Veteran Tallahassee legislator Al Lawson, a Democrat, intends to run for Congress again, this time with the help of the GOP.

“Big Al” said he is going to make another stab at the Congressional seat now held by U.S. Rep. Steve Southerland, a tea party Republican who ousted long-time Democratic Congressman Allen Boyd in 2010.

After being termed out of the Senate in 2010, Lawson lost in a brutal primary by about 2,000 votes to Boyd, who held the seat for 16 years before losing to Southerland.

But the maps drawn by the Republican-dominated legislature, slated to be voted out of the Senate this week and sent on their way to Attorney General Pam Bondi and ultimately the courts for review, may give Lawson (and other Democrats) a leg up against the incumbent from Panama City.

Five GOP-leaning counties that helped Southerland get to Washington – Okaloosa, Walton, Dixie, Lafayette and Suwannee – will no longer be in the District 2 North Florida seat if the maps withstand Department of Justice scrutiny and expected legal challenges.

Lawson said one of the reasons he’s running again is because he didn’t like what Southerland said after Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot last summer. Southerland suggested his $174,000-a-year Congressional salary wasn’t worth the safety risks and the time away from his family and funeral home business.

“Throughout my political career, I’ve always fought hard for workers, for economic development and jobs for this district. And this Southerland complained about his $174,000 salary that was taking away from his business,” Lawson, who served in the Florida House and Senate for nearly three decades, said in a telephone interview. Lawson said he intends to formally file to run for the seat next week.

“He seems to be more concerned about the tea party than concerned about his distict where you have high unemployment, and people need somebody to fight for them in Congress. I have a 28-year history of doing that and it’s something the people need,” Lawson said. “I just need to retire him. And let him go back to the funeral home business.”

Lawson could face another veteran state lawmaker in what may be a crowded primary. Nancy Argenziano, a former Republican who switched to become an independent, wants to run as a Democrat for the seat. But she can’t because of a provision included in an election law (controversial for other reasons) approved by lawmakers last year and signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott in June. That provision bars candidates from switching parties one year before the qualifying period for the general election begins, meaning the candidate must be registered in the party for nearly 18 months before the 2012 November election. Argenziano, who served in both the state House and Senate and also as the chairwoman of the Florida Public Service Commission, is challenging that part of the election law in court.

State Rep. Leonard Bembry, a Greenville Democrat and Boyd look-alike, also intends to run for the seat.

Once the anti-establishment candidate, Gov. Rick Scott is full of praise – without officially endorsing – Mitt Romney, who’s garnered the support of some of the Sunshine State’s top GOP insiders.

Scott has defended Romney’s business background and today told CNN‘s Candy Crowley that Hispanic voters prefer the former Massachusetts governor because of his family values.

Scott’s comments come as Romney and Newt Gingrich sweep the state hoping to nail down the all-or-nothing convention delegate prize on Tuesday’s primary, with a lot of the focus on the state’s Latino voters crucial to the GOP primary.

This morning on CNN’s State of the Union, Crowley asked Scott about a recent poll show Romney outstripping Newt Gingrich among Hispanic voters by 49-23 percent.

“Look, the Latino vote cares about family. I mean, if you look at Gov. Romney’s family, he’s been very successful. He’s built a great family, very committed to his wife,” Scott said. “He’s somebody that’s been successful in life. So I think if they look at his background, it’s what they want. They care about their families. They care about, you know, somebody that’s been successful in business. That’s what they care about. So I think that’s part of what his attraction to the Latino vote.”

Gingrich’s campaign recently yanked a Spanish-language ad accusing Romney of being “anti-immigrant” after U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio blasted scolded the former speaker of the House over the ad.

And Romney scored one of his best lines on the thorny immigration issue during Thursday night’s debate in Jacksonville after Gingrich said Romney’s immigration stance would result in rounding up grandmothers who’ve lived for years in the country illegally.

“Our problem isn’t 11 million grandmothers,” Romney said. “Our problem is 11 million people getting jobs that many Americans, legal immigrants, would like to have.”

With recent polls showing Romney surging in the polls on Florida, Scott told Crowley “it sure looks like Gov. Romney’s going to win” and again said the candidates should be discussing their jobs plans instead of trading barbs.

Scott lauded Romney’s business background but did not say whose jobs plan he prefers.

“They all have plans,” he said.

