Gov. Rick Scott signed into law a $74.1 billion state budget for the year beginning July 1 — vetoing $368 million Monday from the proposal approved by lawmakers earlier this month.

Erased with the vetoes was $6.5 million sought by Palm Beach State College for a new campus in Loxahatchee Groves — the third time such funding has been wiped out by a Florida governor. Another $325,000 in projects along the Lake Worth Lagoon sought by Palm Beach County officials also was vetoed.

Sheriff Ric Bradshaw also lost $1 million he had sought to form a special unit to head off potential violence by what law enforcement considered unstable residents.

In statewide issues, Scott vetoed a 3 percent tuition increase proposed for college and university students — a hike the governor has criticized for months. Meeting with reporters after signing the spending plan, Scott touted the budget’s additional $1 billion for public schools, including $480 million for teacher pay raises.

He also laid out his rationale for reviewing spending items in the budget.

“One, is it going to help our families get more jobs? Two, will it help improve our education system in our state? And three, will it help make government more efficient so we keep the cost of living low in our state?” Scott said.

Singling out the tuition increase, Scott said, “I worry about the cost of higher education…some people think I shouldn’t get involved in that.”

But he added, “I am absolutely committed to keeping tuition low. This is not a political decision, this is a decision for Florida families.”

The state budget for 2013-14 will $4.1 billion bigger than the one that expires June 30, a roughly 6 percent increase.

Along with the $1 billion boost for public school spending; pay raises and bonuses for 160,000 state workers and higher education employees are included for the first time in seven years. Lawmakers also included $2.8 billion in budget reserves, that will swell now to more than $3 billion with the $368 million in vetoes.

In Palm Beach County, lawmakers and county officials had been optimistic that Scott would allow several hometown spending items become law. Instead, Scott swept through most of the county’s take-home list.

County officials lost $1 million budgeted for Glades Utility Authority pipeline improvements, $75,000 for the masterplan for Torry Island, a Lake Okeechobee marina that also was vetoed last year by Scott. Also lost was $200,000 for shoreline work in Lake Park and $1 million for two road projects in Riviera Beach.

Among the bigger single-item vetoes was $14 million for a new science, technology, engineering and math building at Gulf Coast State College in the home district of Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville.

Gaetz was generally stoic.

“While many will disagree with some of Gov. Scott’s line item vetoes, that is his constitutional role as chief executive,” Gaetz said. “The next budget and policy cycle begins at sunrise tomorrow and we in the Senate look forward to our role as partners with the House…and the governor.”

 

Gov. Rick Scott is scheduled to sign the state budget into law shortly after noon today, likely trimming back the $74.5 billion spending plan approved by lawmakers with a few million dollars worth of vetoes.

A 3 percent tuition hike for college and university students already looks doomed. Scott’s staff has leaked to a wire service details about the governor’s intention to veto the increase — which he has signaled for months.

In Palm Beach County, much of the focus is on the fate of $6.5 million approved for Palm Beach State College to begin work on a new Loxahatchee Groves campus. Scott vetoed money for the western campus two years ago — as did former Gov. Charlie Crist before him. But college officials hope the third time proves the charm for the campus cash.

PBSC last fall spent $4.5 million finalizing the purchase of land for the new site. Supporters think that could make a difference when it comes to dodging the governor’s veto pen.

“Hopefully, this is the year,” PBSC spokeswoman Grace Truman told the Palm Beach Post last week.

Scott vetoed $142.7 million in spending last year, a year after he set a record by vetoing $615 million just months after taking office. The state budget year begins July 1.

The ever-acerbic Senate President Don Gaetz spared no venom for Florida TaxWatch in a response to the business-backed group’s budget “turkey” list released earlier today.

The self-proclaimed government watchdog’s method of targeting the turkeys – which include $14 million for a Gulf Coast State College Panama City campus – that haven’t been approved by state agencies “is built on the unconstitutional perversion” that Gaetz, R-Niceville, said in a statement.

“This is an arrogance of the elite who spend too much time in Tallahassee and Washington listening to the echoes of their own invented wisdom and thinking they’re hearing the voice of God,” Gaetz went on.

Read Gaetz’s rant after the jump.
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While not exactly rivaling Times Square on New Year’s Eve, anticipation is mounting across Florida over Gov. Rick Scott’s pending action on the state’s $74.5 billion budget.

