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.”

Andrew Spark, one of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s assistants in her Tampa office, abruptly resigned Thursday – a day after releasing a 16-page memo harshly criticizing his boss’s administration.

Spark, an assistant state attorney general in the Tampa office of economic crimes, said his memo was motivated by the forced resignations of former state foreclosure investigators June Clarkson and Theresa Edwards.

Spark’s concerns include former Economic Crimes Division Director Mary Leontakianakos taking a job in June with the Law Offices of Marshall C. Watson – a firm that paid $2 million in March to settle a state investigation into its foreclosure practices. Leontakianakos resigned her director’s job in December with an effective date of Jan. 3.

Spark also mentions the resignation of former Deputy Attorney General Joe Jacquot, who went to work for Lender Processing Services – another company under investigation by the state – and concerns he has about his investigations of two companies that serve foreclosure summonses to home owners.

“The people of the State of Florida are entitled to fair and honest government, independent of personal connections and powerful interests,” wrote Spark, who has worked for the attorney general for about seven years.

After Spark’s resignation, Bondi said he was the subject of an ongoing investigation for using the services of a business he was investigating.

“It is exceptionally troubling for the people of Florida that Spark’s memo disclosed information pertaining to active investigations into foreclosure-related businesses that could compromise those cases,” Bondi said.

Read The Palm Beach Post writer Kimberly Miller’s story here.

After slashing government jobs by more than 1,000, Gov. Rick Scott is spending nearly $400,000 a year on “special assistants” around the state to do advance work before the governor comes to town.

The community liaison jobs aren’t new – governors at least as far back as the late Lawton Chiles relied on them to keep apprised of goings-on around the state.

But Scott’s latest appointment is Robin Stublen, a former tea party activist who supported Scott in his campaign for governor. Stublen, whose annual salary is $70,000, came on board as a “deputy director of public liaison” on Aug. 1, Scott’s spokesman Lane Wright said. Stublen is one of two “public liaison” deputy directors who oversee five other workers located around the state and whose salaries range from $45,000 to $70,000. In all, the seven workers earn $395,000 a year.

Like Stublen, several of the special assistants served on Scott’s campaign team doing advance work similar to what they are doing now on the state payroll. Scott’s staff insists that no extra money is being spent on the special assistants but that the jobs are part of a reorganization of the executive office.

The aides’ job is to ensure “we hear from individuals around the state, about what their issues are,” Scott told reporters at the mansion today.

Scott acknowledged that Stublen helped him during last year’s Republican primary for governor.

“Robin, I’ve known for a while,” Scott said. “He’s from Charlotte County. And I know he was very active in the tea party down there.”

When told Stublen was earning $70,000, Scott added, laughing, “He better do a very good job.”

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is backing George LeMieux in a heated GOP primary for U.S. Senate.

Barbour, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee who briefly considered running in the 2012 presidential race, called LeMieux a “solid conservative” in a statement released this morning by LeMieux’s campaign.

“I am honored to earn the support of a principled conservative like Haley Barbour. When Governor Barbour was RNC Chairman, he helped orchestrate the Republican Revolution in 1994 that built the type of conservative majorities we need to turn our country around,” LeMieux said in the release. “More importantly, from his leadership during hurricane Katrina to his work passing key pro-life legislation, Governor Barbour is a case study in effective conservative governance.”

LeMieux is struggling to shake off his ties to Gov. Charlie Crist, who appointed LeMieux to replace former U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez when he resigned mid-term. LeMieux, a one-time close ally to Crist whom the former governor called “The Maestro,” did not seek reelection to the seat, which now-U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio won after Crist quit the GOP and ran against him as an independent.

LeMieux will face off in the primary against Delray Beach’s Adam Hasner, a former state House member who also served as the chamber’s majority leader.

Wealthy Delray Beacher Nick Loeb is toying with entrée into the race but is waiting until gal pal Sofia Vergara, star of Modern Family, gets past the Emmy Awards next month. Chris Ruddy, another Palm Beacher and CEO of the influential West Palm Beach-based conservative publication NewsMax, has ruled out getting into the candidate fray.

A Quinnipiac University poll last week showed that 53 percent of Republican voters remain undecided in the Senate primary but found Plant City tree farmer and retired Army Reserve Col. Mike McCalister leading the current four-candidate field with a meager 15 percent.

Behind McCalister in the poll were both LeMieux, with 12 percent, and Hasner, with 6 percent. Former Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse CEO Craig Miller weighed in with 8 percent support.

Is Rick Scott the most hated nice guy in Florida?

The Republican governor has been caricatured as Voldemort, Skeletor and worse. A bumper sticker seen recently in Tallahassee read “Rick Scott: The Anti-Christ.”

Only 35 percent of Florida voters approve of how he’s doing his job and slightly less like him as a person, according to poll results released last week. Not even a majority of Republicans said they liked him as a person, although 60 percent of them said they liked his policies.

Yet, those who meet him say that, one-on-one, he’s unfailingly polite and soft-spoken. He cracks jokes and asks about their families and their health.

His staff is convinced that if Floridians got to know their boss better, they would like him, even if they don’t agree with his policies.

