The Senate Redistricting Committee released new proposed Senate and congressional district maps late Friday — a move staff director John Guthrie said will respond to issues raised at a legislative hearing earlier in December and a follow-up meeting with state elections officials.

The Senate had earlier unveiled only one map each for the Senate and congressional plans, compared with the House, which unveiled seven proposals for redrawing congressional lines and five for the House.

Guthrie said Friday that after hearing questions from lawmakers, taking public testimony, and then later meeting with elections officials in Orlando who raised voter-access issues, it became apparent to Senate Redistricting Chairman Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, that some fixes were needed.

The proposals will go before Gaetz’s committee when it meets Jan. 11 — a day after lawmakers convene the 2012 session.

The Senate plan’s biggest change is a renumbering of the 40 Senate districts, an effort to balance the number of senators that would be forced to run for two-year terms, before seeking a full four-year term. The state constitution requires some senators to seek two-year terms in the next election after reapportionment to maintain staggered Senate terms.

The congressional maps most striking changes occur in two Gulf Coast districts. U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan’s District 13 would be changed to include a portion of coastal Charlotte County.  Neighboring District 12, which U.S. Rep. Dennis Ross serves, is reworked to accommodate the Charlotte County move.

 

Gov. Rick Scott on Thursday announced a reshuffling of some staff positions as he heads into his second year in the executive office.

Carolyn Timmann, head of the governor’s open government office, is leaving with plans to run for circuit court clerk in Martin County, where she began her political career as an aide to former state Rep. Tom Warner, R-Stuart. Timmann is looking to succeed longtime Martin clerk Marsha Ewing, who announced plans not to seek her eighth term earlier this year.

 In the governor’s office, Timmann will be replaced by Bonnie Hazelton, who did open government work for the state’s Department of Environmental Protection.

Other changes: Tom Doughty will join the Executive Office of the Governor as Director of Information Technology, and Mike Dew and Julie Roberts have been promoted within the Governor’s Office of External Affairs.

Former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham has sent out an end-of-year call from the newly created Florida Conservation Coalition, urging environmental activists to buttonhole their legislators before the Jan. 10 session begins.

The coalition was unveiled last month, with plans to lobby Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican-led Legislature to revive state funding for water quality programs, the Florida Forever land-buying program and Everglades restoration, which supporters say have been staggered by budget cuts since 2007.

In his email blast to activists, Graham condemns last spring’s policy changes and spending reductions.

“In three short months of 2011, the Governor and Legislature set Florida’s once proud conservation laws and programs back four decades. In so doing they have handed us a very heavy lift. But what choices do we have? We surrender, or we fight back,”  Graham said.

He concluded, “Our immediate job is to convince the Legislature that they went too far and must correct and reverse its misguided actions of 2011.”

The coalition includes Audubon of Florida, 1000 Friends of Florida, the Nature Conservancy, Florida Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club, Trust for Public Land and League of Women Voters.

 

Lake Worth Democratic Rep. Jeff Clemens said Wednesday that he will run for state Senate next year — likely in a central Palm Beach County district he expects to be created in once-a-decade redistricting.

Clemens, a former Lake Worth mayor elected to the House last year, has seen the voters in his current district fragmented into as many as four proposed House seats under maps drawn by that chamber. Clemens loses a sizable chunk of his district to a proposed Hispanic-oriented seat that all five of the House proposals would create in the Palm Springs-Lake Worth area.

Although the Senate’s own plan for redrawing itself does not include the central Palm Beach County Senate district in which Clemens envisions running, the lawmaker said he thinks final maps will.

“I believe these maps that have been produced are unconstitutional and that subsequent amendments and court proceedings will change them dramatically,” Clemens said. “If the final maps create a Senate district largely east of (Florida’s) Turnpike in central Palm Beach County, I intend to run for the Senate.”

The Senate’s sole redistricting plan so far actually reduces from six to five the number of Senate districts that course through Palm Beach County.  But it does turn District 34, a Broward-Miami-Dade County district held by term-limited Democratic Leader Nan Rich of Weston into a Palm Beach County-dominated seat.

Rep. Joe Abruzzo, D-Wellington, is looking to run in that seat — if it endures.

“I have no intention of running against Joe Abruzzo,” Clemens said Wednesday.

Instead, Clemens expects either the Legislature — or the courts, under expected challenges — to draw the district where he plans to be a candidate next fall.

“Obviously, there are a lot of if’s to this,” Clemens said.