With all eyes on Florida in the GOP presidential race, Senate President Mike Haridopolos might have been justified saying “I told you so” about the Sunshine State’s early Republican primary next week.

The legislature moved Florida’s primary date up from its originally scheduled date to Jan. 31 over the objections of state and national GOP leaders. Haridopolos and others wanted to elevate the state’s role in determining the eventual nominee.

With Newt Gingrich surging in the polls after unexpectedly trouncing Mitt Romney in South Carolina, Florida could be “the lynchpin to one person winning” the race, Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, said.

“Every once in a while it feels good to be right,” Haridopolos, a Romney backer, said this morning. “It was a risk, don’t get me wrong. But we thought it was a good risk. Clearly the eyes of the nation if not the eyes of the world are on this…I think it’s a good thing.”

And national coverage of the candidates stumping around sunny, mild-climed Florida may help solve some of the state’s budget problems as well, Haridopolos said.d

“This is like free advertising for our state and it wasn’t Visit Florida that had to pay the tab,” Haridopolos said.

Watching candidates “in their shirt sleeves” in sunny Florida may prompt Northerners to consider relocating their businesses to or visiting Florida, Haridopolos, a former New Yorker, said.

“So I think it’s been a jackpot,” Haridopolos said. “And I think we’re in the place where we deserve to be.”

Florida is the bellweather state in the general election and deserves to be so in the primaries, Haridopolos said, after the lesser-known candidates have been weeded out in Iowa and New Hampshire.

I love these kind of competitions – except when I’m in races. I like the ones where no one runs against me. It’s a lot more successful,” the former U.S. Senate candidate joked. “But to be serious. I think it’s good. I think this will elevate our candidate.”

Syndicated columnist and conservative talking head Star Parker wowed a group of tea partiers in the Capitol this afternoon on the opening day of session before making a recruiting stop at Lt. Gov Jennifer Carroll’s office.

Parker finished her half-hour informal speech with high praise for Carroll, a former state House member and retired Navy office whom Parker said she’s met once before.

“I’m hoping that she is in agreement with all of the ideas of limited size and scope of government because if she is I wanted to rumble out her name as we’re going around the country thinking that we need to find somebody ethnic to be the vice president – Republicans are going to win and all. She would be a better pick, would be my opinion,” Parker said, who met with Carroll for about five minutes, according to Gov. Rick Scott’s staff. Parker was in town briefly and flew into Tallahassee for a South Georgia meeting, she said.

“This is a quality person, decorated military, worked her butt off to get to the state House and now as lieutenant governor is the first in the country. We’ve never in this country had a black, conservative, female lieutenant governor. I think that is worth a couple of news stories,” said Parker, a syndicated columnist and FoxNews pundit.

As an added bonus, Parker said, “she’s from one of our critical states.” Florida, of course, is a key swing state in this year’s presidential election.

Florida Democrats and Jewish groups expressed outrage over U.S. Rep. Allen West’s comments yesterday likening Democrats to Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels.

“This outrageous comparison is extreme, even for Congressman Allen West,” state Rep. Mark Pafford, a West Palm Beach Democrat who is Jewish, said in a statement issued by the Florida Democratic Party on Friday. “Likening Democrats to Nazis is despicable and offensive. Floridians deserve more from their elected officials than inflamed rhetoric that has brought Washington to a stand-still and left the middle class out-to-dry.”

Politco reported the blunt-speaking West’s comments yesterday:

Tea party favorite Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) said Thursday that Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels would be “very proud” of Democrats for shifting public sentiment against Republicans, and he blamed the press for helping spread their message.

“If Joseph Goebbels was around, he’d be very proud of the Democrat Party because they have an incredible propaganda machine,” West told reporters in the Capitol. “I think that you have, and let’s be honest, you know, some of the people in the media are complicit in this, in enabling them to get that type of message out.”

No stranger to controversy, the freshman Republican whose district lies largely in Palm Beach County clarified that he wasn’t linking Democrats to the Nazi party and predicted the fall-out from his remarks.

Again, from Politico:

“I’m talking about propaganda, OK,” he said. “Don’t start taking my words and twisting it around. I’m talking about propaganda. And I think that’s a very important thing. When you tell me that everyone thinks that the only people on Capitol Hill are House Republicans, it’s because that’s what’s being portrayed, is that there’s nobody else up here.”

“Once again, you guys will take whatever I say and you will spin it to try to demonize me or demagogue me,” West added. “What I’m talking about is a person that was the minister of propaganda. And I’m talking about propaganda. So please. I’ll be prepared to wake up tomorrow and you guys make up some crazy story. Whatever.”

