It would be more difficult to sell carburetor pipes, chillums and chillers in Florida under a bill approved today by a panel of state lawmakers.

Don’t know what those items are? Most members of the House Finance and Tax Council didn’t either. Not that that stopped them from approving the bill 16-0.

Story here.

Denise Amber Lee’s six-minute 911 call that helped convict her killer is among the most notorious examples of 911 calls gone wrong, the calls that are now in House Speaker Larry Cretul’s crosshairs as he tries to create a public records exemptions for them.

Her husband Nathan Lee sent an e-mail to the sponsor of Cretul’s bill, House Government Accountability Policy Council Chairman Rob Schenk, pleading with the committee to shoot down the measure that would make 911 call recordings secret except for transcripts that could be available after 60 days. Lee also asked that his message be read at Schenk’s committee hearing the bill (PCB GAP 10-03) before it was voted on this morning.

Schenk made no reference to Lee’s message and did not read it before the measure passed by an 8-5 vote. And Cretul, who used a procedural maneuver to ensure the bill passed, never read it at all. He said he received it last night. Public records show that Cretul, his spokeswoman Jill Chamberlin and Schenk received it around 3:30 p.m. yesterday.

“I haven’t read the e-mail. I’m sure that he makes some excellent points,” Cretul, R-Ocala, said shortly before the House began session at 1 p.m.

Nathan Lee and his parents are pushing a separate 911 bill that would require uniform training standards for 911 dispatchers throughout the state. His wife was killed despite five 911 calls made in two counties, including one from a witness whose call was ignored.

Lee’s e-mail uses the botched handling of the eyewitness’ emergency call made on the day his wife was killed in 2008 to demonstrate why the calls should be available to the public.

“She provided the exact location of this event and even though there were, by all accounts, 4 police cars within a mile of this call, it was never dispatched. This call was, obviously, grossly mishandled and would have resulted in the saving of Denise’s life. Two days after this call, she was found in a grave, naked and with a single gunshot wound to the head. This call was hidden from the public and myself. And even hidden from the police department who was actively investigating the case and searching for my wife for two days. The subsequent internal affairs investigation shows the communication center and agency who took this crucial call were immediately aware that the call was about Denise. The call was suppressed. Had the eyewitness not contacted the North Port Police Department we may never have known about her call. And the prosecution would have lost the last eyewitness to see my wife alive,” Lee wrote.

Cretul said he supports the training and certification bill.

“But my whole interest in this issue has been watching what it also does to families and what it does to people that call in. They become suddenly out there for all the world to see,” Cretul said in an interview. “This is a very tough, very difficult issue. Very sensitive in all respects.”

Read the entire text of Nathan Lee’s message after the jump.
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A bill that’s one of House Speaker Larry Cretul’s priorities that would make 911 call tapes secret is on the fast-track in his chamber but lacks a Senate sponsor.

Cretul is pushing the measure on behalf of Florida Farm Bureau President John Hoblick, whose 16-year-old son died from a lethal combination of alcohol and illegal prescription drugs. Hoblick, out of town when his son Jake died, heard his older son John’s 911 call on the news.

House staff and the bill sponsor Rep. Rob Schenk, R-Spring Hill, kept the Speaker’s blessing of the bill hush-hush until this week when Cretul told a St. Petersburg Times reporter that Hoblick asked him to do something about the 911 calls.

Cretul used a seldom-used procedural maneuver today to guarantee that the measure (PCB GAP 10-03) passed. He temporarily assigned one of his lieutenants, House Speaker Pro Tem Ron Reagan, R-Bradenton, to the committee. Cretul didn’t need the insurance, however; the Government Policy Accountability Council approved it with an 8-5 vote.

Despite the Speaker’s clout in the House, the bill lacks a Senate sponsor.

Sen. Garrett Richter had originally agreed to run a companion for Schenk. But an open government shell bill he had sponsored that could have been used for Schenk’s bill was designated to be heard in the Banking and Insurance Committee, which has nothing to do with the 911 calls, he said. Richter backed off the bill even before controversy surrounding it - some victims and First Amendment lawyers staunchly oppose it - began this week. The Naples Republican said he won’t sponsor the measure.

