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.

Gov. Rick Scott invoked history to prove the significance of Florida’s GOP presidential straw poll this weekend in Orlando.

Two of the winners of the Sunshine State’s three GOP straw polls in the past three decades went on to become president and the third became the party nominee, Scott pointed out to reporters early Wednesday afternoon.

Ronald Reagan, who won the straw poll in 1979, and George H.W. Bush, who won in 1987, both went on to the White House. In 1995, Bob Dole was the winner and became the nominee but was defeated by Bill Clinton in the general election.

“So there’s only been three straw polls and in each time the winner has been the Republican nominee and two out of three times has been the winner of the presidency. So this is significant,” Scott said.

Scott said again Wednesday that he does not currently plan to endorse one of the GOP contenders before Florida’s primary – but he left the door open.

“I might change my mind. But right now I don’t’ have a plan (to endorse),” he said.

And he repeated his contention that the country’s next president will be the candidate with the best jobs plan.

“I’d like them to have to explain to the public about what their plan is for job creation. Every candidate has different things they have to explain but I think the winner’s going to be, for the presidency next year, not just for the primary in Florida, is job creation,” said Scott, whose campaign for governor focused on creating 700,000 jobs in seven years. “Who’s got the right plan. It’s the biggest problem we have in the country. I think there’s secondary issues, you know balance the budget, things like that. But the biggest issue is jobs. It is a real problem. People are scared to death about jobs right now.”

Days after a Miami judge ruled against a pair of Florida members of Congress, leaders of the so-called Fair Districts campaign Wednesday called on House Speaker Dean Cannon to abandon financing any further challenges to the voter-approved standard for drawing congressional district lines.

“We believe that it is time for the Florida Legislature to quit using taxpayer money to battle its own constituents,” Dan Gelber, a former Democratic state senator wrote on behalf of Fair Districts supporters. “Your efforts in this case are nothing more than an ill-advised attempt to obstruct a reform the people overwhelmingly supported.

“Surely, given the state’s economic challenges, there are better uses for taxpayer dollars,” Gelber concluded.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro dismissed the lawsuit by U.S. Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Miami Republican, and Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville, who sought to have Amendment 6 declared unconstitutional. The House had intervened in the case, but Cannon insisted it was only because the Legislature would have to implement whatever ruling came out of the court.

Now that the court effectively ended the legal challenge, the NAACP, League of Women Voters, and other backers of the Fair Districts effort — mostly Democratic-allied organizations — said the Republican speaker ought to also call off the lawyers.

A Cannon spokeswoman, Katie Betta, said the speaker was still reviewing the judge’s order and hadn’t yet determined the House’s next step.

Sen. Joe Negron, the Stuart Republican whose district includes parts of Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast, was named “legislator of  the year,” by the Florida branch of Americans for Prosperty, the conservative advocacy organization.

Negron shared the title with Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood, both of whom were feted for their efforts to tilt the state Legislature further to the right. AFP, which has emerged as a guide and financial backer of the tea party movement, was founded by conservative billionaire energy titans, David and Charles Koch.

Seventy-nine legislators — all Republicans – received A+ scores from the group. Every Democrat drew a failing grade — except Rep. Leonard Bembry, D-Greenville, who was given a D by AFP.

Slade O’Brien, AFP’s Palm Beach County-based state director, said Negron was pivotal in the Legislature’s efforts to revamp Medicaid, while also steering the state toward reducing the size of government and cutting taxes.

Democrats drawing lousy marks, “show hostility towards the free market and protecting the individual liberties on which our country was founded,” O’Brien said.

Once they were colleagues, he as owner and she as CEO of Solantic Walk-In Urgent Care, the multi-million-dollar clinic chain.

On Tuesday, Rick Scott and Karen Bowling, were brought together again, this time as a pair of public officials as the state’s Republican governor named his former top administrator to the board of trustees at Florida State College in Jacksonville.

Bowling was CEO at Solantic for the duration of Scott’s ownership of the company, which he had tranferred to his wife, Ann, shortly before taking office in January. Scott sold the company earlier this summer for an undisclosed amount — but purported to be around $50 million — to its minority shareholder, private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe of New York.

Scott had poured about $28 million of his own money into Solantic’s early founding. He and Bowling grew the firm to 32 clinics statewide, including two in Palm Beach County.

But Scott’s ownership also drew heat when his health care policies intersected with Solantic’s business model. He pushed — but later hit pause — on a plan to require drug-testing for state employees, while also signing into law a Medicaid overhaul that would put almost 3 million low-income, elderly and disabled Floridians into managed care.

One of Gov. Rick Scott’s closest advisors wanted to keep the newly-elected governor out of meetings about the state budget, a recently released batch of e-mails from Scott’s transition team revealed.

Mary Anne Carter – one of Scott’s two key players in his transition – tried to keep Scott out of preliminary meeting with the Office of Policy and Budget staff in an attempt to insulate him.