Scott is heading to Chile next week for a trade mission. While Scott has until May 24 to issue vetoes and sign the spending plan into law, speculation is centered on Scott likely acting this week.

In Palm Beach County and across Florida, advocates are making a final defense of hometown items included in the budget. The budget, approved by lawmakers earlier this month, is for the year beginning July 1.

“We’ve got a lot of people working on it,” Todd Bonlarron, the county’s lobbyist, said Tuesday. “In some cases, we’re asking the governor’s office to look at some of these issues with a fresh set of eyes.”

A similar tactic is being used by Palm Beach State College, which is eager to have Scott endorse $6.5 million in state funding for the school’s Loxahatchee Groves campus.

PBSC officials have been in this spot before. Money for the new, western campus has been twice vetoed — once by former Gov. Charlie Crist and also two years ago by Scott.

But PBSC last fall spent $4.5 million finalizing the purchase of land for the new site. Supporters think that could make a difference when it comes to dodging the governor’s veto pen.

“Some of our board members have been trying to talk it up to the governor and his staff,” said Grace Truman, a PBSC spokeswoman. “Hopefully, this is the year.”

Bonlarron said the county has similar hopes for its projects. Scott last year vetoed $50,000 state lawmakers included for the county to develop a master plan for the Torry Island marina on Lake Okeechobee. It’s back this year, at $75,000.

Another $1 million in the budget is set to help the county make pipeline repairs for the Glades Utility Authority. While three projects in the financially-strapped Belle Glade-area have been vetoed by Scott in the past two years, Bonlarron said, “the county is still committed to seeking help.”

Also likely to draw a close look from the governor is $1 million budgeted for Sheriff Ric Bradshaw’s “violence prevention” unit.

Bradshaw said the program can help law enforcement intercede before a mentally unstable or violence-prone individual causes mayhem.

But Scott’s office in recent weeks has received more than 200 emails from citizens urging he veto the money. Many critics liken the program’s anonymous tip hotline for reporting suspicious neighbors to something derived from Nazi Germany or George Orwell.

For his part, Scott and his advisors have been keeping a poker face.

At visits to Miami and Jupiter today, the governor said only that he is still reviewing the budget and wouldn’t be pinned down to acting before flying to Chile.

Losing millions of dollars in benefits to fraud, the Florida Department of Children & Families said Tuesday it is installing a new system requiring those getting services to answer a series of questions to verify their identity.

DCF Secretary David Wilkins said the $5 million program could save as much as $90 million a year in lost benefits.

“This is how big corporations manage their data,” Wilkins said.

DCF has been using an electonic benefits transfer (EBT) debit cards for about a decade. About 90 percent of applicants for food stamps, medicine- and cash-assistance programs apply online, a percentage that has steadily increased over the years.

But so, too, has fraud, Wilkins said.

“Florida has the highest per capita rate of identify theft in the country,” he said, with DCF benefits a top item in the target-rich environment.

Florida has been slow to enact verification efforts commonly used by banks, online retailers and other providers because federal officials have been reluctant to green-light anything that could interfere with a client receiving benefits, officials said. But the new system, whose vendors are LexisNexis Group and Acuity, has proved successful in a pilot test conducted by DCF the past few months in the Orlando area.

But the pilot also resulted in some shocking revelations, officials acknowledged.

“We found three times more fraud than we anticipated in our business plan,” Wilkens said.

The Legislature last month approved a measure also aimed at cracking down on electronic benefits, imposing new restrictions on where those receiving temporary assistance to needy families (TANF) can use their cards.

The measure prohibits EBT cards from being used at liquor stores, gambling locales or places that specialize in adult entertainment, including porn shops.

Florida officials earlier confirmed a 2011 TV news investigation that found that of 1.3 million EBT transactions totaling nearly $202 million over a two-year period in Florida, about $93,000 was drawn at places with liquor licenses, strip clubs or gambling sites.

The Florida Supreme Court was asked Thursday to let a lawsuit proceed in circuit court on whether Republican legislative leaders violated new redistricting standards by sharing critical data and proposed maps with political consultants.