Mack Bernard, D-West Palm Beach

From the Florida House Democratic office this afternoon:

State Representatives Ronald Brisé (D-North Miami) and Mack Bernard (D-West Palm Beach) are pleased to announce that they will join Haiti’s President René Préval during his visit to The White House on Wednesday, March 10, 2010. Both legislators are Haitian-Americans who have traveled to Haiti since the earthquake. They have worked extensively with colleagues to facilitate Florida’s relief efforts in earthquake-torn Haiti.

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Florida Rep. Ari Porth, D-Coral Springs, removed his name today from the list of co-sponsors for a tax incentive package for the film industry in Florida. A story today in The Palm Beach Post highlighted a provision in the bill (HB 697) that could prohibit films and TV shows with gay characters from receiving a 5 percent “family-friendly” tax break.

“I believe in the film industry tax incentives, but was uncomfortable with provisions limiting the field of qualified recipients. I hope to be able to support the measure in the future,” Porth said in an e-mail.

Movies and TV shows with gay characters could be ineligible for a “family-friendly” tax credit in Florida under a little-noticed provision tucked into a $75 million incentive package that Republican House leaders hope will attract film and entertainment jobs to the state.

The bill would prohibit productions with “nontraditional family values” from receiving a so-called family-friendly tax credit. But it doesn’t define what “nontraditional family values” are, something the bill’s sponsor had a hard time doing, too.

“Think of it as like Mayberry,” state Rep. Stephen Precourt, R-Orlando, said, referring to The Andy Griffith Show. “That’s when I grew up — the ’60s. That’s what life was like. I want Florida to be known for making those kinds of movies: Disney movies for kids and all that stuff. Like it used to be, you know?”

Story here.

Republican House Speaker Larry Cretul is not counting on $1 billion in Medicaid that many believe the state will receive from the federal government. Less surprising, the House also does not include $433 million from Gov. Charlie Crist’s would-be gambling compact with the Seminoles.

Budget writers will use allocations to begin drawing up the state’s spending plan for next year.

Cretul is instructing his chamber to find state dollars in the K-12 budget to replenish the $778 million drop-off in property tax collections caused by spiraling home values. He is also insisting that federal Medicaid dollars Crist counted on for his budget be supplanted with state money. Cretul wants 5 percent of the budget in reserves and no new taxes.

“I know budgeting this year will be very difficult,” Cretul wrote in his memo. (Read it here.)

Rep. Kevin Ambler, R-Tampa, gives a thumbs up as the Florida Legislature opens today. Just hours later, gloves were off between Republicans and Democrats. (AP)

The House Republican Office noted that it took their Democratic colleagues less than five hours to launch the first attack of session.” “So much 4 bipartisanship,” the office tweeted.

Indeed.

The House Democratic Office press release quotes House Speaker Larry Cretul, R-Ocala, who said this morning that it was time to “do government business in a new way.” Democrats note that Republicans have controlled state government in Florida for the past 12 years.

“It is interesting to hear Speaker Cretul confess that Republican leadership since 1998 has led to unnecessary spending and a failure to follow basic government accountability measures,” Democratic Leader Franklin Sands said.

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2010 Florida House…

Abruzzo

Abruzzo says about 900,000 Floridians already gamble at sites run by unregulated “offshore operators.” He says his bill would bring in more than $200 million in revenue in its first year.

Abruzzo’s bill would allow an Internet hub operator based in the state to pay a $500,000 application fee to the state for a license. Operators would pay the state a 20 percent gross receipts tax. Abruzzo’s 42-page bill includes provisions aimed to combat money-laundering and gambling addiction.

Abruzzo’s bill has attracted the attention of the gaming industry. Here’s one take on it from casinogamblingweb.com.

After taking billions of dollars in federal economic stimulus money to balance the state budget last year, Senate President Jeff Atwater and House Speaker Larry Cretul along with other GOP lawmakers are demanding that the federal government balance its budget to put an end to the escalating federal deficit now surpassing $12 trillion.

“Unless something is done with Washington’s irresponsible fiscal behavior, Florida’s economy will drown in debt,” Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, said at a press conference this morning.

