.

The RNC has scheduled a 3 p.m. conference call to respond to the moves by Florida and other states.

A Tallahassee circuit court judge has ruled that the prison privatization plan included by lawmakers in the state budget is unconstitutional.

Tallahassee Judge Jackie Fulford agreed with the Florida Police Benevolent Association, the union representing correctional workers that filed the lawsuit, that the way the legislature ordered the privatization violated state law.

The privatization of 29 prisons in the southern portion of the state from Manatee County to Indian River County to the Florida Keys should have been mandated in a separate bill and not in proviso language in the budget, as lawmakers did in the must-pass budget approved in May and signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott, Fulford ruled.

“This Court concludes that if it is the will of the Legislature to itself initiate privatization of Florida prisons, as opposed to DOC, the Legislature must do so by general law, rather than ‘using the hidden recesses of the General Appropriations Act,’” Fulford wrote in her order issued Friday morning.

Lawmakers ordered the Department of Corrections to request bids for a single contract for the 18-county region, requiring that the winning vendor spend 7 percent less than current costs to operate the prisons, an estimated $22 million annual savings.

But under existing law, Fulford wrote, lawmakers must include a specific amount of money for the contract “after a decision to outsource is made and evaluated by DOC for feasibility, cost effectiveness, and efficiency, before DOC proceeds with any outsourcing of services.”

Former DOC secretary Ed Buss testified that he had created no such plan and was relying on the proviso language in the budget to move the privatization forward before he was fired by Scott last month.

“As such, the Legislature has by-passed the very safeguards it built into the process that DOC is required to follow when DOC initiates privatization pursuant to substantive law,” Fulford wrote.

In the proviso language, lawmakers also ordered that a private vendor take over the prisons by Jan. 1.

“From the record, it appears that the rush to meet the deadlines in the proviso has resulted in many shortcomings in the evaluation of whether privatization is in the best public interest as it relates to cost savings and effective service,” Fulford wrote.

Fulford made it clear that the state – which already has six privately-run prisons, including one in Palm Beach County – can expand prison privatization.

But, she ruled, “the Legislature may not change existing substantive law by a proviso in an appropriations act.”

Republican Senate hopeful Adam Hasner of Boca Raton further bolstered his conservative cred by landing the endorsement of the Family Research Council Action PAC, a national social-conservative organization that traces its roots to Focus on the Family’s James Dobson.

“Representative Hasner is a strong conservative who will work to protect the freedom of Americans by advocating for a limited government. He is pro-life, and consistent in his support of the traditional values that are the bedrock of our society,” said PAC Chairman Tony Perkins.

Hasner is running in a GOP primary against former appointed Sen. George LeMieux, Plant City businessman Mike McCalister and former Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse CEO Craig Miller. The winner will face Democratic incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson.

Hasner won last week’s Florida Conservative Political Action Conference Senate straw poll and has scored endorsements from FreedomWorks, Concerned Women for America and other national conservatives but so far has remained in single digits in polls.

Talking tough on illegal immigration helped Rick Scott score an upset Republican primary win in last year’s Florida governor’s race. Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is betting the issue will sour GOP primary voters in Florida and elsewhere on Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who supports granting in-state college tuition rates to children of illegal immigrants in Texas.

A new web video from the Romney campaign associates Perry’s position with President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and features a clip of former Mexican President Vicente Fox praising Perry for the Texas policy.

There’s also a clip of Perry from last week’s GOP debate in Orlando saying opponents of the program “don’t have a heart” — a statement that angered many conservatives as much as the program itself.

Sen. Paula Dockery, a Lakeland Republican frequently willing to buck her own party’s majority rule in Florida, is trying to derail Friday’s expected vote for a Jan. 31 presidential primary.

Dockery sent an email Thursday to GOP activists, urging them to contact members of the nine-member commission tasked with setting the date. House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, said he expects the panel to flout a Republican National Committee rule and approve the Jan. 31 primary — risking penalties that include the loss of half the party’s delegates at next summer’s nominating convention in Tampa.

RNC penalties also could effectively reduce the Florida primary in value to the presidential candidates. Florida’s now winner-take-all primary would be changed to where the state’s remaining delegates would be distributed proportionately, based on voting results, potentially blunting the allure of big-state Florida.

“While we are all in agreement that Florida is an important state that should play a key role in the national election, attempting to circumvent existing rules or force the hand of the Republican National Convention likens Florida to a child throwing a tantrum because she isn’t getting her way,” Dockery said in her email.

Paul Senft, the Florida GOP’s national committeeman, has spoken out against the early primary date, along with the Florida Federation of Republican Women.