But a lawyer for the state House and Senate said the challenge by voters groups including the Florida League of Women Voters, Common Cause and National Council of  La Raza, should be dismissed.

Former Justice Raoul Cantero, representing the Legislature, said the state constitution allows only the Supreme Court to rule on the state’s redistricting plan — and validated the once-a-decade rewrite last year.

Cantero said that allowing the voters’ group challenge to proceed “opens up the possibility for serial redistricting litigation.”

Justice Charles Canady agreed.

“There can be a succession of claims and this can go on and on and on,” Canady warned. “We can be litigation the redistricting plan for the next decade.”

But Justice Barbara Pariente said that the voter-approved Fair District amendments to the constitution, which prohibit districts from being drawn to help or hurt incumbents, have complicated the existing constitutional standards for redistricting.

The “intent” of legislators is a factor courts must consider. That’s not likely possible to determine in the narrow time-frame given the Supreme Court for review of redistricting plans, she said.

“It may be a little messy until we get the law straightened out,” Pariente said.

The voters’ groups want a lower court to determine whether the Senate and congressional maps are invalid, because Republican leaders violated the Fair Districts standards. Court documents in that case filed in Leon County Circuit Court show that emails were exchanged between aides to Senate President Don Gaetz, House Speaker Will Weatherford and consultants who analyzed proposed maps.

The emails also show that in 2010, Rich Heffley, a Florida Republican Party consultant advising Gaetz, then the Senate’s redistricting chairman, organized a “brainstorming” meeting at the state party headquarters in Tallahassee. Other documents in the case show that Sen. Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, and Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, who are both angling for Senate presidency in coming years, emailed district information to consultants for review.

 

 

With Gov. Rick Scott stopping at a Palm Beach County school Monday to tout teacher pay raises, the Florida Republican Party launched an internet strike on Democratic Rep. Mark Pafford of West Palm Beach, one of 11 lawmakers voting against the state’s proposed $74.5 billion budget.

‘Why Did Pafford vote against Governor’s budget that’s a win for public schools,’ was one of the headlines in a Florida GOP release that interlaced newspaper stories on the teacher pay raise with stinging words for Pafford.

Pafford was accused of being part of a ‘(Dis) appreciation week for teachers.’

“They apparently didn’t listen to my debate,” Pafford said Monday of the GOP criticism.

Pafford said he voted ‘no’ on the budget because it failed to adequately serve poor Floridians, the elderly and disabled. Mostly, he centered his opposition on the Legislature’s failure to expand health insurance to low-income residents, a battle that consumed much of the session and ended in a stalemate between the House and Senate.

“The budget is not plugged into the reality that exists outside this chamber,” Pafford said Friday on the House floor.

The GOP blast on Pafford came shortly after Scott toured Wynnebrook Elementary School in West Palm Beach, among a handful of school stops the governor plans to make this week. The budget includes $480 million that could give teachers a $2,500 pay raises by next June.

 

 

Florida Senate Democrats urged Gov. Rick Scott on Monday to call lawmakers back into special session to work on expanding health care insurance for low-income Floridians.

Scott earlier endorsed a Medicaid expansion allowed under the Affordable Care Act that could bring Florida $51 billion in federal money over the next decade to cover 1.1 million uninsured Floridians.

But the House and Senate deadlocked on the issue — with House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, unwilling to accept any expansion that relied on federal dollars.

Scott did little to break the standoff during the two-month regular session which ended Friday. But Democrats said the governor now has an opportunity to underscore his support for expansion.

“Governor, you are on the record in support of fully implementing the Medicaid expansion so that uninsured Floridians have access to medical care,” the 14 Senate Democrats wrote. “We urge you to put action behind those words and wield your power to protect those people and the many Florida businesses whose fate now rests in your hands.”

Scott spent Monday touring Florida schools, touting a teacher pay raise he had listed as his top priority and was eventually granted by the Legislature, albeit with some modifications.

Scott wanted an across-the-board hike that was turned into a merit-based increase, that may not be distributed in many counties until next year.

The governor so far has said nothing about a special session on health care. In fact, his final comments when the Legislature adjourned Friday night didn’t sound like someone ready to renew the fight.

“The Legislature said, ‘no,’ I said ‘yes,’” Scott told reporters.

He also hinted that any sales pitch on his part would have proved fruitless. “The House and Senate know exactly where I am” on the issue, Scott said.

