Organizations which backed the voter-approved constitutional amendments guiding redistricting Friday blasted proposed maps slated to be voted on later in the day by the House Redistricting Committee.

In a 12-page letter to House Redistricting chief Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, former state Sen. Dan Gelber, a Miami Beach Democrat serving as legal counsel to Fair Districts supporters, effectively urged lawmakers to scrap the plans they’ve been working on.

The League of Women Voters, Common Cause and the National Council of La Raza have submitted an alternate approach to district maps that Weatherford today plans to introduce as an amendment to the House plan.

 The alternate proposal would “nest” three House districts within the 40-seat state Senate plan, making the boundaries more compact and logical for voters, Gelber said in his letter.

Congressional districts also would meander less, under the proposal. House, Senate and congressional maps recommended by the groups also would lean less Republican and prove more reflective of a state where registered voters are closely divided, with Democrats still holding a 500,000-voter edge.

“In sum, we believe that we have provided the committee with alternative proposals that comply with the Fair Districts amendments, while the proposals currently under consideration by the committee and those already passed by the Senate fail to comply with those amendments,” leaders of the organizations concluded in the letter to Weatherford.

The alternate maps likely stand little chance of being approved today.

But the letter lays out what could emerge as the central argument against the legislative maps when Florida’s redistricting effort advances for review to the state Supreme Court and U.S. Justice Department in coming weeks, and when Fair Districts advocate file an expected legal challenge.

The Florida Nurses Association has filed a lawsuit against the state corrections department over a prison health care privatization effort ordered by lawmakers in the budget last year.

The nurses are using the same argument that the Florida Police Benevolent Association successfully used to kill a prison privatization plan also included in the budget. A Tallahassee judge ruled that the way lawmakers went about the outsourcing was unconstitutional and needed instead to be the subject of a stand-alone bill.

The Department of Corrections is now taking bids to privatize all health services to the state’s 100,000 inmates. The outsourcing would put more than 1,000 nurses and other health care professionals now working for DOC out of a job, according to FNA director of labor relations Jeanie Demshar.

“We believe that any effort to turn thousands of state employee jobs over to private companies needs to be vetted by the public, with input from those workers,’’ Demshar said in a statement.

The suit was filed on Tuesday in the Leon County Circuit Court, where Judge Jackie Fulford scrapped the privatization of all corrections operations – affecting more than two dozen facilities and nearly 4,000 workers – in the 18-county southern portion of the state from Polk County to the Florida Keys.

Lawmakers are now reviving the prison privatization plan, slated for a Senate vote on Tuesday.

Read the lawsuit here.

House Speaker Dean Cannon was an early supporter of Texas Gov. Rick Perry in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, and apparently remains one of his most faithful.

With a laugh Thursday, Cannon acknowledged that he had cast his absentee ballot for Perry in next week’s Florida primary. Perry quit the race last week – before the most recent primary in South Carolina.

Cannon, R-Winter Park, didn’t want to talk much about it.

“The presidential race is something I am staying way away from,” Cannon said. “I’m just going to let that one stand.

“But I will say this. I think the real winner in this is Florida. By moving this primary date, no one can argue that that has not concentrated extraordinary attention, focus and emphasis and potentially decisiveness…on Florida,” he added.

Cannon helped pushed a state commission last September to change Florida’s primary date to Jan. 31 from its original March 6, to heighten the role Sunshine State voters would play in choosing a Republican nominee.

Cannon had already endorsed Perry, but the Texas governor’s campaign started teetering soon after with a faltering performance in a nationally televised debate at the Florida GOP’s Presidency 5 convention.

 

Yellow school buses could be emblazoned with ads promoting sneakers, power drinks or television shows under a proposal making its way through the Florida legislature.

The House Education Committee gave the thumbs-up to the proposal, already in place in 15 other states, that could raise up to $100 million statewide for cash-strapped school districts struggling to cover transportation costs for students, according to bill co-sponsor Rep. Irv Slosberg, D-Boca Raton.

