U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, who worked as a Capitol Hill staffer for former Sen. Connie Mack III in the 1990s, says he’s leaning toward supporting late-entering U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV, R-Cape Coral, in the 2012 GOP Senate primary.

“Having worked for Connie’s dad, having worked with Connie closely, I’d probably be leaning heavily toward Connie at this point. But let him get in the race and let him get his feet wet first,” Rooney said today.

Rooney, who once considered entering the 2006 GOP Senate primary against a weak Katherine Harris, said he was also asked about entering the 2012 contest because of underwhelming polling numbers by GOP candidates George LeMieux, Adam Hasner, Mike McCalister and Craig Miller. Rooney, who has three young children, said he wasn’t willing to take on the statewide fundraising and campaigning demands associated with a Senate run.

House Democratic Leader Ron Saunders offered strategic advice Wednesday to ruling Republicans while making a few political predictions, as well.

The Key West lawmaker said he expected that GOP leaders will deliberately slow down budget talks next year – likely leaving the bulk of budget-making for a special session.

 When lawmakers convene in January, Saunders forecast that the Republican-controlled Legislature will move quickly to approve a redistricting plan, submitting it for court approval.

 If rejected by judges, that would give lawmakers time to craft another plan before the scheduled end of the two-month regular session.

The budget, though, will be kept back by leaders, Saunders said, to maintain control over rank-and-file lawmakers.

“It’d be nice to have that budget still sitting out there, to have some leverage over your members,” said Saunders, who a decade ago helped lead redistricting for the then-Democratic majority.

Saunders said that because of declining population in some Republican-heavy areas – including Pinellas County – as many as eight GOP House members may find themselves scrambling for political turf now held by a fellow House Republican.

Those wounded by final decisions are likely to have little loyalty to leaders, Saunders suggested.

“There’s going to be a lot more upset Republican members than Democratic members,” Saunders said.

Democrats? “They’ve pretty much bottomed us out. It’d be hard to draw maps worse than what we have now he said.

 

One-time U.S. Senate candidate and Senate President Mike Haridopolos is backing long-time friend U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV in the GOP primary, Haridopolos told editors and reporters this morning.

Haridopolos said he’s supporting Mack because he’s disappointed in the negative campaigning that’s dominated the GOP race thus far.

“I was not exactly pleased in the direction in which the senate primary was moving,” Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, told a gathering of reporters and editors at the Associated Press Florida Legislative Planning Session shortly before noon. “I think he’d make an outstanding senator, not just candidate…I want to see us elevate the political discussion. What has disappointed me…is there’s a lot of finger-pointing. Let’s elevate the debate…as opposed to the negative campaigning that’s been done to this point.”

After initially saying he would not get into the race, Mack has now thrown his hat into a crowded GOP field. Former U.S. Sen. George LeMieux, former state representative Adam Hasner of Delray Beach, businessman Craig Miller and Mike McAllister are all vying to unseat incumbent U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat. The four declared GOP candidates have been plagued by underwhelming poll numbers and fundraising.

Early this spring, Mack, a Cape Coral Republican who served in the Florida House alongside Haridopolos, endorsed Haridopolos, who dropped out of the race this summer.

A pair of Republican U.S. Senate candidates showcased their stump speeches Wednesday at the Associated Press’ annual planning session at the state Capitol, with both pledging to shrink government and effectively turn back the political clock.

Craig Miller, a former restaurant executive, said it was time to end Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson’s four decades as an elected official, saying “I think 40 years is enough.”

He also dismissed the entry of U.S. Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fort Myers, into the race, saying it only added “one more career politician,” to a lineup that already includes former state House Majority Leader Adam Hasner, short-term Senate appointee George Lemieux, and tea party adherent Mike McCalister.

“I am the only true business person in the race,” Miller said.

McCalister also had a turn at the microphone, promising less regulation and “lower taxes for everyone.”

“We’ve got to get government out of the way. And we’re going to have to create a more business friendly economy,” McCalister said.

McCalister said he’d reduce federal spending by revamping Social Security and Medicare for future generations, and warned against an enduring threat of Communism. Miller derided the nation’s minimum wage, saying it hurt businesses and restrains hiring, fondly recalling working for $1-an-hour at age 13.

Mack’s entry into the race last month underscores the fluidity of the GOP contest. Polls show most Republican voters are undecided. None of the candidates have emerged as a frontrunner, and fund-raising remains modest.

Miller said that gives him a chance.

“The person that surfaces from the primary is the person with the right message, no matter where they come from,” Miller said.

Despite the lure of big bucks in a bleak budget year, House Speaker Dean Cannon is dubious about a proposal to allow up to three Las Vegas-style casinos in South Florida.

“I remain very skeptical,” Cannon, R-Winter Park, told a gathering of reporters and editors at the Associated Press Florida Legislative Planning Session this morning.

Cannon said he remains “philosophically opposed to the expansion of gaming in the state.” His counterpart, Senate President Mike Haridopolos, has pledged that the Senate will have an up-or-down vote on the measure (SB 710, HB 487).

Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, and Rep. Erik Fresen, R-Miami, released their “destination resort” proposal last week. The plan, in its preliminary stages, also creates a statewide gaming commission.

Yesterday, a coalition of faith groups came out in opposition to the proposal, naming its defeat their top priority during the legislative session that ends early in March.

Cannon said he’s aware of a potential deal being crafted by lawmakers that would allow the from one to three casinos in South Florida in exchange for shutting down unregulated Internet cafes. But, he said, “I’ve yet to see a concrete plan to accomplish it.”

Cannon also said he would not pursue a plan to split up the Florida Supreme Court, an idea he pushed but later abandoned during the session this spring.

Whoever wins the 2012 Republican presidential nomination can carry Florida if he adds Sen. Marco Rubio as his running mate, according to a new poll by Suffolk University in Massachusetts.

The poll of 800 Florida voters has a 3.5 percent margin for error and was conducted Oct. 26-30 — after news stories detailed that Rubio’s Cuban-born parents came to the U.S. before Fidel Castro‘s 1959 takeover rather than afterward, as Rubio’s official Senate biography stated.

In a Rubio-free scenario, the poll found Mitt Romney as the strongest GOP nominee against President Obama in Florida. Obama and Romney tied at 42 percent in a hypothetical matchup. Obama beat Herman Cain by a 42-to-39 percent margin and Rick Perry by a 46-to-34 percent margin.

When respondents were asked to choose between an Obama-Joe Biden ticket and a nameless Republican nominee with Rubio as running mate, the GOP tandem won by a 46-to-41 percent margin.

But an Obama-Hillary Clinton ticket would beat a nameless Republican-Rubio ticket by a 46-to-43 percent margin in Florida, the poll says. And Obama and Clinton would win 50-to-41 against a hypothetical GOP ticket without Rubio.

Says Suffolk’s David Paleologos: “In Florida, Marco Rubio is Superman, but Hillary Clinton is the Kryptonite.”

The poll found the GOP presidential primary race virtually tied, with Romney leading Cain by a 25-to-24 percent margin

Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson called Tuesday for the Senate to hold hearings across Florida and other states where Republican-led legislative majorities approved strict new voting standards.

Nelson first made his request last week, in a letter to Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin, the Democrat heading a judiciary subcommittee overseeing the constitution and civil rights. But he echoed his demand Tuesday before the full Senate.

 “No state should have the right to make a law if it abridges people’s basic rights,” said Nelson, who wants the hearings held in Florida and 13 other states that have enacted new voting laws.

Boca Raton Democratic U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch last summer called for congressional hearings into the changes, which Democrats and their allies say are designed to block and disenfranchise voters, particularly minorities and Democratic-leaning college students.

The goal of these Republican-ruled state legislatures is to reduce voter turnout in next year’s presidential contest, critics say. The ACLU and other voting rights groups have already sued to stop implementation of the law.  A study by the Brennan Center for Justice found the laws could keep 5 million people from voting next year.

Supporters of the measures deny any partisan motivation, instead saying the stricter standards are intended to reduce voter-fraud.

 

Staggered by two major budget shortfalls in the past year, the state court system needs a more reliable cash source than the rollercoastering foreclosure fees lawmakers have steered its way, officials told a Senate panel Tuesday.

Polk County Circuit Court Judge John Laurent, who helped lead a workgroup of  judges and court clerks, urged the Senate Budget Committee to allow courts to keep more of the fees and service charges they already collect, but which are skimmed off for use in other state budget areas.

Judges and clerks also recommended that certain basic costs — salaries for judges, interpreters and court reporters — should come from state dollars, rather than from fees, the workgroup said in its report to lawmakers.

Close to $300 million in revenue raised by the courts are plowed into general revenue and other areas of government, officials said. If courts had been authorized to keep a larger portion of that money, they would have avoided shortfalls that are projected to demand $153 million in emergency loans in just over a year.

Court clerks needed a $44.2 million bailout last year and are seeking another $36 million to get through March 2012.

Earlier this year, the shortfall forced chief judges in Palm Beach County and other counties to consider employee layoffs, furloughs and other emergency measures. 

“This is not a question of us overspending our budget,” said Laurent, a former state senator. “The moneys have not been appropriated to our trust fund to support our budget.”

Central to the court’s woes: foreclosure fees.

 The trust fund that powers the $1 billion court and clerk system draws the bulk of its financing through these feees. But the court system’s cash flow was disrupted late last year by a nationwide freeze on foreclosures by most major lenders.

“It’s not a good, stable situation,” conceded Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales.

Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, also questioned the Legislature’s approach in making the court system so reliant on fees.

Without providing specifics, Negron said some fees charged Floridians for court activities are too high — warning that it could lead to legal decisions that amounted to ”cash-register justice.”

“The court system has become too dependent on churning out revenue,” Negron said, adding that more state dollars should be directed to courts. ”This thing has gotten out of whack.”

The workgroup’s full report is here:    http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/

Black lawmakers gave Gov. Rick Scott a wish-list including minority business loans, more money for public schools and historically black colleges and restoration of rights for felons during an hour-long meeting this afternoon.