 

 

Senate Democrats quietly elected Arthenia Joyner to take over as chairwoman of the caucus next year in a behind-closed-doors meeting on the last day of the legislative session.

Joyner, a Tampa lawyer, will become the first black woman to chair the caucus, now chaired by Sen. Chris Smith, a Fort Lauderdale lawyer.

Joyner was selected without fanfare and during an unannounced meeting, a departure from how House Democrats handled a contested election won by Rep. Darryl Rouson, a St. Petersburg lawyer, in February. The House caucus election, broadcast on The Florida Channel, resulted in a tie vote. Rouson won by a single vote in a second round of balloting.

Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Allison Tant called Joyner “a tireless advocate for Democratic values and ally to Florida’s middle class families” in a press release announcing her election.

The secretary of state won’t be able to punish elections supervisors under a modified elections package approved by the Florida House and sent to the Senate for final passage.

The Senate is expected to finalize the measure, which requires supervisors instead to post online a report of their preparations three months prior to the election, in one of the last actions before the 2013 session ends later this afternoon.

The Senate had wanted to give the secretary of state, appointed by the governor, the authority to put the locally elected officials on probation and force them to pass a test before being able to be removed from “noncompliant status.”

But House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, sided with the supervisors, who objected that Detzner already has the authority to review the local officials’ preparedness, give them written directions and take them to court if he believes they aren’t complying with the law.

Before the session began, Gov. Rick Scott, Weatherford, and Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, pledged to do something to fix the long lines and up to eight-hour waits encountered by many voters last fall.

Under the plan expected to go to Scott for signature, supervisors can choose from between eight and 14 days of early voting and stay open from eight to 12 hours per day. The 2011 law, HB 1355, shrank early voting from 14 to 8 days. GOP insiders said the 2011 law was designed to cut back on Democratic turnout in the 2012 election, a reaction to Florida Democrats’ support for President Obama in 2008 that helped him into the White House.

This year’s proposal also gives supervisors more options for early voting sites, and would allow add civic centers, fairgrounds, courthouses and government-run senior centers to the city halls, public libraries and elections offices they can now use.

“Reform is never final…We should be ready always to come here and make adjustments if we can make things better,” said Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, the sponsor of HB 1355.

Democrats applauded the effort but said it didn’t go far enough to reverse a 2011 elections package they blame for many of the problems.

Rep. Janet Cruz, who was the lead Democrat on the elections bill, called the effort “a very, very good big, big first step in solving the difficulties that our voters have faced.”

But, she added, “I want our citizens to know that we are not finished.”

Democrats contend that voters should still be allowed to change their addresses at the polls on election day. Current law, changed in 2011, requires voters who move outside of the county to cast provisional ballots – which have a greater likelihood of being tossed – if they don’t update their address before Election Day. Democrats contend that kept many college students from casting regular ballots in the fall.

The bill takes “solid steps” to “reform the deform that had happened” with HB 1355, incoming House Democratic Leader Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, said. The bill isn’t “where we want to be but it’s better than where we are,” he said.

“Some of us feel like the bill hasn’t gone far enough. We want to go back to pre-1355,” Rouson said.

The Florida House and Senate began making their first moves toward the exit Friday, debating a $74.5 billion state budget set to be approved on the 60-day session’s final scheduled day.

The budget for the year beginning July 1 is poised to be the largest in state history. In House closing speeches, there was plenty of praise for $1 billion increase in school spending, pay raises for state employees for the first time in seven years, and dozens of hometown projects scattered throughout the budget.

There was also a measure of relief. Legislators were helped by the first budget surplus since before the recession.

“Because of fiscally sound management and making hard decision, today we can celebrate a great time of restoration,” said Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala.

Most of the outnumbered Democratic caucus, which fought unsuccessfully to expand health care to uninsured Floridians, sided with ruling Republicans on the spending plan.

“There’s light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s not another train,” said Rep. Joe Gibbons, D-Hallandale Beach.

But several Democrats called for Gov. Rick Scott to veto the budget and call lawmakers back into a later special session. Scott had allied with Democrats and the Republican-led Senate in looking to position Florida to draw $51 billion in federal Medicaid money to cover more than 1 million uninsured Floridians.