The proposal (HB 19) would give school boards the ability to contract for ads on school buses but would ban advertisements for pari-mutuel or Internet gambling or political or religious promotions.

Half of the money generated by the ads would have to be spent on transportation costs and 10 percent would go for drivers education classes if the districts offer them.

“Obviously the state of Florida, we’re in a tough spot,” Slosberg told the panel before the 14-3 vote in favor of his measure. “There’s no money. So what do we do? Do we let the kids walk to school? Do we lay off teachers? This is a creative way to raise revenue and not increase our taxes and not increase our fees.”

But critics of the measure questioned whether children, especially kindergartners, already bombarded by advertisements should be subjected to even more propaganda with the tacit endorsement of their school.

Rep. Michael Bileca, R-Miami, said the bill gave him an “uneasy feeling” although schools already have advertisements in place on football fields or in gymnasiums.

“It has to do with this concept of endorsement,” Bileca, who voted against the measure, said. “It’s the idea that a trusted source…is saying that this is ok.”

The Florida PTA opposes the measure.

Two advertisements up to two by six feet in size could be posted on the buses, which some opponents said could create a distraction for drivers and endanger students’ safety.

“We’re dealing with children, three, four five years old,” Rep. Luis Garcia, D-Miami, objected. “That’s an early age to be bombarded with advertisements…I don’t think it’s fair.”

Slosberg, whose daughter died in an automobile accident, bristled at safety concerns.

“My daughter died in a car crash. I’d be the last guy in the world to want to endanger anyone’s life, especially our children, by putting advertising on our buses,” Slosberg said. “If I thought that…I would never have brought this bill forward.”

A push to ban texting-while-driving cleared a Senate budget panel Thursday, but it’s looking likely headed toward a dead end in the Florida House.

The measure (CS/SB 416) would make texting a secondary offense, allowing law enforcement to issue citations only if drivers were pulled over for another offense.

“I’m certainly not on infringing on anyone’s personal freedom, as long as it’s not affecting the person next to you,” said Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice, who is sponsoring the legislation. “I’d like to get this done before there’s a tragedy where someone takes out all the kids at a bus stop and then the public is screaming, ‘Why didn’t you do something about it.’

“This is the opportunity to do something about it,” she said.

The proposal would impose a $30 fine for a first violation. A second offense within five years would force a $60 fine and 3 points added to a motorist’s license. Six points would be tacked on if using the device contributed to a crash.

Detert’s bill was approved 14-1 by the Senate’s budget subcommittee on transportation, tourism and economic development. The lone opponent was Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, whose district includes part of Palm Beach County, who killed a similar texting proposal two years ago, while a House committee chair.

The House this year again looks poised to end talk of text bans. House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, told the Post last month that he was wary of adding “one more layer of prohibitive behavior,” in Florida.

At the time, Cannon said, “I’ve heard evidence that eating fast food, or men fixing their ties, or women fixing their makeup, or talking to screaming kids in the back of the van — as I’ve done from time to time — is just as distracting, perhaps more so, than sending someone a text message.”

The National Transportation Safety Board last month called for states to enact a ban on non-emergency phone calls and texting by all drivers.  About 35 states ban text messaging while driving, 30 states ban cell-phone use by novice drivers, and 10 ban all use of hand-held phones, according to the NTSB.

But Cannon said he and many in Florida’s conservative, Republican-dominated Legislature are wary of steps aimed at “government-regulating private behavior.”

Some kind of ban on hand-held devices behind the wheel — usually aimed at minors — has been proposed in every regular session of the Florida Legislature since 2002. The bills have been filed by both Democrats and Republicans.

Last session, more than a dozen such bills were filed in Tallahassee — but none cleared the Legislature.

Detert said there are plenty of alternatives to texting behind the wheel. She uses a voice-to-text system for sending messages when driving. And her bill does nothing to restrict cell phone use, she added.