The Anti-Defamation League called West’s comments “outrageous” and demanded an apology in a letter to West Friday.

“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 six million Jews and millions of others who perished in the Holocaust,” ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman said in a press release.

In his letter to West, Foxman – a Holocaust survivor – wrote: “It is high time to excise analogies to Nazi and Hitler from the political vocabulary. It doesn’t serve us as Americans, and cheapens our political discourse.”

It’s not the first time West provoked Jewish groups. In his campaign last year, West accused Democratic campaign trackers of using “Gestapo-like intimidation tactics.” (Read the ADL’s first demand for an apology on that here.)

The American Jewish Committee also slammed West on Friday.

“To make a linkage between any mainstream political party in the United States and the heinous atrocities committed by the Third Reich should be simply beyond the pale, whatever political differences may arise in a heated electoral season,” AJC Executive Director David Harris said.

Senate District 27′s Lizbeth Benacquisto became the first in her chamber to qualify by petition for reelection, according to a press release issued by her campaign today.

But right now it appears the Wellington Republican won’t be representing Palm Beach County by the time the November election rolls around. Under the proposed Senate maps, Benacquisto’s district would be confined on the other coast to Lee and Charlotte counties. Her district currently stretches from West Palm Beach across the state through Hendry and Glade and winds up in Lee and Charlotte.

Benacquisto is already facing a GOP primary opponent – state Rep. Trudi Williams, R-Fort Myers – in her reelection bid.

Benacquisto, elected to the Senate last year, gathered more than the requisite 1,580 signatures to qualify by petition, according to the release, a “clear indication that Senator Lizbeth Benacquisto has broad grassroots support.”

Times may be tough but there’s still plenty to be grateful for, Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater tells Floridians in a Thanksgiving video message released today.

Atwater, a North Palm Beach banker and former Senate president, says he’s thankful for his “exciting year” as the executive in charge of the state’s checkbook and he’s appreciative of the country’s military serving overseas, who “risk their lives every day so that we can enjoy the blessings that we have been afforded: our safety, our security, the ability just to spend time with our families, our friends.”

Read about Atwater’s possible face-offs with Gov. Rick Scott over state contracting and The Florida Bar over PIP after the jump.
(more…)

Gov. Rick Scott, in Jacksonville for a series of meetings, praised today’s jobs report, saying the work he and state lawmakers did earlier this year is helping to turn the state around.

The news is especially welcome as the holiday season approaches, Scott told reporters at The Jacksonville Landing overlooking the St. Johns River.

“With the holiday season starting, it’s nice to have some encouraging news. Our unemployment is continuing to drop,” Scott said.

Florida’s unemployment rate dropped slightly last month, down .3 from 10.6 percent in September to 10.3 percent and down from 12 percent in January. Palm Beach County’s jobless rate is the lowest in two years. Scott said the state has added 106,900 jobs since he took office this year.

“So it’s encouraging. It’s good it’s happening right now. We have to keep after it. We still have 900,000 people out of work but we’re headed in the right direction,” said Scott, whose pledge to bring 700,000 jobs to Florida in seven years was a cornerstone of his campaign for governor.

Floridians are more confident because the governor and legislature lowered taxes for small businesses and because Scott’s administration is more business-friendly, the governor said.

“The attitude has really changed. They know we’re going to balance their budget without raising taxes or borrowing more money. This is the first year in 20 years we didn’t borrow more money. This is the first year we paid down the debt in 20 years. We’ve been increasing the debt in this state by $1 billion a year for 20 years,” Scott said.

“I think they feel good that we’ve started the process of reducing the business tax for smaller companies. And the property tax for homeowners and for businesses. I think the other thing is the individuals I’ve appointed to these agencies…They have an attitude that they’re going to help business people solve problems if they can. If they can’t, they can’t. and they’re going to tell them quickly. Because what a business person wants, they want certainty. If you’re not going to approve something, don’t approve it. But say it up front. Don’t say it in two years or five years,” the former health care executive said.

As he often does when speaking of Florida’s job creation success, Scott mentioned his competitor-in-chief, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who apparently one-upped the Sunshine State again.

Although Florida created more jobs than Texas last month, the Lone Star State’s corporate climate was ranked top in the nation by executives. Florida ranked fourth, Scott said.

