Texas Gov. and Republican presidential newcomer/frontrunner Rick Perry will attend a fundraiser in West Palm Beach at the Kravis Center on Sept. 21, a knowledgeable Republican tells PostOnPolitics.com.

Look for details next week, but it’ll apparently be a $1,000-a-head event with a $2,500 VIP reception featuring a photo op with Perry.

Perry and other GOP hopefuls will be in Tampa for a Sept. 12 CNN/tea party debate and in Orlando Sept. 22-24 for the Republican Party of Florida Presidency 5 showcase and the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Despite stocks tumbling Friday after a grim U.S. job market report, a Florida legislative panel next week is expected to sign off on some relatively good economic news.

The state’s Legislative Budget Commission, comprised of House and Senate members, will be asked Wednesday to accept a new economic forecast showing lawmakers should have enough cash next year to meet the state’s “critical and high priority” needs. That basically matches current year spending, along with anticipated growth.

Lawmakers also can comfortably build in a $1 billion budget reserve, according to the Long-Range Financial Outlook analysts will put before the commission.

The three-year forecast also doesn’t call for any revenue shortfall through 2015. It’s the first time economists have given lawmakers such an all-clear horizon since voters in 2006 approved creation of  the long-term planning document.

A return of relatively steady tax collections — combined with deep budget-cutting by lawmakers last spring — is credited for the rosier outlook.

Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican controlled Legislature covered an almost $3.8 billion budget shortfall by cutting spending for schools, health and social service programs, and making government workers in the Florida Retirement System contribute 3 percent of their pay to the state pension plan. 

Still, analysts also cautioned that the steadily softening economy could dim some of the dollar projections going before lawmakers next week.

 

A federal court in Atlanta has postponed the execution of convicted cop killer Manuel Valle until at least Thursday.

It’s the second time since Gov. Rick Scott signed Valle’s death warrant – the only one Scott has signed since taking office in January – earlier this year that his execution has been stayed.

Valle, who has spent more than three decades on Death Row, was slated to be put to death by lethal injection on Tuesday.

The Florida Supreme Court in July put his execution, originally set for Aug. 2, on hold after his lawyers raised objections to the state’s use of a new drug as part of the lethal injection formula. Department of Corrections officials substituted pentobarbital for a drug no longer manufactured as the first of the three-drug lethal injection “cocktail.”

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.

On Aug. 23, the Florida Supreme Court On Tuesday, the court approved the Department of Corrections’ new drug protocol, saying it did not pose a substantial risk of harm to the inmate.

Valle’s lawyers are also pursuing other appeals, including with the U.S. Supreme Court.