The Florida Republican Party said Tuesday that its pre-presidential primary debate will be held Jan. 26 at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville.

A co-sponsor for the debate is the Hispanic Leadership Network. The debate will be broadcast on CNN.

“This is a great event for Jacksonville and for UNF,” said Lenny Curry, Florida’s Republican Party chairman, and a Jacksonville businessman. “This venue will highlight how important Jacksonville and the First Coast region are to Florida and the nation by hosting a debate that includes our next president.”

Florida has set Jan. 31 for its primary, drawing penalties from the Republican National Committee for placing its contest ahead of  a March 6 cutoff. The party had been trying to reserve the earlier dates for states which traditionally hold the nation’s first contests — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.

The nation’s first nominating contest will be the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses.

The UNF debate will mark the third debate originating from Florida, the nation’s biggest toss-up state in the presidential contest. Nationally televised debates featuring the Republican presidential field were held in September in Tampa and Orlando.

Thursday’s cave-in by Speaker John Boehner and House GOP leaders on a two-month extension of a payroll tax holiday drew noticeably different reactions from the two Republicans in Palm Beach County’s congressional delegation.

With the 2 percent cut in Social Security taxes set to expire Dec. 31, the House had approved a one-year extension, but the Senate voted 89-10 for a two-month deal before leaving Washington. Given the choice between a two-month extension and nothing, the House initially voted to reject the Senate version and demand a conference with Senators to iron out differences. The Senate didn’t budge, and the House GOP drew criticism for potentially allowing higher payroll taxes on Jan. 1.

The decision to accept the Senate’s two-month extension got a cautious endorsement from U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, and a denunciation from U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation.

Said Rooney: “I’m frustrated that the Senate left town and refused to negotiate a long-term agreement, but I am glad we will be able to prevent a tax hike from hitting middle class families, while correcting some of the errors in the Senate bill that made it unworkable for small businesses.”

Said West: “The politics of demagoguery have won over pragmatic principle and policy with the concession to enact tax policy on a two-month basis. This is a sad day for America and further evidences our continuing demise. Men and women of principle are becoming a dying breed in this Republic.”

Gov. Rick Scott is calling on lawmakers to quickly close what he called a gray area in Florida law that allowed a Panhandle racetrack to get a permit for barrel racing and a card room and opened the door for slot machines.

Scott also for the first time said he doesn’t believe lawmakers meant to include as a legitimate gambling activity when they passed laws regulating pari-mutuels.

“It doesn’t appear to me that it was the intent of the law. They need to clear it up,” Scott told The Palm Beach Post this afternoon.

Scott’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation issued the quarter horse permit to Gretna Racing – owned by the Alabama-based Poarch Creek Indians and gambling lawyers David Romanik and Marc Dunbar – last month. Regulators believed there was nothing in Florida law allowed them to deny the permit, now being challenged in court.

Lawmakers need to put an end to the uncertainty over the barrel racing and possible spread of it to other facilities – a track in Hamilton County has applied for a barrel racing permit – Scott said.

“It’s not fair to people who invest their dollars. It’s not fair to people who are supposed to enforce the law if the law’s not clear. So the legislature ought to clear it up whether that’s allowed or not,” He said.

Scott said he wants the legislature to act quickly before voters in Gadsden County, where the Gretna track is located, go to the polls on Jan. 31 to vote on a referendum allowing slot machines at the casino.

Voter approval of the referendum could threaten the state’s agreement with the Seminole Indians and cost Florida the $225 million the tribe gives annually. That agreement requires that slot machines be limited to pari-mutuels in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Slots at tracks elsewhere in the state could blow up next year’s budget which relies on the Seminole cash, Scott said.

“By not doing something, they’re making a decision that will put the Seminole compact at risk. I think they ought to clear it up ahead of time,” Scott said.

U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, is at least the third politician in the last 18 months to inflame controversy by invoking Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

Lamenting polls that show the public blaming the GOP for congressional gridlock, West told reporters in Washington last week that Adolf Hitler‘s propaganda minister would be “very, very proud of the Democrat Party because they have an incredible propaganda machine.”

Democrats and Jewish groups have criticized West, who has refused to apologize. On Tuesday, the Republican-controlled House quashed a Democratic resolution condemning West for the remarks.

Among those who voted against tabling the resolution was U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn. In January, on the House floor, Cohen mentioned Goebbels during a lectern-thumping denunciation of Republican criticism of the federal health care bill.