“I talked with him the other day and of course what he brings up…I told him how we beat him last month in job creation and there’s a site selector survey, did you see that, where they won that. We’re number four,” Scott said, adding that he asked his staff to find out what Florida’s ranking was last year.

As for taking credit for the state’s incremental unemployment turn-around, Scott wouldn’t bite.

“I’m always cautious about that,” he said with a grin.

Scott was supposed to have lunch with legislators from the region at the riverfront shopping plaza but the meeting was canceled, his staff said.

The West Palm Beach TV market is one of the locations for a new ad by Republican-allied Crossroads GPS that looks to drive a wedge between President Obama and former President Clinton.

The spot, titled Two Presidents, begins airing today across Florida, Colorado, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania as part of a $2.6 million buy. Crossroads was formed by Republican strategist Karl Rove and former GOP national chairman Ed Gillespie. It was the biggest outside spender in the 2010 election and plans to pour $240 million into next year’s campaigns against Obama and congressional Democrats.

 “President Obama has launched a tax attack on American jobs that hits Main Street businesses, home mortgages, school and road repair funds and even charities,” said Crossroads GPS president and CEO Steven Law. “Former President Clinton and bipartisan majorities in Congress agree that Obama’s tax hikes won’t solve the problem.  The ad aims to get Obama to stop attacking and start listening.”

 Here’s the ad: http://bit.ly/vFGGp0

UPDATE:  Clinton has come back with a statement:

“The Republican Group American Crossroads has used a quote from me in a video opposing President Obama’s jobs plan and the “Buffett Rule.”  The advertisement implies that I opposed the “Buffett Rule”.  In fact, I support both the American Jobs Act and the “Buffett Rule”.  I believe that it’s only fair to ask those of us in high-income groups — who have received the primary benefits of the last decade’s economic growth and the majority of its tax cuts as well — to contribute to solving our long term debt problem.  What I did say was that the “Buffett Rule” cannot solve the problem alone.”

 

 

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.

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.”
(more…)

A federal court has turned down Gov. Rick Scott’s request for expedited review of four of Florida’s most contentious election law changes, blaming Scott’s administration itself for delays.

Secretary of State Kurt Browning asked the three-judge panel to decide whether the four election law changes violate the federal Voting Rights Act and earlier this month asked the panel to also rule on whether the act is unconstitutional and speed up its review. Browning said a decision is needed before the Florida’s early Jan. 31 presidential preference primary or the state could be in trouble for not having the same set of elections laws in all 67 counties. Five counties – Collier, Hardee, Hendry, Hillsborough and Monroe – require federal preclearance of voting rights laws. The rest of the counties have already implemented the changes, but the five counties cannot until federal officials or a federal court approves.

In a 12-page memo issued today, the judges chastised Florida for dragging out the process by side-stepping Department of Justice review. The court said Browning waited three weeks after Scott signed the law before sending it to the Justice Department for approval, removed four provisions of the law from the department’s review after 50 days and later asked the court to expedite its review.

“Thus, the present state of affairs is, at least to an extent, a matter of Florida’s own choosing,” judges wrote. “The Court is neither willing to rush to judgment on the complex statutory and constitutional issues raised in this case nor inclined to impose unreasonable litigation burdens upon the United States and Defendant-Intervenors simply because Florida chose to schedule its primary election early in the election season.”

Browning’s proposed schedule would have given the parties only 28 days to prepare for arguments and allowed the court just two to three weeks to hold hearings and draft an opinion, the judges wrote.

“The Court finds this extraordinarily abbreviated schedule to be unworkable,” they wrote.
(more…)

UPDATE: Florida Republicans call the Dems new website “desperate.” This from Republican Party of Florida spokesman Brian Hughes: “With the most recent state reports showing RPOF outraised Florida Democrats by 5-to-1, it’s no surprise they are desperate to raise money. But this lame website demonstrates a level of desperation that is even worse than we thought possible. Instead of touting their anointed leaders, Barack Obama or Debbie Wasserman Schultz, they recycle ridiculous, cheap attacks. This tactic is more evidence why Floridians reject Democrats on Election Day.”

The Florida Democratic Party launched a new website today blaming Gov. Rick Scott and his fellow Republican lawmakers for the state’s dire economic straits.

The website accuses “Rickpublicans” of ethical lapses and causing teacher layoffs, among other things, and blasts Scott for “backsliding” on his campaign pledge to create 700,000 jobs over seven years as governor.