“I’ve tried to draw this bill as narrowly as we possibly can,” Detert said.

As promised, Senate budget chief JD Alexander met with more than two dozen prison workers who’d traveled to the Capitol to protest a prison privatization bill approved by his committee late Wednesday afternoon.

Alexander met with the workers after the committee approved the measure by a 14-4 vote and sent it on its way to the Senate floor to a full vote. They pleaded with him to reconsider the proposal that would privatize an 18-county region in the southern portion of the state and affect nearly 3,800 state workers, objecting that Alexander’s estimated $22 million savings are questionable because of “cherry-picking” by the private prison operators currently running seven Florida prisons.

“I don’t do this to hurt people. You all may not believe that but I don’t. I’m trying to figure out how to make all this stuff work,” said Alexander, R-Lake Wales, overseeing his chamber’s version of the state’s nearly $69 billion spending plan.

Private prison guards also do not have to undergo the same training as workers at the state-run prisons, union leaders representing the prison workers said.

The emotionally-charged meeting took place in a large conference room manned by the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Donald Severance and at least two of his aides. Alexander remained calm throughout the 45-minute meeting as the workers tried to persuade him with comparisons about per diem rates and then anecdotes about the fear they have about losing their jobs.

“The privatization has added stress on us,” Martin Correctional Institutional guard Sarah Babineaux said. “I lay awake at night…just thinking about what am I going to do.”

Babineaux has two children and custody of two nieces, she said, one of whom is a 17-year-old senior looking for a high school ring. “And I don’t know where to purchase it, what county, what high school.”

Private prisons cost less because they are able to “cherry-pick” inmates that are cheaper to supervise, the workers said. Alexander said he believed the inmates have been assigned appropriately and later said he would look into the issue.

“I don’t work for anybody but the people of Florida. You might believe that but I don’t. I’m not running for anything. I’m not ever going to work for these folks. I haven’t raised money in years. I have no interest in making money. I have an interest in trying to make a budget work,” Alexander told the group, led by Teamsters lobbyist Ron Silver, a former state lawmaker. “Everything…is to get as clean and unfudgeable a set of contracts as possible because I don’t believe we should contract for one and give them easier stuff. If that’s what they contract for, that’s what they get.”

A fired-up Gov. Rick Scott gave proponents of changes to the state’s no-fault insurance laws a lesson in politics, urging them to knock on lawmakers’ doors and let them have it.

Scott joined a crusade led by business industry leaders and Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater pushing legislation intended to crack down on personal injury protection insurance fraud the governor said is costing Floridians $1 billion a year.

And today Scott came out in favor of the House’s PIP fix, that would require people injured in auto accidents to be treated in emergency rooms within 72 hours, cap attorneys’ fees and prohibit chiropractors or massage therapists from providing follow-up care.

“This is how laws get changed. Show up and let your legislators know what you want. You’re sick and tired of this $1 billion a year of fraud. You’re tired of it. You’re tired of scammers taking advantage of you. You’re tired of attorneys taking advantage of you. Enough is enough. We need to change this,” Scott told dozens of PIP reform advocates at a press conference on the fourth-floor rotunda in the Capitol. “Now. How do you do it? You do exactly what you’re doing here. You show up and then you go to everybody’s office.”

The press conference came on the heels of a House committee’s approval of HB 119. Proponents of the changes – including Scott – say they’re needed to cut back on fraud like staged auto accidents that are causing auto insurance premiums in some areas to skyrocket.

But critics of the House measure who favor a Senate version sponsored by Stuart Republican Joe Negron say the bill is anti-consumer because it limits consumers’ choices.

“This bill is the thing of consumers’ nightmares and of insurance bigwigs’ dreams,” Bill Newton, executive director of Florida Consumer Action Network, said in a statement.

Even with Scott’s support, the House bill, passed by the House Civil Justice Committee along partisan lines this morning, is in trouble, however. Even some GOP committee members said they can’t support the measure in its current form, setting the stage for an ongoing battle between doctors, chiropractors, massage therapists, insurers and attorneys.