 The national party has ruled that only four states — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada — can hold primaries or caucuses before March 6. Some states have moved up, however, despite the looming punishment, and Cannon said Florida should not feel confined by the party rule.

“Florida is the most economically, demographically, and geographically diverse state in the country,” Cannon said. “We’re also the largest electoral state up for grabs….We proved in ’08, the person that won Florida became the Republican Party’s nominee. It maximizes Floridians’, voters voices. It may cause some heartburn among some people who want to sit at a certain seat at the convention.”

The state House plans to join a pair of Florida members of Congress in appealing a federal judge’s ruling that upheld a new, voter-approved standard for lawmakers when they draw congressional and legislative boundaries next year, House Speaker Dean Cannon said Thursday.

The move extends a battle between the Republican-ruled Legislature and the Democratic-allied Fair Districts campaign, which spearheaded the effort leading to voter approval of Florida constitutional amendments 5 and 6 last fall. Cannon, R-Winter Park,  and U.S. Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Miami, and Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville, argue that Amendment 6 violates the U.S. Constitution by attempting to make state law apply to a federal matter.

U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro rejected the lawsuit earlier this month. But Cannon said Thursday that Ungaro is wrong.

 He drew on a federal court’s two-decade old ruling that in Florida, voter-approved term limits could not apply to members of Congress, in making the case for appeal.

“The federal court said, ‘no it doesn’t apply to congressional seats because Article 1, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution says only Congress and the federal constitution can prescribe limits like that,” Cannon said. “And we think the exact same argument applies here.”

The Legislature must draw new districts in time for the 2012 elections to reflect 2010 census data. The process in Florida and other states has historically been dominated by partisanship and political considerations. But Amendments 5 and 6 state that districts cannot be drawn to favor incumbents or political parties and must be compact and adhere to existing city, county and geographical boundaries “where feasible.”

The amendment also states that districts must not deny minorities the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.

Fair Districts and its supporters have called on Cannon to end the legal attack on the amendment — approved by 63 percent of voters. But Cannon said the thousands of dollars in taxpayer money spent challenging the measure is needed.

“This lawsuit is not about any specific map, or even this specific year,” Cannon said. “It’s about defining the responsibility of our state Legislature under the federal constitution.”

But Dan Gelber, a former Democratic legislator who now represents Fair Districts, said “it is offensive to spend taxpayer money to fight your own constituents.” He noted that Florida taxpayers are paying for legal costs on both sides — for the Secretary of State to defend the new state standards, and for the House seeking to overturn it.

“It shows are desperate the Republican-ruled Legislature is to retain their ability to draw district lines the way they want,” Gelber said.

Cannon, though, assured that lawmakers will abide by the Amendment 5 and 6 standards when they begin line-drawing as early as next month. Cannon acknowledged that it could prove months before a ruling emerges from 11th U.S. District Court of Appeals.

Palm Beach County Republican Party Executive Director Greg Langowski has been hired by Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio‘s office to be a regional director for five counties.

The office will handle constituent service and other issues for Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River and Okeechobee counties and will probably be headquartered in Palm Beach County.

Langowski, 33, who grew up in Palm Beach County and graduated from Palm Beach Atlantic University, has been the county GOP’s top staffer for roughly six years, helping organize the annual Lincoln Day dinner and other fundraisers and events.

County GOP Chairman Sid Dinerstein says he’s putting together a short list of candidates to replace Langowski, who starts his new job next month.

Former Gov. Claude Kirk, who died at home in West Palm Beach on Wednesday, will lie in state Friday at the Old Capitol in Tallahassee.

 The memorial is scheduled from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Kirk’s family, friends and state dignitaries are expected to arrrive at 12:30 p.m. at the East Portico of the Old Capitol.

 Kirk, 85, was the first Republican governor elected in Florida since Reconstruction. Following his term, from 1966 to his 1970 defeat by Democrat Reubin Askew, Kirk remained a fixture on the state’s political landscape, running several times for office and always ready with a quip.

In his latter years, Kirk even pressed state officials — unsuccessfully — to change rules to allow that he be buried at the Capitol.

“Being buried up there would be a good idea, so I can keep an eye on them,” Kirk said of legislators, with whom he sparred most of his life.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott earned some national face-time Thursday morning, co-hosting CNBC-TV’s Squawk Box — using the program to make a pitch for businesses to come to Florida and peppering a few guests with questions.

On set, Scott shared a screen with guest including Adrian Jones, general manager of the new Legoland opening in Central Florida, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the presidential contender and Scott’s rival for the self-bestowed title of  jobs governor.

Scott tossed a few questions out to the guests. And he also used the big platform to get his own points across about the economy and governing.

Among them:

On dealing with federal environmental regulators: “My goal is to build a relationship,” Scott said, saying he has been trying to work with the feds on an acceptable Everglades policy and water standards.