Read the full story here.

The Florida Commission on Ethics recently found probable cause to believe that former Democratic state Rep. Kevin Rader of Delray Beach violated disclosure laws by failing to list his interest in Advanced Insurance Underwriters, LLC, on his 2009 disclosure form.

The complaint was filed against Rader during the waning days of his unsuccessful 2010 campaign for state Senate against Republican Lizbeth Benacquisto.

Rader is contesting the Ethics Commission finding. Among his arguments is the contention that a limited liability company or LLC is not a “business entity” as described in Florida statutes.

Read about it in this week’s Politics column (last item), where you’ll also read about NewsMax CEO Chris Ruddy‘s take on the GOP Senate primary and Clerk ‘n’ Comptroller Sharon Bock‘s take on county commissioners.

From The Palm Beach Post‘s Kimberly Miller:

Two Democratic state lawmakers seeking federal assistance to investigate the ouster of state foreclosure fraud investigators have expanded their public records request of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office.

Sen. Eleanor Sobel, D-Hollywood, and Rep. Darren Soto, D-Orlando, say the request is in response to information they received about high-level attorney general lawyer Joe Jacquot going to work for Lender Processing Services, or LPS, as well as a former general counsel for Gov. Rick Scott’s former health care company, Solantic.

The Jacksonville-based company is under investigation by the attorney general’s office for its foreclosure-related practices. Shortly after Jacquot left Bondi’s office and went to work for LPS, Bondi fired two foreclosure fraud investigators.

“A number of troubling questions have come to our attention involving past and current employees of the Attorney General’s office and at least one mortgage processing company currently under investigation,” the two lawmakers wrote in a press release today. “In particular, we are especially concerned with the sudden departure to Lender Processing Services of your former special counsel, Joe Jacquot, and the subsequent dismissal of two apparently top notch foreclosure fraud attorneys _ June Clarkson and Theresa Edwards.”

Lender Processing Services is a former subsidiary of Fidelity National Financial. Both companies gave big donations _ to both Republicans and Democrats _ during the 2010 general election.

The Republican Party of Florida received about $19,000 from Fidelity, while the Democratic Party picked up $6,000. Fidelity also gave $2,000 to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink, and $1,500 to winner Rick Scott.

LPS gave $36,500 to the Republican party and an additional $12,500 to the Democratic party.

Read Kimberly Miller’s blog here.

After shunning the state’s editorial boards during his run for governor last fall, Rick Scott’s chill toward the media was palpable at his first news conference in January.

But Tuesday — a day after he invited reporters for coffee and donuts in his office — the suddenly snuggly chief executive said he was looking to go even further.  Scott said he’s looking to spend a “workday” as a reporter, apparently accepting an invite from Miami Herald Bureau Chief Mary Ellen Klas to shadow her on duty.

“I like newspapers,” said Scott, adding that he once thought about buying a newspaper company. “I like reading the paper newspaper.”

Scott’s metamorphosis is remarkable, but also perhaps explainable. New chief-of-staff Steve MacNamara has been suggesting a fresh direction for the governor, whose first seven months in office have seen his popularity ratings plummet among Floridians.

Scott’s first “workday,” is slated for tomorrow in Tampa, when he will work at a donut shop similar to one he and his mother opened years ago in Kansas City.

Borrowing the schtick from former Democratic governor and later U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, Scott announced the move Monday night, saying he would work cleaning phone booths, delivering newspapers, and selling groceries in coming months — jobs that he formerly held on his Horatio Alger climb uphill.

But Scott set a mean deadline for doing some newspaper reporting. He said Tuesday it could become his second workday.

Nancy Argenziano, a former chairwoman of the Public Service Commission and lifelong Republican, is running against incumbent freshman U.S. Rep. Steve Southerland – as a Democrat. Southerland, a Panama City Republican, ousted Congressional veteran Allen Boyd, a Democrat, from his North Florida District 2 seat in November.

Argenziano, who earned a reputation as a maverick during her tenure in both the state House and Senate, will formally enter the race for the North Florida Congressional seat within two weeks, Argenziano said.

Argenziano sent a letter to supporters declaring her intention to run as a Democrat, saying she needs at least $200,000 to be taken seriously as a candidate and to get the Democratic National Congressional Committee to throw some money her way.

Argenziano has been an outspoken critic of GOP leaders as a legislator and as a utility regulator, appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist, and unleashed her sharp tongue in her message to supporters, explaining why she is switching parties. Crist also abandoned the GOP in a failing bid as an independent against now-U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio.

“Current Republican leaders have neither patience with nor allowance for honest elected officials, and they demand that members of the various legislatures – who, after all, have sworn to uphold the Constitution – instead just follow the hijacked party line and shut up,” Argenziano wrote. “While I am of the opinion that Americans are not ready to vote in a third party, greater parity of the two parties in state legislatures would allow for far better public policy. When one party – or one intransigent, ideological arm of a party – controls governmental and political policy, as in Florida, it breeds a dangerous hubris and promotes the worst kind of extremism and acceptance of those whose public service is merely a well paid hobby.”