Florida university students could face another round of 15 percent tuition hikes next fall, under a spending plan unveiled Tuesday by the House Higher Education budget committee.

Gov. Rick Scott, who has been pushing schools to expand their science, technology, education and mathematics programs, saying STEM degrees are what employers are seeking. But Scott, who has questioned the spending practices at state universities, notably didn’t call for a tuition increase in his $66.4 billion state budget proposal, released last month.

Committee Chair Marlene O’Toole, R-Lady Lake,  acknowledged that the proposed tuition hike will prove controversial — and may face open opposition from Scott. But with state support for universities slashed by 6.2 percent — following a pattern that has seen public funding reduced 17 percent between 2007 and 2010 — tuition’s role has grown.

Since Florida universities were authorized to boost tuition by as much as 15 percent, beginning in 2007, the cost for students and their families has climbed 60 percent. O’Toole pointed out, however, that Florida’s average $5,626 annual tuition is still among the lowest in the nation.

Colleges could increase their tuition by 8 percent next year, under the House proposal.

The House’s push to meet Gov. Rick Scott’s demand for $1 billion more in school spending came into sharper focus Tuesday, as a budget panel unveiled about $300 million in health and humans services cuts aimed at freeing-up dollars for classrooms.

Emergency room visits would be limited to a dozen per-year for adults in the state’s Medicaid program, while chiropractic and podiatry services for some 34,000 mostly low-income and elderly Floridians would be eliminated under the House’s approach, which cleared the Health Care budget subcommittee on a 10-4 vote, with Democrats opposed.

Chairman Matt Hudson, R-Naples, said House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, had hinted that cuts in many programs would be needed to meet a goal of pumping more money into public schools this election year — blunting a $1.3 billion cut schools weathered last year.

“He certainly is going to make sure we spend money on people over things,” Hudson said. “And students are certainly a priority for the speaker.

“ I would anticipate that when the other budgets roll out, you’ll see they’re a collective package in that we will be very aggressive in making sure that not only are we meeting the health care needs, but we are meeting the education needs.”

Democrats, however, urged that Republican leaders find more deft ways to make budget reductions. Eliminating some routine health coverage completely for some of the frailest Floridians can result in the state absorbing costs elsewhere.

Several college students who said they received $1,200-a-month from the state as part of the Department of Children & Families’ ‘road-to-independence’ program for youngsters who have been in foster care, argued against another House plan to cut the program’s maximum eligibility age to 21 — down from the current age 23.

The change would save about $10 million, but eliminate 657 people from the program.

Those who testified Tuesday before the committee recalled childhoods spent cycling through foster homes and schools before setting themselves on a path to college and a professional future only with the help of mentoring and the program’s cash.

“It’d be absolutely devastating to end these services at age 21, just when people are getting their feet under them,” said Andrea Cowart, 22, of Dunedin, who attends St. Petersburg College.

Cowart said she was in foster care for almost seven years and attended 10 to 15 schools. She had dropped out of high school her freshman year and had a child at age 17. Motherhood, she said, changed her course — but only with the financial help from the state program.

“It made what was impossible, possible to me,” she said.

 

Emotional pleas and threats of questionable savings and a danger to public safety failed to move an elite group of senators who gave preliminary approval to a sweeping prison privatization plan struck down by a judge last year.

Dozens of prison workers from throughout the state packed the Senate Rules Committee and testified for more than two hours on a fast-tracked proposal (SB 2038), pleading with the panel to slow down and warning that the savings for the state from outsourcing are overstated.

The privatization effort coincides with a Department of Corrections decision to shut down seven prisons and other facilities, doubling the prison workers’ worries.

Amanda Abers, 28, told the committee she moved from Minnesota to Florida a year ago to work at Indian River Correctional, a youth offender prison slated for closure.

“Vero Beach is not a big area. This is going to hit the economy very, very hard. You’re putting me out on the street plus their spouses, their kids, everybody,” she said.