On Florida’s economic rebound: “One of the things we have to have in Florida is more manufacturing,” Scott said, saying tourism is a given, but producing goods will yield jobs.

On Europe’s debt crisis: “Stop spending money,” Scott said, likening the Continent to truculent teen-agers.

On cutting unemployment benefits, as Florida has:  ”You can’t afford it,” Scott said of businesses struggling to pay unemployment benefits. “Don’t give companies a reason not to hire people.”

Scott also came close to his own “Ponzi-scheme” moment, when he chimed in on Perry’s defense of his characterization of Social Security as effectively a criminal fraud because it pays current beneficiaries with money from those new in the system.

Scott said the Florida Retirement System also is less than fully funded, although he left out the part about how it has been declared actuarially sound by state and national analysts, the latest blessing coming just this week from state economists.

“You’ve got to make it sustainable,” Scott said of the FRS, and Social Security. Scott reiterated that he still wants to see the pension plan disappear, and be replaced with a 401(k)-style plan for government workers.

 

BOYNTON BEACH — U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, won’t reveal if he has a favorite in the Republican presidential race, but during a town hall meeting tonight he weighed in on Herman Cain‘s Florida straw poll victory and 9-9-9 tax plan, Michele Bachmann‘s polling swoon, Ron Paul‘s Federal Reserve bashing and in-state tuition benefits for the children of illegal immigrants as championed by Rick Perry.

West also told reporters he expects Florida to be influential in presidential politics regardless of when it schedules its 2012 primary.

West also got a dig in on former Gov. Charlie Crist, the Republican-turned-independent who has contributed to one of West’s Democratic rivals.

Find out what West had to say after the jump…

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BOYNTON BEACH — It’s sort of a throwback to the pre-tea party days when congressional town hall meetings were subdued affairs that attracted mainly the C-SPAN demographic.

U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, normally draws crowds of several hundred for his monthly town hall meetings. But tonight’s abbreviated pre-Rosh Hashanah meeting, which wasn’t announced until Monday, has brought about 70 people to St. Mark’s Catholic School.

Because of the Jewish holiday, which begins at sundown, the start time tonight was an earlier-than-usual 6 p.m. and the meeting is slated to end at 7 p.m.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said Wednesday that she and the Obama administration agree on little involving the federal health care overhaul.

But both sides agree that the U.S. Supreme Court will ultimately decide the fate of the lawsuit brought by Florida and two-dozen other states.

“We’ve been saying from Day 1, from the day we filed this lawsuit, that the district court and 11th Circuit Court of Appeals were simply going to be a pass-through to the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Bondi, who joined with 25 other states Wednesday in asking  justices to take up the case, which last month ruled that the individual mandate is unconstitutional, but upheld the rest of the law, including a major expansion of Medicaid.

Bondi decried the Medicaid provision as “coersion,” one that justices ought to strike.

The attorney general added, “The Obama administration did not seek a rehearing (in the 11th Circuit)…Therefore, giving us the ability to go to the Supreme Court as soon as possible.”

Claude R. Kirk Jr., Florida’s first Republican governor after Reconstruction and a West Palm Beach resident for the last few decades, has died at 85.

Elected governor in 1966, his term oversaw a rewriting of the state’s constitution and the creation of the Department of Environmental Protection. Richard Nixon considered him as a vice presidential nominee in 1968 but Kirk lost out to Spiro Agnew of Maryland.

See photos of his impressive career here.

Gov. Rick Scott today ordered that flags will fly at half-staff on the day of Gov. Kirk’s funeral.

Said Scott: “Ann and I are saddened to learn of the passing of Governor Kirk. He will be remembered as Florida’s first Republican governor since Reconstruction and a strong, outspoken and capable leader for our state during an era of immense change in our country. Along with all Floridians, we send our condolences to his wife Erika and their entire family. Our prayers are with them during this challenging time.”

Without waiting for President Obama’s administration to appeal lower court rulings, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and 25 other states are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether the federal health care law is unconstitutional.

Florida led the challenge against the Obama administration, arguing that its requirement that most Americans purchase health insurance – also known as the “individual mandate” – is unconstitutional.

Last month, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled that the individual mandate is unconstitutional but upheld the remainder of the sweeping health care law, including a dramatic expansion of Medicaid.

But even Obama’s attorneys believe that much of the law relies on the requirement that individuals purchase health insurance.

Although several other cases are working their way through the courts, attorneys on both sides believe that a U.S. Supreme Court decision in Florida’s multi-state case will ultimately decide the matter.

Bondi’s lawyers argued that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act forces individuals to engage in commerce and is an imposition on states because of increased Medicaid costs which they cannot avoid.