And the Dems remind viewers that Republicans have had a stranglehold on the state legisalture and governor’s mansion for more than a decade.

The site gives this definition of a “Rickpublican:”
[rick-puhb-li-kuh´n]
noun
1. Proper name for Florida Republicans wrought with greed and corruption who are hell-bent on selling out to the corporations and special interests while leaving Florida’s middle class families out-to-dry.

The Dems also use “Six Degrees of Separation” to link half a dozen GOP politicians – including Palm Beach County’s Adam Hanser and U.S. Rep. Allen West – to Scott, whose popularity among voters remains dim.

Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty’s approval Monday of a sharp increase in worker’s compensation insurance rates paid by businesses is rekindling a fight between potent power bases of the ruling Florida Republican Party.

McCarty’s 8.9 percent rate hike drew scorn immediately from the business lobby, Associated Industries of Florida, which blamed higher health care costs on doctors pocketing extra money from repackaging prescription drugs they give worker’s comp patients.

“Almost one third of this rate increase is due to the ever-expanding practice of physicians dispensing repackaged drugs at prices exponentially higher than the statute allows pharmacies to charge for the same drugs,” said Jose Gonzalez, an AIF vice-president.

 ”Associated Industries of Florida will diligently seek the Legislature’s intervention to close this loophole during the 2012 session and allow Florida employers to use those millions of dollars to create new jobs rather than line the pockets of those who unfairly manipulate the system for their own gain,” Gonzalez said.

Over the past two years, Florida business groups have been scuffling with the Florida Medical Association, Florida Orthopedic Society and the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees (AFSCME), a Democratic power base, over the prescription repackaging issue.

Last year, lawmakers approved a measure backed by then-Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink that would have imposed new restrictions on doctors’ repackaging, lowering costs to the state and private companies. Sink, who lost to Republican Rick Scott in last fall’s governor’s race, was among those saying the change would have saved private companies $34 million in worker’s comp costs.

But then-Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed the measure.

Among those supporting Crist’s veto in June 2010 was Automated Healthcare Solutions, a Miramar company headed by a pair of doctors, Paul Zimmerman and Gerald Glass, who later that summer gave more than $1 million to political spending committees headed by the Legislature’s then-incoming leaders, Senate President Mike Haridopolos and House Speaker Dean Cannon.

The company provides software that helps doctors dispense and manage patient prescriptions, a profitable sidelight for many doctors. Because the legislation vetoed by Crist would have imposed new restrictions on doctors’ repackaging,  it also threatened Automated Healthcare’s services.

Zimmerman, the company’s CEO, says in a statement on the company’s website that its services are designed to “enhance revenue production by allowing physicians to retain profits.”

Haridopolos and Cannon last year used the money funneled from the doctors primarily to help then-Attorney General Bill McCollum in his losing Republican primary fight with Scott.

But with McCollum out of the picture, the doctors quickly pivoted following the campaign – pouring $735,000 into the Florida Republican Party and another $145,000 to Scott’s spending committee – in an attempt to make nice with the new GOP nominee, who is now a resident of the Governor’s Mansion.

And the doctors are still giving. While the business groups looking to cut worker’s comp costs aren’t shy about giving to the ruling state GOP, Automated Healthcare Solutions also has donated $203,500 to the party so far this year, records show, as it becomes more apparent another effort to rein-in repackaging is coming. 

 

 

 

 

 

He’s not happy about it, but Gov. Rick Scott is complying with a divided Florida Supreme Court ruling that Scott overstepped his authority when he forced state agencies to stop making rules and instead submit proposed regulations to him for review.

Late Wednesday, Scott issued an executive order tweaking the way his Office of Fiscal Accountability and Regulatory Reform – created by the first-term governor shortly after taking office in January – will review proposed and existing rules to ensure they don’t create unnecessary burdens or additional costs, especially for small businesses.

The 10-page executive order also requires all state agency heads to submit proposed rules to Scott a week in advance of being made public.

(more…)

A federal judge in Miami has thrown out a lawsuit against Gov. Rick Scott and his administration over the state’s new elections laws.

U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore ruled that the ACLU, which filed the lawsuit, lacked standing, that the case was moot and that it’s too early to rule on whether the new law is unconstitutional.

Scott applauded the decision.