Rep. Mark Pafford, D-West Palm Beach, was among those who indicated they will vote against the measure.

“The budget is not plugged into the reality that exists outside this chamber,” Pafford said.

Tuskegee Airman Cornelius Davis, a 92-year-old Blountstown resident, posed for photos with Florida senators who honored him with a resolution on the final day of the 2013 legislative session.

Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, praised Davis, part of the group of the U.S. War Department’s experiment to prove blacks were able to serve as military pilots, for his heroism.

“You know the story. Mr. Davis and those with whom he fought broke the color barrier. They broke the records for skill and kills. And then they broke the teeth of the Nazi air fleet of the skies of Europe.
If you want to say that you’ve been in the presence of a hero, you were this morning,” Gaetz said before the chamber gave Davis a standing ovation.

Gov. Rick Scott has been catching heat for failing to lobby hard on behalf of his call for a Medicaid expansion.

But on the second-to-last day of session, Scott went hand-to-hand with lawmakers, schmoozing his way across the House floor. The rare visit looked mostly genial — and likely included a few thank-yous to House members for approving a version of his manufacturers’ tax break late Wednesday.

Still, Scott said he was not abandoning hope that some version of a health care expansion was still possible in the session’s waning hours.

“As you know, there’s still time left in session,” Scott said earlier Thursday. “A lot of things happen the last week in session. We’ve got a little over a day left in session. So we’ll see what happens. As you know I’ve said making sure we take care of the uninsured and the legislature said no.”

From the House, Scott headed across the hall to the Senate.

 

With less than 72 hours left in the session and two priorities of House Speaker Will Weatherford and Senate President Don Gaetz hanging in the balance, the Senate overwhelmingly approved a manufacturing equipment tax break, one of just two items on Gov. Rick Scott’s wishlist.

The modified tax break approved by a 37-3 vote late Wednesday would exempt manufacturers from paying sales tax on manufacturing equipment for three years. Scott’s original proposal would have cost the state about $100 million per year, but the plan approved by the Senate would shrink that to about $18 million, according to the amendment’s sponsor, Sen. Dorothy Hukill, R-Port Orange. Senate Democratic Leader Chris Smith of Fort Lauderdale and Democratic Sens. Jeff Clemens of Lake Worth and Arthenia Joyner of Tampa voted against it.

“(Scott’s) had modest requests this session. I think we need to get behind him,” Sen. Rob Bradley, R-Fleming Island, said before the vote.

Lawmakers moved closer to Scott’s other priority – a $2,500 across-the-board pay raise for teachers – yesterday.

Meanwhile, Scott has until midnight tonight to act on two of the GOP leaders top priorities: ethics and campaign finance measures.

Scott has repeatedly voiced concerns about the campaign finance changes, pushed by Weatherford, which would increase current $500 campaign contribution limits for statewide candidates like Scott, who is running for reelection, to $3,000 and to $1,000 for legislative and local candidates.

Teachers and other school personnel could get a pay raise earlier than next year under a budget agreement reached Wednesday between the House and Senate.

But the deal still would require Palm Beach County and many other school districts to develop a teacher evaluation system required before the pay hikes can be distributed. The county and teachers’ union representatives have been working on an evaluation system, talks that could accelerate with the latest budget deal.

“It helps that the counties are being given this flexibility,” said Vern Pickup-Crawford, lobbyist for county schools.

Under the Legislature’s initial plan, teachers graded “effective” would be eligible for a $2,500 pay raise, beginning in June 2014. Those rated “highly effective” would be eligible for $3,500.

But Wednesday, House and Senate budget negotiators agreed to allow districts to hand out the raises before that date — as long as they were based on teacher evaluations.

The Legislature in 2011 required that teacher evaluations be shaped heavily by student performance and be in place by next year. The Florida Education Association has sued to overturn the requirement — but linking pay raises to the evaluation system could complicate that challenge.

Lawmakers had already agreed to spend $480 million this year on the pay-hikes sought by Gov. Rick Scott. But legislators insisted they be give out based on job performance, not across-the-board, as the governor recommended.

The Legislature also expanded the pool of those eligible to tap into the $480 million pool to include guidance counselors, librarians, school psychologists, social workers, principals and assistant principals. The FEA has criticized the move as likely reducing the amount available to teachers.