Atwater and his cadre want the feds to balance the nation’s budget as Florida lawmakers are constitutionally required to do in the Sunshine State.

But that didn’t stop the legislature under Atwater and Cretul from accepting at least $12 billion in federal stimulus money - more than $3 billion used to balance this year’s Florida budget and nearly another $6 billion plugged into next year’s. That money helped add to the nation’s rising debt.

“It’s a gaping inconsistency to take that money happily to fill giant holes in our budget and then turn around and criticize the very people who gave you the cash,” said Rep. Keith Fitzgerald, D-Sarasota.

Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, is sponsoring a joint resolution that, if passed by two-thirds of the Florida legislature, would have the state joining 19 other states asking Congress to convene an amendments convention to propose a constitutional amendment requiring the balanced budget and limit federal lawmakers’ ability to pass mandated spending down to the states.

But Florida lawmakers have done the same thing to local governments over the past decade, forcing them to take up a large share of education spending by passing down mandates and making counties pick up the tab for other items.

Congress would have to call the amendments convention if 34 states make the request. Passage of the constitutional amendment would require ratification by three-fourths, or 38, of the states.

Donald Gaffney, a Jacksonville Democrat and former University of Florida star quarterback, surprised his colleagues when he resigned on the day before the 1988 legislative session after a federal grand jury returned a 21-count indictment along with new charges. (He was eventually sentenced to four and a half years in federal prison for mail fraud.)

Then-Gov. Bob Martinez called a special election, held after the session in May, in which Betty Holzendorf was elected. She was unopposed in the primary and general elections that followed in the coming months.

That quick history lesson is relevant as Gov. Charlie Crist considers calling a special election to replace Republican Ray Sansom, who resigned Sunday - nine days before the start of session and eight months before the next general election. Sansom requested his district office remain open in the interim and run by his secretary and legislative aide.

The House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct wrapped up its business this morning in the wake of former House Speaker Ray Sansom’s resignation last night.

Committee Chairman Bill Galvano:

“As a result of Speaker Sansom’s resignation as a member of the Florida House, further action by this committee is rendered moot. We’re without authority to fulfill the charge of this select committee,” Galvano, R-Bradenton, said.

Sitting House members and current staff of the Florida House have been told they will not receive subpoenas in the chamber’s investigation of former Republican House Speaker Ray Sansom, said Jill Chamberlin, spokesman for Republican House Speaker Larry Cretul.

“The speaker determined that the staff would be required to testify. And if they would not, they would need to resign and then be subpoenaed,” Chamberlin said. “In the case of House members, they were advised that we expect them to cooperate fully. And then there is no need to subpoena our own members.”

Cretul must approve any subpoenas issued in the potentially explosive investigation of Sansom, who is accused of damaging the public’s trust in the House by using his influence to gain a six-figure job at Northwest Florida State College.

Sansom, who has maintained his innocence, requested last week that 35 men and women receive subpoenas. Rep. Bill Galvano, a Sarasota Republican leading the investigation, determined at the time that parliamentary rules prevent him issues subpoenas to sitting members of the state Senate.

A Republican U.S. Senate candidate, a Democratic Palm Beach County Commission candidate and the next Florida Senate President could all be forced to testify if a state House investigation into whether its former leader betrayed the public trust goes forward as scheduled.

The potential of such an event, which could end in the first expulsion from the House in nearly 60 years, exploding in an election-year media fiasco in the midst of the legislature’s annual spring lawmaking session has sparked negotiations for a potential settlement. But so far, both sides are taking a hard line in those talks.

“I don’t expect this to be resolved outside of a full-blown hearing,” said Gloria Fletcher, attorney for former House Speaker Ray Sansom.

More here.

A race for an open Panhandle state Senate seat may stymie success of a jobs package.

State Rep. Dave Murzin, House Economic Development and Community Affairs committee chairman, took a swipe at the Senate’s jobs package sponsored by Sen. Don Gaetz.

Murzin, a Panhandle Republican who is running for a Senate seat neighboring Gaetz’s district, was asked about the Gaetz proposal at an Associated Industries of Florida event in Tallahassee yesterday.