“I have always been confident that our elections have been conducted fairly and meet every legal requirement. Today’s decision only confirms that opinion. As we draw nearer to nationally significant elections in 2012, I will continue to ensure the integrity and fairness of Florida elections,” Scott said in a statement.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit after Secretary of State Kurt Browning began statewide implementation of election law changes, approved by lawmakers this spring and signed into law by Scott. The civil rights group accused of Browning of implementing the changes without preclearance from federal officials as required under the 1965 Voting Rights Act for five Florida counties.

But since filing the lawsuit, the U.S. Department of Justice has signed off on all but four of the most controversial portions of the elections law. Browning is instead seeking approval from a three-judge panel in Washington, D.C., on those sections. The changes yet to be approved would reduce the number of early voting days, set new rules for groups conducting voter registration drives, require voters changing out-of-county addresses at the polls to cast provisional ballots and make it more difficult to get citizen initiatives on the ballot. Critics object the changes are intended to keep low-income, minority and college student voters – all of whom helped President Obama sweep into the White House three years ago – from casting ballots next November.

The ACLU had argued that because Florida law requires elections laws to go into effect statewide, the elections law should be put on hold until the preclearance is attained for the five Florida counties – Collier,Hardee, Hendry, Hillsborough and Monroe counties.

But Moore ruled Tuesday that the ACLU lacked standing because it had not been harmed by the new law. And even though the Florida League of Women Voters has stopped doing voter registration drives, nothing in the law forced them to drop the activity, Moore found.

“The Court cannot locate in the pleadings any harm or any threat of actual or imminent harm as required for constitutional standing,” Moore wrote in his dismissal.
(more…)

Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning today asked a court to do away with federal approval of changes to the state’s elections laws in five counties under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, alleging that the that part of the Act is unconstitutional.

Browning also asked a three-judge federal court panel in Washington to expedite its review of four election law changes approved by lawmakers this spring and signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott. Browning went to the court in July for approval after initially submitting the new laws to the U.S. Department of Justice for “preclearance,” required for under federal law for five counties – Hendry, Collier, Hardee, Hillsborough and Monroe – with a history of racial discrimination against voters.

The federal law covers the Florida counties as well as six other southern states – Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana,
Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia – Alaska, and counties in North Carolina, Arizona, Hawaii, and Idaho.

Under changes to the Voting Rights Act approved by Congress in 1972, the preclearance is required for jurisdictions in which at the time less than 50 percent of the voting-age citizens were registered to vote or voted in the presidential election, had a non-English-speaking population of more than five percent, and provided voting materials only in English.

“I am hopeful the federal court will come to a quick resolution and approve the remaining provisions of our preclearance submission as nondiscriminatory,” Browning said in a statement. “However, I am frustrated that the reason we are still waiting to implement Florida law in five counties is because of an arbitrary and irrational coverage formula based on data from 40 years ago that takes no account of current conditions.”

All changes to the state’s new elections laws must be approved by the Justice Department or by a federal court, a rare move according to elections experts.

Browning asked the court to rule on the new elections laws before the end of the year. If not, that could pose problems for Floridians voting in the GOP primary now slated for Jan. 31 because the five counties would not be operating under the same laws as the rest of the state. State law requires that voting laws be uniform statewide.

Instead of getting federal approval for the four most controversial portions of the state’s new elections laws, Browning went to court, making U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder a defendant in the case.

Florida is one of more than a dozen states that passed elections laws this spring that critics object are aimed at keeping low-income, minority and college-student voters – who typically vote for Democrats and helped President Obama win the 2008 presidential election – away from the polls.

The ACLU and others are challenging the new elections laws in federal court in Miami.

Senate President Mike Haridopolos defended lawmakers’ use of the budget to privatize an 18-county region from Polk County to the Florida Keys, said there would be a floor vote on an expansion of gambling and bragged about the state’s job growth in a Q-and-A with reporters this afternoon.

The Merritt Island Republican provided a detailed document to reporters as proof that talks about the nation’s largest prison privatization effort – now on hold after a Tallahassee circuit judge’s ruling that the way the legislature went about it was unconstitutional – had taken place in committees since January and not snuck into the budget at the last minute, as he said unnamed critics have implied. Although privatization was discussed at the meetings, lawmakers did not vote on or release details of any prison privatization plan until it was included in the state budget.

“I wanted to be very clear for those people who had concerns that this was something we stuck in late. This was addressed early and often and people all saw it coming both in the House and the Senate,” Haridopolos said.