More than half a year into his administration, Gov. Rick Scott hosted his first coffee-and-doughnuts session with Capitol reporters and, in a reversal of his previous policy, will start making the rounds of the state’s newspaper editorial boards.

Scott, who never ran for public office before last year, refused to meet with the editorial writers during his campaign for governor.

Scott’s new strategy comes after a recent shake-up in his inner office in which Tallahassee political veteran Steve MacNamara replaced Mary Anne Carter, a relative unknown in Florida, as Scott’s chief of staff.

Since MacNamara came on board late last month, Scott appeared at an annual meeting of newspaper executives and had an off-the-record chat with The Miami Herald ed board.

In another signal of détente with the media, Scott hosted a coffee-and-doughnuts session with Capitol reporters this morning, his first since taking office in January.

MacNamara explained the new approach.

“His mother and my mother do the same thing every morning,” MacNamara said. “Go outside and get the newspaper.”

Tea party icon Scott spends a slice of nearly every morning appearing on predominantly conservative radio talk shows, speaking to his base.

But MacNamara said the governor has realized he’s got to spread his message around.

“He’s either going to be defined by newspapers or he’s going to define himself,” MacNamara said.

His first sit-down with an editorial board will be with The Tallahassee Democrat, the governor’s new hometown paper, MacNamara said.

Gov. Rick Scott won’t be in Houston next week for Texas Gov. Rick Perry‘s prayer event but Florida’s executive-in-chief will make an appearance – on tape.

Scott told reporters on Saturday that he’ll virtually show up for his top rival Perry, who’s considering a bid for president in an already-crowded GOP field.

“I’m not going. I’m sending a short video, just a two or three minute video,” Scott said, adding that he met with Perry within the past two weeks. “I think he thinks it’s going to be a good event so good for him.”

On Thursday, a federal judge issued a ruling giving Perry the go-ahead to participate in The Response, a day of prayer and fasting at Houston’s Reliant Stadium on Saturday. A group of atheists had sued Perry, arguing that the event violated the separation of church and state, but the judge threw out the case, ruling that the group had no standing.

Perry invited other Republican governors, including Scott, to join him in the prayer day but thus far appears to be going solo.

Scott frequently looks to Lone Star state policies as a guide for what Florida should be doing to limit business regulation and encourage job growth. Recently, Scott put his rival on notice after Chief Executive magazine ranked Texas first and Florida third in the nation for doing business.

Scott stopped short of endorsing Perry for president but elaborated on who he thinks will win not only the GOP primary but the general election. His description outlines a candidate who sounds a lot Florida’s self-proclaimed jobs governor, who campaigned on a pledge of bringing 700,000 jobs to the Sunshine State and whose middle name could be construed “jobs, jobs, jobs.”
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Expectant grandfather Gov. Rick Scott, Florida’s self-proclaimed jobs governor, shored up his conservative base Saturday with a ceremonial bill signing of four anti-abortion measures that are already law and went into effect nearly a month ago.

Scott, whose daughter Allison Guimard is five months pregnant with what will be his first grandchild, highlighted a controversial law requiring women to have ultrasounds and opt out of hearing the procedure’s details before getting an abortion. Scott’s predecessor Charlie Crist vetoed a similar bill last year.

“These bills are historic,” Scott told a crowd that included leaders from the Florida Baptist Convention, the Florida Catholic Conference and the Florida Family Policy Council. “It’s the right thing to be doing.”

On the campaign trail and since taking office, Scott has focused his attention on bringing jobs to the state where unemployment remains in the double digits and above the national average. Florida’s unemployment rate has dropped 1.4 percent since the former health care executive took office in January.

But on Saturday at the governor’s mansion, Scott flourished his social conservative side, making it clear that the intent of the measures is to discourage women from having abortions.

“I hope this helps make sure this doesn’t happen in the future,” he said.
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Secretary of State Kurt Browning has asked a federal court to approve Florida’s new election law, sidestepping the U.S. Justice Department on the most controversial portions of the voting overhaul approved by the GOP-dominated legislature in May and signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott.

Critics of the new law say it is designed to make registering to vote and casting ballots more difficult for minorities and low-income voters, who typically vote Democratic. The ACLU and other groups are currently challenging the new law in federal court in Miami. Scott, who re-appointed Browning, last week asked the judge in that case to remove him from the lawsuit. Jesse Jackson held rallies in Florida this week protesting the new law.

On Friday, Browning withdrew four portions of the law – including those currently being challenged in federal court – from the preclearance application. Federal approval is required for five Florida counties under the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

In a press release, Browning hinted that the state wouldn’t get a fair evaluation from the Democratic president’s administration.

“The purpose of filing in the federal district court is to ensure that the changes to Florida’s election law are judged on their merits by eliminating the risk of a ruling impacted by outside influence,” Browning said in the release. “Since the passage of HB 1355, we have seen misinformation surrounding the bill increase. By asking a court to rule on certain aspects of the bill, we are assured of a neutral evaluation based on the facts.”

Browning had the option of submitting the new law to the Justice Department, the usual method of getting new election laws approved, or a three-judge panel. He originally asked for federal preclearance from Justice officials in June.
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