“It’s a great package. If I had a $150 million it might be some good ideas. But quite frankly I don’t have $150 million. I think I stopped counting at about $150 million,” Murzin, R-Pensacola, told the crowd of business lobbyists.

Gaetz’ bill includes a $1,000 tax break for businesses that hire an out of work Floridian and a variety of other corporate tax breaks or incentives to induce them to put the unemployed back on the job and to get them off Medicaid and other state benefits.

Murzin said his package will be more realistic.

“So yeah, we’ll take a look at some stuff but quite frankly we’ll roll out a jobs package, an economic incentives package, an economy package that actually works, doesn’t necessarily cost a lot of money because …an economic package that Floridians can afford,” Murzin said. “I’m not really into it for the is still trying to figure out exactly how much it will cost and how much it could save).headlines. I’m actually into it to put Floridians back to work.”

Gaetz, who is backing Murzin’s opponent Rep. Greg Evers in the Senate race, expressed tongue-in-cheek surprise at Murzin’s inability to come up with the money to pay for the package. (Gaetz says his staff

“Well, Rep. Murzin is welcome to his opinions. I wish him well this session. And in his future. I wish him well in everything except his aspirations to be a senator. In all other cases I wish him well,” Gaetz, R-Destin, said.

Bernard

The tri-county area is home to the greatest number of Haitian immigrants and has been ground-zero for state and federal Haitian aid efforts.

Newly elected state Rep. Mack Bernard, a West Palm Beach Democrat who was born in Port-au-Prince where the epicenter of the deadly earthquake struck last month, is heading up Palm Beach County’s delegation in the task force, which will include Reps. Juan Zapata, R-Miami, and Ari Porth, D-Coral Springs, and up to 9 other South Florida lawmakers.

Bernard wants better communication from Gov. Charlie Crist, who he said telephoned him the night of the earthquake on Jan. 12 but hasn’t spoken with him since.

Bernard visited Haiti last week. His sister and her three children are now homeless as a result of the disaster, Bernard said.

Crist should appoint a “Haiti czar” to streamline efforts that could be an economic boon to financially-strapped Florida, Bernard, D-West Palm Beach, suggested.

Read the story here.

“It’s that lack of communication, especially from the governor’s office” that is creating frustration for representatives from the tri-county area, which has the state’s largest Haitian immigrant population and is now on the front line providing aid and resources to the ravaged nation, Bernard said.

A bipartisan House panel rejected Gov. Charlie Crist’s budget proposals, telling his budget chief the governor’s plan was as sketchy as building a household budget on winning the Lottery.

“There’s nothing here that I can use,” House health care budget chief Denise Grimsley, R-Lake Placid, told Jerry McDaniel, Crist’s budget guru.

Democrats and Republicans alike peppered McDaniel about the assumptions built into Crist’s $69.2 billion budget, including $1.1 billion in Medicaid funding that Congress has not yet approved, $443 million for education spending in a gambling compact that the legislature last year rejected, $300 million in local property taxes that 24 counties have not yet levied, and the absence of $350 million to comply with constitutional class size requirements based on a measure that has not even gone on the ballot yet.

“The validity of any decision-making process is always based on the assumptions you make,” said Rep. Rich Glorioso, R-Plant City, chairman of the House transportation committee.

Crist’s assumptions are too iffy, Glorioso said.

“I can’t live with that. If I was doing this budget for myself with these assumptions I would be making a vast mistake. We need a better product soon. What if these things don’t come in? You always plan on a worst scenario…It’s always easier to add back into a budget than it is to come back six months out and do another cut. I’d like to see another proposal without all these basic assumptions in here,” he said.

McDaniel said the governor might offer a revised budget a week or two before the end of session if there was no chance a compact was going to pass. But that didn’t placate House budget chief David Rivera.

“I will tell you that as far as this committee is concerned, we need a budget. We have to work on a budget. I’m disappointed that we can’t start on that budget process together because our assumptions are so far apart,” Rivera, R-Miami, told McDaniel. “I hope that we will have other recommendations before the end of session thinking that it’s always better late than never. But this committee in the House of Representatives doesn’t have the luxury of waiting.”