The most heated part of the session came during an exchange about putting more black judges on the bench. Rep. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, pointed out that, of the 36 judges Scott appointed, just two are black, and one of those was a reappointment.

Scott agreed the courts need more minority representation but then used the opportunity to bash the courts, which have ruled against him in two recent cases involving drug testing of welfare recipients and a prison privatization plan. He said he wants judges who “think like me.”

“I remember in civics class I learned about the three branches of government. It appears there are only two. And maybe there’s only one,” Scott, a lawyer, said, adding that the legislature passed those bills, Scott signed them into the law, and judges ruled that they were wrong. “That’s not the way it ought to be. So what I’m not going to do is appoint people that think differently than I do…activists that think that they’re the legislature.”

Sen. Arthenia Joyner objected to Scott’s standard.

“Unless you back off of your ‘think like me’…we have monolithic thinking and there’s no room for a diversity of thought and then we all become Scott clones,” Joyner, a Tampa lawyer, said.

“I don’t see the problem, myself,” Scott joked before conceding, “the words ‘think like me’ might not be the best ones.”
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News that Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain was the target of sexual harassment complaints in the 1990s has not slowed ticket sales to a pair of Nov. 16 Cain fundraisers in Palm Beach County, local consultant Teresa Dailey says.

Cain says he was falsely accused while heading the National Restaurant Association. Two women received settlements in “the five-figure range,” Politico.com reported.

Cain is to appear at a $50-a-head event at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach on Nov. 16, then head to Palm Beach for a $999 event at the home of David Rosow, the president of the town council and a pal of Rush Limbaugh.

Since news of the complaints broke Sunday night, Dailey said, “I have seen an effect and it’s very positive.” She said 50 to 100 tickets have sold this week. Dailey said she’s expecting 800 to 1,000 people for the convention center event and 75 to 100 at Rosow’s house.

Calls for revamping Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state-run carrier for those who can’t find private coverage, has been a rite of spring in Tallahassee for years.

But Gov. Rick Scott on Tuesday is looking to accelerate that discussion — even as he still looks intent on finding a private company willing to take over Citizens, which now has 1.4 million policies statewide.

About half the homeowners’ policies in Florida are held by Citizens, which also is dealing with what actuaries say is 70 percent of the risk.  Coastal homes and condos, which face a high hurricane threat, form the bulk of the company’s line.

Meanwhile, Citizens is adding 4,000 to 5,00o policies a week — with private carriers continuing to cold-shoulder high-risk Florida homeowners, officials said.

“This is not something we can continue to do,” Scott told the Cabinet on Tuesday.

Scott wants the Citizens governing board to meet later this month and present a blueprint for Citizens’ future Dec. 6 to him and the Cabinet. The goal, he said, is simple:” “to shrink exposure.”

A coalition of religious and anti-gambling groups are uniting to put pressure on lawmakers in the hopes of killing a proposal that would allow up to three Las Vegas-style casinos in South Florida.

The Florida Catholic Conference, the Florida Baptist Convention, Florida Family Action and Florida Casino Watch held a press conference Tuesday morning to declare war on the casino proposal, sponsored by Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, a Fort Lauderdale Republican whose district is dominated by Palm Beach County, and Rep. Erik Fresen, R-Miami.

Representatives of the religious groups objected to the “destination resorts” in part because, they said, gambling victimizes the poor and is accompanied by social costs such as addiction, prostitution, bankruptcy and suicide.

“This is the big Kahuna that’s been brought to the table to us. And we’ve shown up to say, ‘no thanks,’” said Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, a former head of the state Christian Coalition. He called the casino plan “the biggest brand change” in Florida.

Florida Family Action head John Stemberger, who also heads FFA’s parent group Florida Family Policy Council, named defeating the proposal his organization’s chief objective during the legislative session that ends early in March.

Stemberger plans to use the Internet to expose lawmakers’ votes on the issue with a “Wall of Fame” and “Wall of Shame” and is asking legislators to sign an anti-gambling pledge. Stemberger achieved success with a similar campaign in 2008 when he shepherded a ballot initiative onto the ballot and into the state constitution prohibiting same-sex marriage.

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Gov. Rick Scott said Tuesday that he returned from last week’s trade mission to Brazil with $61 million in deals close to completed, including a natural caffeine producer that will open a plant at the Port of Palm Beach.

“People like Florida. They know Florida. They like the people of Florida. They think we’re a good place to do business,” Scott said. “It’s pretty positive. Now, maybe they’re being nice to me.

“My goal is that at the end, so, I want to get to ‘yes,’” Scott added. “What’s the barrier to get to ‘yes.’”

The lineup of deals roughly finalized is still being compiled by Enterprise Florida, the state’s economic development arm, which organized the trip attended by 187 Florida government officials and business representatives. But Scott said the list spans a wide range of manufacturers and service providers.

The governor acknowledged his role is not so much deal-maker — but rather, schmoozer-in-chief. Scott said he was mostly a facilitator for discussions already in the works when the entourage arrived in Brazil.

“That’s all it is,” Scott said.