Donna Arduin, a long-time budget director for several governors including Jeb Bush, served as Scott’s budget advisor during his campaign and transition. She was trying to set up a meeting with Scott and the budget staff to give the newly elected governor and his aides an inside look at how the budget is crafted.

But writing to Arduin on Dec. 15, Carter (who calls Scott “RLS” in her messages) asked, “Are we not better off going through it without RLS and then determine what decisions need to be made? If there are going to be areas where policy and politics collide, I think it’s best to know ahead of time and not have him involved in initial conversations.”

Arduin didn’t back down.

“You will see how budget meetings go by observing tomorrow,” Arduin wrote. “The meetings are the governor meeting with his opb staff and making decisions.”

The politically-savvy Arduin then sent Susie Wiles, Scott’s campaign manager who later became his legislative liaison, a more pointed note: “Keep the governor out of his budget decisions because we don’t want him involved in political decisions….really??!!!”

“This process is beyond amazing to me,” Wiles, who has since left Scott’s administration, responded. “I am praying hard for Rick.”

The state’s five water management districts have slashed their budgets by more than $700 million – about 40 percent – but Gov. Rick Scott, who initiated the cuts, wants more.

After the water management districts fired employees, cut benefits and put the brakes on land purchases, Scott still wants another $2.4 million in paycuts and benefit reductions.

Scott, however, signed off on the South Florida Water Management District’s $571 million budget – more than 47 percent than the current year’s – without asking for further cuts.

The agency saved more than $100 million by doing away with more than 270 jobs, cutting benefits, canceling contracts and grounding flight operations.

Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Herschel Vinyard announced the cuts at a press conference this morning, flanked by representatives of each of the state’s five water management districts.

Gov. Rick Scott ordered the cuts to force the districts to focus on their “core mission resonsibilities” of water supply, flood protection, water quality and natural system protection, Vinyard said.

The revised budgets are a “critical first step in ensuring the water management districts focus on their core environmental mission,” he added.

The shrunken spending by the districts goes far beyond the $210 million in cuts lawmakers ordered through property tax reductions.

South Florida Water Management District executive director Melissa Meeker, who joined Vinyard this morning, said her agency remains committed to Everglades cleanup and other projects underway.

“You will not see a bump in the road from the South Water Management District,” she said.

But environmentalists complained that the cuts will undercut the state’s commitment to protecting Florida waters.
“The deep cuts to the state’s water management districts undermine years of progress in protecting Florida’s water resources,” Audubon of Florida executive director Eric Draper said in a statement.”The cuts serve only the purpose of allowing politicians to claim tax cuts. The agencies involved and the Governor are not being completely candid in telling the public how these cuts will affect water supply, environmental protection and Everglades restoration.”

U.S. Rep. Allen West has officially shut the door on a U.S. Senate run and will instead seek reelection to his current seat, West said in a statement issued today.

The outspoken West, a tea party idol from Plantation and the only Republican in the Congressional Black Caucus, recently made news when he called himself a modern-day Harriet Tubman during an interview with FoxNews’ Bill O’Reilly.

“Over the last several weeks, numerous leaders of the Florida Republican Party, including current and past elected officials, have spoken to me about the race for the United States Senate. Out of respect, I was willing to listen,” West said in the release.

“I have been given one of the highest honors to serve in the House of Representatives and I will continue to serve the citizens in that capacity. I will not seek the Republican nomination for the United States Senate in 2012. With regard to my future, the only goal I have is to do my very best to represent the constituents of the Congressional District and to restore the exceptionalism of our nation.”

Last week, West told reporters the door was open “a crack” to the possibility that he would run, saying it would be disrespectful to supporters to “slam the door in their face.”

Florida Democrats teed-off on Republican Gov. Rick Scott on Friday over July unemployment numbers, which showed the state losing 22,100 jobs that month.

The statewide  jobless rate held steady at 10.7 percent in July from a month earlier. In Palm Beach County, unemployment climbed to 11.2 percent that month, up from 11 percent in June.

Jobs, meanwhile, vanished.

Scott has been boasting of the state’s job creation levels, which had climbed by 85,500 positions since he took office in January. But with July’s drop, that level is down to 64,300 jobs, according to the state’s Agency for Workforce Innovation.

 Earlier this week, he told the Orlando Sentinel editorial board that he was well on his way to making good on his campaign promise of creating 700,000 jobs in seven years — even though he also made it clear to the paper that he was casting his pledge differently than last fall. 

Last fall, Scott promised to add the 700,000 positions on top of what economists forecast as a roughly 1 million additional jobs that will come with Florida’s population growth. Now, Scott said he’s counting every job toward his goal.

But Friday, he had to get out the eraser with July’s shrinkage.

Florida Democratic Party executive director Scott Arceneaux said the decline was “another indication that Rick Scott and the Republicans care more about promoting their Tea Party agenda then creating the jobs they promised and Floridians need.”