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A measure doing away with a century-old prohibition on using state funds for religious purposes is back on the November 2012 ballot, for now, after Attorney General Pam Bondi rewrote the proposal using a Tallahassee judge’s guidance.

Circuit Judge Terry Lewis last week tossed the proposed “Religious Freedom” constitutional amendment, placed on next year’s November ballot by lawmakers, saying it was misleading because it left the impression that it would “make it a lot harder for the state to deny funding or program benefits to a sectarian institution.”

Under a new election law signed by Gov. Rick Scott this spring, Bondi had 10 days to rewrite the ballot summary. She crafted the revised measure as Lewis suggested in his Dec. 13 ruling by deleting the phrase “consistent with the United States Constitution” and inserting “except as required by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

Critics say the amendment makes it easier for the GOP-dominated legislature and executive branch to steer taxpayer money to religious entities, including schools. The amendment’s ballot summary would change Florida’s constitution to ensure that “no individual or entity may be denied, on the basis of religious identity or belief, governmental benefits, funding, or other support.” At least 60 percent of voters must approve the measure for it to pass.

The plaintiffs in the case, including religious leaders and the Florida teachers’ union, also tried but failed to get Lewis to strike down the law allowing the attorney general to revise the summary if a court strikes it down as misleading. Bondi’s rewrite Tuesday is the first time the new law giving her that ability has been used.

The GOP-controlled U.S. House of Representatives voted 231-188 this afternoon to table a Democratic resolution condemning U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, for saying last week that Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels would be “very proud of the Democrat Party, because they have an incredible propaganda machine.”

The procedural vote went largely along party lines, with local Democratic Reps. Ted Deutch of Boca Raton and Alcee Hastings of Miramar voting against tabling the measure.

West and Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, were on the prevailing side.

Three Republicans — Reps. Robert Dold and Timothy Johnson of Illinois and Walter Jones of North Carolina — voted with Democrats against the motion to table.

Six weeks before Florida’s Jan. 31 presidential primary, the Newt Gingrich campaign today released a list of Florida county chairmen and chairwomen.

Gingrich recently tapped Sen. Marco Rubio‘s 2010 campaign manager, Jose Mallea, as Gingrich’s state director for Florida.

Gingrich’s local team is chaired by Palm Beach County Commissioner Steven Abrams. Co-chairs are Tami Donnally (who until recently served a similar role for Herman Cain‘s campaign) and Janeen Capizola.

Read the Gingrich campaign’s full release after the jump….

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UPDATED with reaction from West’s office.

On what may be the final day of House business in 2011, U.S. Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Md., has introduced a resolution condemning U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, for saying last week that Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels would be “very proud” of Democratic efforts to blame congressional dysfunction on the GOP.

It’s not immediately clear when or whether the resolution will come up for a vote.

“If Joseph Goebbels was around, he’d be very proud of the Democrat Party, because they have an incredible propaganda machine,” West told reporters last week, according to multiple reports.

Reading from the resolution on the House floor this afternoon, Edwards said: “Such outrageous Holocaust analogies have no place in our political dialogue. They are offensive, they trivialize real historical events and they diminish the memory of the 6 million Jews and millions of others who perished in the Holocaust.”

The proposed resolution calls West’s conduct “repugnant” and says the House “disapproves of the behavior of the Representative of Florida, Mr. West, for bringing discredit to the House by offending the memory of those who died during the Holocaust.”

West spokeswoman Angela Sachitano just responded: “The Members of the Democrat party have stooped to a new level in their attempts to bring down Rep. West, who they have deemed a threat to their power. Here we are in the midst of serious Congressional business, and they are focusing their energy on Rep. West. Rep West has no comment at this time.”

Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, who spent six days orbiting the earth on the space shuttle Columbia nearly 26 years ago, had this to say about the death of Korean dictator Kim Jong Il:

“Astronauts looking from the window of a space craft on the night side of the Earth see a Korea that is clearly divided – dark in the North and lit up with bright lights and alive in the South. But it doesn’t have to be that way anymore. I think this could prove to be a great opportunity for reform in North Korea. Let’s hope so.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will replace Herman Cain as the keynote speaker at the Palm Beach County Republican Party’s Jan. 28 Lincoln Day dinner — three days before Florida’s high-stakes presidential primary.

The local GOP thought it scored a major coup in October when it booked the surging Cain for the $195-a-plate event. Cain suspended his campaign a couple weeks ago.