Legislative leaders-in-waiting Sen. Don Gaetz and Rep. Will Weatherford are heading up a GOP initiative to water down constitutional class size limits approved by voters.

Gaetz, R-Destin, and Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, sponsored a constitutional amendment lawmakers are expected to put on the ballot this year that would undo some of the class size restrictions voters approved in 2002.

Floridians have already spent $16 billion to shrink class sizes but plummeting property tax collections - which pay for public schools - have sent lawmakers scrambling to foot the $22 billion-a-year tab for education.

Gaetz and Weatherford, who are expected to lead their chambers in 2012, will reveal details of their proposal at a press conference tomorrow morning.

Gov. Charlie Crist, who is running for U.S. Senate, recently said that he supports undoing the class size restrictions, which have been been introduced gradually and which school officials say costs too much and doesn’t benefit student achievement.

U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, a Democrat is also running for the U.S. Senate seat Crist seeks, was the force behind the class size amendment in 2002 while he was in the state Senate.

He isn’t backing down from the limits, which are set to go into full effect by the end of this year.

“Eight years later, Tallahassee officials have not relented in trying to water down hard-fought class size limits while refusing to tackle the special interest bidding that is alive and well in the state capital, ” said Kendrick Meek, who served as Chairman of Florida’s Coalition to Reduce Class Size in 2002.

“Florida families cannot be shortchanged. They simply ask that their children not be packed into overcrowded classrooms. Instead of focusing on misguided priorities, Florida needs a long-term perspective to secure a better future for our children. Implementing the class size limits without delay is critical so our teachers can teach in classrooms where our students can learn. Moreover, it is important to note that our state needs to invest now in its human capital in order to reverse the tide of joblessness for tomorrow’s workers,” Meek said in press release.

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First, the good news: Florida’s economic woes have hit bottom, the legislature’s chief economist Amy Baker told the Senate yesterday.

Now, the bad news: The state’s unemployment rate is expected to climb to 12 percent as early as Friday when the most recent job numbers are released, Baker said.

And more bad news for lawmakers as they struggle to craft a budget with up to $3.3 billion - about 4 percent - less than they had for this year’s $66.5 billion spending plan.

Although the national recession is over, Florida’s not going to show an economic recovery for at least another year, Baker and University of Florida economist David Denslow told the Ways and Means Committee, which about 30 of the 40-member chamber attended after Senate President Jeff Atwater asked them to sit in.

“We think we’ve hit bottom and we’re going to hover around the bottom for a wile before we start picking up,” Baker said.

The economy will start picking up next spring, she said, but even with normal growth rates, the recovery is coming off a very low base level so the turn-around will be very slow.

It will be three years “before you’re going to be out of the hole on a lot of measures,” Baker said.

Read the story here.

On the other side of the fourth floor rotunda, House Democrats wrote a letter to GOP leaders saying they don’t like their approach in determining what the state’s critical needs are.

They want to look not only at expenditures but at revenues as well. (Translation: higher taxes?)

But that’s not likely to happen on the Senate side.

Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, told his members yesterday he “won’t extract another dollar” from Floridians.

UPDATE: From Rep. Adam Hasner’s House Majority Office via Twitter: Unbelievable. Incomprehensible tragedy and FL Dem Ron Saunders plays politics with Haiti earthquake. Zero class.

Saunders

“They know where all the secret stashes are,” Saunders said. “I used to know where they were when I was budget chairman.”

Saunders, who hopes he can lead House Democrats to overcome a 76-44 disadvantage to Republicans this year, said he wasn’t playing politics with the tragedy unfolding in Haiti. “If I wanted to play politics, I’d say we should use the $6 million Republicans misspent on an airplane hanger,” Saunders said. “But I’m not going to bring that up.”

House budget chairman David Rivera, R-Miami, responded: “The speaker is looking at options to assist the victims of the disaster in Haiti.”

The earthquake in Haiti has hit home for a number of South Florida state lawmakers, including Rep. Mack Bernard, D-West Palm Beach, who was born in Port-au-Prince and lived there until he was 10 and moved to Delray Beach.

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