“Both features of the Act raise constitutional issues that go to the heart of our system of limited government and the Constitution‘s division of authority between the federal government and the States. Of the various challenges working their way through the federal courts, only this case allows the Court to address both of these fundamental questions,” lawyers representing Bondi and the National Federal of Independent Businesses, wrote in the appeal filed today.

Bondi is holding a noon press conference on the filing today in the Capitol.

Florida’s presidential primary will be held Jan. 31, House Speaker Dean Cannon told CNN on Wednesday — a move that will likely force other states to move up their own primary contests.

A state commission is scheduled to meet Friday to formally set the date.  But just as it was in 2008, Florida is eager to jump toward the front of the line — even at the risk of being penalized by the Republican National Committee.

The RNC has declared four states — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada – early caucus and primary states. Florida’s leapfrog four years ago prompted the RNC to briefly strip the state of half its delegates to the Republican convention, although the punishment was lifted before party faithful gathered in Minneapolis to nominate John McCain.

Next summer’s convention is planned for Tampa. And the RNC is widely seen as not wanting a repeat of the jockeying between the states. But Florida’s move could spark that.

Cannon told CNN on Wednesday, “I expect that (the commission) will pick January 31 as Florida’s primary date.”

For Democrats, the primary date is mostly symbolic. President Obama has no serious primary challengers for his renomination.

The Florida Supreme Court rejected yet another appeal by Manuel Valle, slated to be executed tomorrow at 4 p.m.

Tuesday’s ruling is the third appeal by Valle’s lawyers rejected by courts this summer. His execution by lethal injection has twice been put on hold, first by the Florida Supreme Court and later by federal judges in Atlanta.

Valle’s lawyers have questioned the state’s use of a new drug in the lethal injection “cocktail.” The Department of Corrections has substituted the compound sodium pentobarbital for the first of the three-drug lethal injection protocol, a change forced by a manufacturer’s discontinuing of the drug formerly used.

British neurologist David Nicholl, who has ties to pentobarbital’s manufacturer Lundbeck Inc., filed the latest appeal with the state’s highest court, arguing that the use of the drug – also known as Nembutal – for executions violates the federal Controlled Substances Act which prohibits its dispensation except for legitimate medical purposes. The Court disagreed.

Since his conviction for the 1978 killing of Coral Gables police officer Louis Pena, Valle has been sentenced to death and re-sentenced three times in legal wrangling that eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned his death penalty in 1987. Courts later reaffirmed his death penalty conviction.

Valle has another appeal pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. His is the first – and only – death warrant signed by Gov. Rick Scott since he assumed office in January.

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney‘s campaign announced its Florida staffers this morning with Molly Donlin, a veteran Republican operative who worked on Rudy Giuliani‘s 2008 Florida campaign, serving as Romney’s state director.

Romney was second to Texas Gov. Rick Perry in a Quinnipiac poll of Florida Republicans last week before Perry bombed in a Thursday night debate and Saturday’s Republican Party of Florida straw poll in Orlando. But Romney, who announced in June he wouldn’t actively participate in the straw poll, didn’t immediately benefit from the Perry swoon. He finished a distant third in the straw poll with 14 percent behind Herman Cain and Perry.

Check out the Romney Florida team after the jump…

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Despite Gov. Rick Scott’s attempts to quash his testimony, former Department of Corrections Secretary Ed Buss this afternoon spent two-and-a-half hours answering questions under oath for a lawsuit about a prison privatization effort ordered by lawmakers this spring.

Lawyers for the Florida Police Benevolent Association, who filed the lawsuit against Scott’s administration, had sought Buss’s testimony before a hearing slated for Thursday morning. The hearing will focus on the PBA’s allegation that the privatization of 29 prisons from Manatee County to Indian River County south to the Florida Keys was unconstitutional because it was included at the last minute in the must-pass state budget, which the PBA contends is intended to deal strictly with spending rather than policy.

Reached by telephone, Buss refused to comment.

Last week, the First District Court of Appeals ordered that Buss give his deposition, upholding a lower court decision that the ousted secretary – fired by Scott last month – had unique information related to the privatization effort. Both courts rejected arguments by Attorney General Pam Bondi’s lawyers, representing Scott, that high-ranking officials – almost always named as defendants in court cases – should be immune from having to testify when information is available elsewhere.

The PBA contends its lawyers have been unable to get the information they need from e-mails requested from the corrections department.

PBA executive director Matt Puckett said that lawmakers’ gave Buss explicit directions on how the privatization would be handled but at the same time gave him carte blanche over a separate privatization of all of the agency’s health care services for inmates.

“He just wasn’t consulted,” Puckett said.