Gingrich is the current GOP frontrunner in Florida and most national polls — but so was Rudy Giuliani in December 2007.

It’ll be the second year in a row that Gingrich has been the local party’s Lincoln Day speaker. He headlined the Feb. 24 GOP dinner when he was on the verge of entering the race.

Gingrich is also slated to appear at a brunch for the Martin County GOP earlier in the day on Jan. 28.

Gov. Rick Scott refused to back down from his contention that FAMU President James Ammons should step down, at least temporarily, even after the university’s board of trustees decided to keep Ammons in his post.
Scott issued the following statement shortly after the board’s conference call this morning:

“For the sake of appearances, and to assure the public that these investigations are clearly independent, I believe it would have been in the best interest of Florida A&M University for President Ammons to step aside until all of these investigations are completed. However, we have a process in Florida for the administration of the State University System, and that process has been followed. Like all other Floridians, I will abide by the decision made by the Florida A&M University Board of Trustees.”

Florida A&M University President James Ammons will remain in his post after the historically black university’s governing board this morning rejected Gov. Rick Scott’s recommendation that Ammons be suspended until investigations into the hazing-related murder of FAMU Marching 100 drum major Robert Champion are complete.

The board also agreed this morning to meet weekly for at least the next two months to receive updates on the investigations into Champion’s death – ruled Friday a homicide by the Orlando medical examiner’s office – and alleged financial wrongdoings.

“We will stand firm against outside influence regardless of how well-intended that lead to detrimental consequences that threaten the viability of the university,” Board of Trustees Chairman Solomon Badger said during a telephone conference call this morning. “Our decisions will be fact-based and will result from a deliberative process…Therefore, it is my recommendation that until a final report results from these investigations with official facts, the president’s status remains the same.”

There was no discussion of or vote on Badger’s recommendation.

Scott has repeatedly asked Ammons to step down, and called Ammons into his office Friday afternoon to urge him to step aside until the investigations are complete.

But the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools – the accrediting organization for the university – warned that Scott’s interference may threaten FAMU’s accreditation which requires that schools be free from political influence.

FAMU’s Alumni Association President Tommy Mitchell held a press conference Sunday afternoon warning Scott to let the university operate independently.

And late Sunday evening, Scott’s office issued a statement defending his actions thus far.

“It is up to the FAMU Board of Trustees and Dr. Ammons to determine how to proceed. I have not and will not try to influence their decision. I simply offered my advice and opinion based on the events and the facts I was made aware of. Like all other Floridians, I will abide by the decisions made by the Board of Trustees and President Ammons tomorrow, and I do not plan to release any further comment before then,” Scott said.

Two weeks ago, the trustees rejected a motion to suspend Ammons and instead publicly reprimanded him. Ammons abandoned an effort to fire the renowned band’s director Julian White and instead placed him on administrative leave with pay until the investigations are over.

Read more about the “culture of hazing” here.

If former state Sen. Dave Aronberg challenges Palm Beach County State Attorney Michael McAuliffe in a Democratic primary next year, he can expect the McAuliffe camp to blast him for working as “pill mill” czar under Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi.

That was one of the potential lines of attack tested in a poll conducted by the McAuliffe campaign this month.

Aronberg is expected to announce in January whether he’s running.

Read about it in this week’s Politics column.

Florida A&M University Marching 100 drum major Robert Champion‘s hazing-related death was a homicide, an autopsy report ruled today.

The Orlando medical examiner’s findings were released as Gov. Rick Scott stepped up pressure for the historically black university’s president James Ammons to step down.

After being summoned to Scott’s office this afternoon, a subdued Ammons – until then appearing to reject calls for his ouster – said the governor was committed to preserving FAMU’s future and indicated he may go along with Scott’s recommendation before the university’s board of trustees meet on the issue, again at Scott’s urging, by telephone Monday morning.

“It’s something I’m considering,” Ammons told reporters before leaving the Capitol to hand out diplomas at FAMU’s fall graduation ceremony.

Champion’s death was caused by internal bleeding after suffering blunt trauma, the Orlando medical examiner’s office said. The autopsy found the 26-year-old had bruises to his chest, arms, shoulder and back and suffered bleeding from soft tissues.

Former state Sen. Al Lawson, a FAMU alumnus who accompanied Ammons to Scott’s office in the role of mediator, said it was no surprise that Champion’s death was a homicide.

“This young man lost his life as a result of hazing. It had to do with a lot of physical blows and so forth, in that report. I think everybody expected that it would be that,” Lawson said. “We know the history of hazing at the university. It’s been around since the early 50s.”