The Florida Police Benevolent Association, the union that represents correctional workers, sued Gov. Rick Scott’s administration over the privatization, put by lawmakers into the budget in proviso language and signed into law by Scott this summer. Tallahassee Circuit Judge Jackie Fulford agreed with the union that the use of the proviso language to establish state policy was unconstitutional.

Scott has not yet decided whether to appeal but has said the privatization will happen eventually. And Haridopolos on Thursday said that the privatization will go forward, even if lawmakers have to pass a stand-alone bill when they reconvene in January. The proposal requires that the privatization of 29 prisons in the region cost at least 7 percent less than what the state currently spends – an estimated $22 million annual savings.

“I think the policy’s a good policy. We’re going to face another massive budget shortfall this year. And we’re going to spend more money on prisons and if we do we’ll spend less on education and health care,” Haridopolos said. “I guess other people have other priorities. My priority is to spend less on prisons.”

(more…)

Although he supports prison privatization and is committed to a broad expansion of it in Florida, Gov. Rick Scott said he disapproves of the legislature’s use of the state budget to establish policy – exactly how lawmakers ordered the privatization this spring.

“I should have the power to veto things that are major policy changes. I got elected as governor to mamke decisions on behalf of all the citizens of the state and to watch how all the money was spent. I ran a whole campaign on accountability,” Scott told reporters after Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting.

Scott appeared to be siding with a Tallahassee judge who ruled last week that the legilsature’s inclusion of the prison privatization effort in the state budget was unconstitutional.

In her ruling against Scott’s administration last week, Tallahassee Circuit Judge Jackie Fulford wrote that, if the legislature wanted to expand the prison privatization, it “must do so by general law, rather than ‘using the hidden recesses of the General Appropriations Act.’”

Scott said he hasn’t decided yet whether to appeal Fulford’s ruling, but was confident the 18-county region privatization of 29 prisons ordered by lawmakers would eventually take place.

“We’re going to do prison privatization in the state as long as we save money. I believe that we’re going to save a lot of money,” he said. During his campaign for governor, Scott said he wanted to slash prison spending by $1 billion – about half of DOC’s total budget.

Still, Scott said he’d like it if lawmakers restrict the budget to spending matters.

“That would be nice,” he said.

UPDATE: Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group spokesman Michael Shore would not respond to specific questions about Gov. Rick Scott’s pitch to bring the CME to the Sunshine State. Scott told reporters today the CME has narrowed down its search to Florida and Texas. Duffy’s threatening to flee Illinois because lawmakers there hiked corporate income taxes earlier this year.

“We are considering proposals from several states,” Shore said.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s been wooing the Chicago Mercantile Exchange since shortly after he took office. And he’s more eager than ever to get the 2,000 jobs a relocation of the CME would bring.

Scott said this morning Florida and Texas are considered the top two contenders if CME Chairman Terry Duffy follows through on his threat to move the exchange out of the state after Illinois lawmakers raised the corporate tax rate from 4.8 percent to 7 percent.

“Everybody call the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, get them to move those 2,000 jobs to Florida,” Scott told reporters during a Q-and-A session after this morning’s Cabinet meeting.

Scott believes he’s competing with his rival-in-chief – Texas Gov. Rick Perry – for the CME relo. But other news reports indicate that Duffy is also in talks with Illinois officials eager to keep the exchange at home.

Scott is “on the hunt” for new jobs, he said Tuesday, adding he’s optimistic about Florida’s chances of nailing the CME jobs. He appeared to have unleashed his inner salesman on Duffy in a recent conversation.

When asked what he told Duffy, here’s what Scott said:

“My pitch is, first off we have no personal income tax and we’re in the process of phasing out our business tax. I can tell you that if you have any issues with state regulation, I’ll at least respond. I can’t guarantee you the answer you want, but I can get you an answer. If you have problems, I’ll see if I can solve the problem. If I can’t, I can’t make any guarantees. But let me tell you. I will show up to try to solve problems. That’s all I’ve ever done in business. That’s all I’ve ever done with my life. And that’s pretty important to business people because their experience with a lot of government is they just can’t get an answer. A no is OK. But give me a darn answer.”

Scott said he’s spoken directly with Duffy and pledged to do all he could to lure the CME to the state. Two thousand new jobs would be a significant boost for Scott, who’s promised to create 700,000 jobs in seven years in Florida. About 80,000 new jobs have been added in Florida since the first-term governor took office in January.