Scott, though, has said that all teachers should be able to get pay raises of at least $2,000 each, under the pay plan.

David Abbott is making a last-ditch effort to get lawmakers to save his father’s life.

Abbott set up easels with photographs of his father, Carl Abbott, on the fourth floor of the Capitol rotunda Wednesday afternoon as the clock winds down until the legislative session ends on Friday.

Abbott says the clock is ticking on his father as well.

Carl Abbott desperately needs the $1.9 million the Palm Beach County School Board agreed to pay him when he was run over by a school bus in 2008, Abbott’s doctor said in a letter to House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, and Senate President Don Gaetz. The money, that the Legislature has withheld for three years, would enable Abbott to get rigorous medical treatment to regain some semblance of a normal life. Without it, “his life expectancy will in all likelihood be reduced,” Dr. Pierre Deltor wrote.

The Senate is refusing to act on any claims until the system is reformed and an attempt by a House committee to revamp the system went nowhere this year.

“Reform is not my issue. Getting my dad the help he needs is the issue. It’s my only concern. Reform is going to take years. My dad doesn’t have the time to wait,” Abbott said Wednesday.

When asked about Abbott’s bill last week, Gaetz said he was unaware of the specifics of his case and called the 72-year-old North Palm Beach man’s condition a perfect example of why reforms are needed.

“That’s tragic. That makes it all the more important that we have a claims bill process that does not rely upon who the lobbyist is or what the emotion is and doesn’t make the Senate into a finder of fact,” Gaetz said.

Under the principle of “sovereign immunity” the state limits the amount people can collect from the government for wrongdoing. The only way around what is now a $200,000 cap is persuading the Legislature to lift it. Critics of the system, including Gaetz, say the system is flawed in part because powerful lobbyists have too much influence – and make too much money – in the process.

David Abbott said he was aware of Gaetz’s opposition to the claims bills process but traveled from Palm Beach County to Tallahassee anyway to make Gaetz and Weatherford aware of his father’s situation.

“The squeaky wheel gets the grease,” he said. “My dad’s a victim here. He was a victim when he was hit by the school bus. And now he’s a victim because he can’t get the help he needs.”

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz blasted Gov. Rick Scott for failing to use his clout to push the House to approve a Medicaid expansion that could cover 1 million uninsured Floridians.

The U.S. congresswoman from Weston also accused House Speaker Will Weatherford and the GOP-dominated House of “slavishness ideological dogma” behind their rejection of the Senate plan crafted by Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart.

“Sickness, illness and death…will be their legacy,” Wasserman Schultz told the Senate Democratic Caucus this morning.

Wasserman Schultz, a one-time Florida legislator who served in both the state House and Senate, also blamed Scott for “having a deathbed conversion” about the Medicaid expansion and failing to use his bully pulpit to push the House to pass it.

With three work days left until the legislative ends on Friday, Scott has focused primarily on his two priorities – $2,500 across-the-board pay raises for teachers and a manufacturing equipment tax break – and is scheduled to work from 8 a.m until 2:30 p.m. today, including photo opportunity for the last half hour of the day.

The final week is “the most frenzied, intense time of the entire legislative session,” Wasserman Schultz said.

“The governor and his staff should be in the trenches working the phones, working the halls, doing everything they can to pass their priorities,” she said. “It’s just demonstrative repeatedly of his utter lack of leadership.”

Scott, who is running for reelection, is “trying to have his cake and eat it, too” by publicly supporting the proposal to provide health insurance for the poor, which has broad support from voters, but doing nothing to force the House to act, Wasserman Schultz said.

“Leaders take the initiative. They don’t wait to be asked. We’ll need to elect somebody else.”

She sidestepped a question about whether former Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat, would be a better replacement.

“I have no idea and I’m not here to talk about that,” she said.

Wasserman Schultz also praised Florida House Democrats for “rightfully” slowing down the session with a procedural maneuver forcing all legislation to be read in full in retaliation for the GOP’s refusal to support the Senate Medicaid plan.

Former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, who also served as governor, also appeared at the Senate Dems meeting this morning.

He congratulated them for joining with several GOP lawmakers to defeat a controversial “parent trigger” bill and a pension overhaul for state workers.