Lawson also advised Ammons to stay on the job until the trustees reach a decision Monday morning, and indicated the governor-appointed board may not agree with Scott.

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Gov. Rick Scott said Friday that the state’s new 10 percent unemployment rate for November is a sign that “clearly, we have turned the corner.”

The rate was 0.4 percentage points lower than a revised October rate and below the 11.9 percent posted in November 2010.  In Palm Beach County, the jobless rate was 10.1 percent – slightly topping the statewide figure, but still down .2 percent from the previous month.

“That’s a real positive,” Scott said of the statewide decline.

Florida’s unemployment decline tracks what’s occuring nationally. Florida’s rate still is higher than the nation’s 8.6 percent November jobless level, which is also down .4 percent from a month earlier.

 A total of 8,500 new jobs were added in Florida last month. Scott said that brings the total net new jobs for the year to more than 120,000.

 

Gov. Rick Scott has had a rocky relationship with state workers, 120,000 Floridians who haven’t seen a pay raise since 2006.

They campaigned against him as a candidate. And public employees’ unions are suing him for the 3 percent salary contributions he and the Republican-led Legislature ordered workers to pay this year to belong to the Florida Retirement System.

But in the spirit of the season, Scott on Friday ordered all state government buildings closed on Dec. 23 — giving workers an extra day off and an early start on the egg nog.

“On the day before a weekend during which Christmas falls, historically, there has been an extremely low business volume, and a large number of State employees take annual leave to be with their families,” Scott noted in a letter to Department of Management Services Secretary Jack Miles, ordering the closure.

“I also note that the Supreme Court of Florida has declared December 23 to be a Court holiday, and that both the Florida House of Representatives and the Senate have no business whatsoever scheduled for that date. Considering the low utilization of State executive buildings on these days, closing these buildings will also result in a savings of utilities and management costs,” the governor added.

 Then he exclaimed, “I wish you and your family a joyous holiday season.”

 Rep. Alan Williams, D-Tallahassee, suggested a similar step last year to outgoing Gov. Charlie Crist, but it didn’t go anywhere. Williams said giving workers off the Friday before Christmas could help the economy.

“It’s a good idea,” Williams said. “I’ve got to figure nine out of 10 workers will be out in the stores spending, because they’re not at work that day.”

 

Gov. Rick Scott ripped the Obama administration Friday for rejecting Florida’s application for Race to the Top education dollars, deriding the decision as stemming from the state’s refusal to accept the money “with strings attached.”

Nine states were authorized by federal officials to share $500 million in grant money aimed at accelerating  improvements in early childhood programs. California, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Washington state will get the dollars to make strides in pre-kindergarten education.

Scott said he suspected Florida was turned down because the state did not commit to continuing programs after federal dollars expired — a move he said was aimed at avoiding making state taxpayers pick up the tab for new government services.

 ”When Florida’s application was submitted for the grant in October, we made it clear that we would not accept grant money with strings attached, additional state spending obligations, or requirements that created new burdensome regulations on private providers,” Scott said.

 ” We stuck to our principles, and unfortunately our insistence against irresponsibly using one-time dollars for recurring government programs did not win the favor of the administration in Washington,” he added.

Race to the Top, the centerpiece of Obama’s education policies, has proved a thorny issue for Republicans. In the GOP presidential field, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is a staunch opponent, while Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, is a fan.

The funding approach also supports many of the early-learning measures promoted by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and state legislative leaders.

Still, Scott defied tea party activists in October when he submitted the state’s application.  But he was lured by the prospect of winning as much as $100 million in federal cash for the state — in a year when he wants to pump-up Florida K-12 spending by $1 billion.

Scott insisted, though, that he wouldn’t go along with federal officials dictating terms for how the state spent the money.

Florida won a $700 million federal grant under the program last year, in its second attempt at landing the cash. But Scott has pushed back millions of dollars in aid tied to Obama’s health care overhaul. The state’s Tea Party Network, also openly demanded in the fall that he steer clear of the Race to the Top effort.

But for all the line-in-the-sand drawing, Scott in September agreed to some conditions in advance of the application.

At Scott’s urging, the Legislative Budget Commission accepted a $3.4 million federal grant under the Affordable Care Act to provide home visiting services to at-risk families. Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, was among those urging against the move, saying the program’s mission was murky, and he feared it could result in the state facing additional costs.