The Florida House lurched into Day 2 of a slowdown Wednesday, initiated by Democrats angry over Republican leadership’s rejection of a plan to draw federal Medicaid dollars to provide health insurance to more than 1 million Floridians.

House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, advanced the session’s scheduled 9 a.m. start by an hour. And an auto-reader continued to be used to read the full text of bills before the House.

House Democratic Leader Perry Thurston of Fort Lauderdale made the rarely used procedural move Tuesday — demanding the full readings to underscore the party’s frustration. A new tactic emerged Wednesday, when Democrats began using floor debate on virtually every bill to highlight the health care expansion.

Environmental bills, water management legislation and even a measure involving the mapping and monitoring of agricultural lands seemed to remind Democrats in debate about the failed health coverage.

Rep. Lori Berman, D-Lantana, was among those speaking. She grabbed her microphone to debate on an otherwise routine bill involving a state organ and tissue registry.

“Unfortunately, we’re not going to allow some people to take advantage of the organ and tissue registry because we’re not going to allow them to receive health insurance coverage,” Berman said.

Teachers may not have to wait to get performance-based raises included in the state budget, according to Senate President Don Gaetz.

Gov. Rick Scott had wanted $2,500 across-the-board pay raises for teachers. House and Senate budget leaders this weekend agreed to $480 million for raises but with some limitations. Teachers graded “effective” will be eligible for a $2,500 pay raise, beginning in June 2014. Those rated “highly effective” would be eligible for $3,500.

Gaetz, R-Niceville, said Senate budget conforming bills due out later this week will make it clear that pay raises can be based on a “formative” teacher assessment instead of one based on student performance that won’t go into effect until 2014 and that would have held up the raises.

“In my experience as a school superintendent, we were able to evaluate students and evaluate effective teaching based not just on summative assessments at the end of a school year but based on formative assessments as we go along,” Gaetz, a former Okaloosa County superintendent, told reporters late Tuesday afternoon.

“As far as I’m concerned, teachers who earn their increases in pay ought to be able to get them as soon as school districts develop a plan to do so, collectively bargain that plan with their unions, submit the plan to the commissioner of education and have it confirmed,” he said.

Gaetz blamed Scott for the delay.

“We simply followed the governor’s proposal as to the timing of the pay increase…But I’m sure that the governor didn’t mean to unnecessarily delay the pay increase,” he said. “My hope is we ought to go forward and give Florida teachers the pay increase that they deserve especially because we have a pay increase…which is based on performance.”

The Senate defeated one of House Speaker Will Weatherford’s top priorities of the session Tuesday, refusing to go along with a dramatic overhaul of the Florida Retirement System.

The 22-18 vote followed emotional speeches by several senators — including Sen. Jack Latvala, who fought back tears as he recalled a pair of state firefighters killed two years ago while battling a wildfire.

The Clearwater Republican said the men earned $26,000-a-year for the jobs that cost their lives.

Latvala said the House’s pension proposal not only diminished the service of state workers, it threatened the retirement plans of the teachers, police, firefighters and other government employees in the plan.

“We’re talking about 623,000 Florida lives,” Latvala said. “That’s who’s in this retirement system today.”

Sen. Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, had proposed a Senate plan that included incentives for employees who chose to join the FRS’s 401(k)-style investment plan instead of its traditional pension plan.

But on Tuesday, Simpson sought to replace his approach with one favored by the House, which closed the traditional pension plan to new employees. To soften the impact, Simpson’s proposal wouldn’t take effect until January 2015, giving the state time to consider steps the improve the investment plan.

Simpson said his revised proposal would be good for younger workers — many of whom don’t work for governments long enough to qualify for the conventional pension. Shifting more workers into an investment plan also would ease the state’s pension costs, freeing more dollars for lawmakers to pump into education, health care and other programs, Simpson said.

“The more we have to put into a defined benefit plan now, the less we can do…in what our priorities are,” Simpson said.

But a majority of the Senate was clearly wary.

“This is kind of unconscionable. It’s not the right thing to do,” said Sen. Gwen Margolis, D-Miami Beach.

After the vote, Simpson said the House-Senate struggle over revamping the Florida Retirement System had ended. No changes will be made this spring.

“It’s dead. It’s over,” Simpson concluded.