Senate budget chief JD Alexander, who included the privatization in the budget last year and sponsor of the proposal, said the outsourcing will force the department to reexamine its spending and questioned its management after the discovery last year that the agency had 12,000 empty beds scattered throughout the system. Shutting down the prisons will save an estimated $77 million annually, Alexander said.

“Competition makes us all better. It’s uncomfortable. It’s not always fun. But I believe that it makes it better,” Alexander, R-Lake Wales, said.
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UPDATE: Senate President Mike Haridopolos’ spokeswoman Lyndsey Cruley issued a correction to the privatization bill committee stops. Haridopolos is giving the bill (SB 2038) reviving last year’s privatization of more than two dozen prisons another hearing in the budget committee – NOT the bill that would allow lawmakers to privatize state functions without public input until after contracts are signed.

Bowing to pressure from prison privatization critics including Sen. Mike Fasano, Senate President Mike Haridopolos has put the brakes – sort of – on a fast-tracked bill that would outsource all prison operations in an 18-county region south of Polk County to the Florida Keys.

But a bill that would give lawmakers the ability to outsource state functions without any public input until after the deals are done is still slated to be heard only in the Rules Committee that gave the measure a preliminary nod earlier this week.

Originally slated to be heard only in the Senate Rules Committee before being sent to the floor for a chamber vote, Haridopolos is now asking the Budget Committee to sign off on the bill (SB 2038) as well.

Fasano, chairman of the Senate Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Committee, asked Haridopolos to give committees like his more up-to-speed on privatization the chance to scrutinize the proposal.

“These bills deal with potential changes to policy of such a magnitude that they should not have originated in a procedural committee such as the Rules Committee. However, they were and have now been referred back to that very same committee with no further referrals. Only your office would know why that decision was made.

In my opinion a subject as complex as prison privatization should have been referred to the substantive committees that oversee this subject matter (i.e. Criminal Justice, Governmental Oversight and Accountability and Criminal & Civil Justice Appropriations). The Senate has a rich history as a deliberative body that examines and allows for full vetting of proposed policy changes both major and minor. I respectfully request that if these bills are acted upon favorably by the Rules Committee on January 23, 2012 that you pull them back into your office and refer them to at least the three substantive and appropriations committees I have suggested,” Fasano, R-New Port Richey, wrote to Haridopolos today.

Shortly after Fasano released his request, Haridopolos issued a memo defending the process in which the prison privatization was vetted last year and announcing additional committee stop for the privatization bill on Wednesday.

“After hearing questions and concerns from my fellow Senators in the Senate Committee on Rules regarding Senate Bill 2036, I have decided to proceed in an abundance of caution,” Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, wrote.

Tallahassee Circuit Judge Jackie Fulford ruled lawmakers illegally included the privatization of the 18-country region of correctional operations in southern Florida in the budget instead of in a stand-alone bill. The privatization measure would take care of that problem, Rules Chairman John Thrasher said.

Haridopolos insists that although the prison outsourcing never was included in a bill, it was debated throughout the session at various committees and includes a timeline of the discussions in his memo.

“With that in mind, I believe that this additional committee reference will ensure a thoughtful debate on prison privatization, and I am hopeful that this will alleviate any concerns my fellow Senators may have,” he wrote.

House Speaker Dean Cannon and budget-writers revealed some broad brush strokes Thursday for how the House will craft next year’s state spending plan — embracing Gov. Rick Scott’s call for a $1 billion boost in public school funding, but rejecting his call for deep cuts in Medicaid payments to hospitals.

Cannon’s release of spending allocations for budget subcommittees also may heighten pressure on the state Senate, where Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Melbourne, and budget chief J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, have talked about possibly delaying final action on a budget until later this spring.

Cannon, though, also seemed to try to find a middle ground — assuring lawmakers in his budget memo that “contingencies” could be included in a final spending plan that made changes if the economy brightens, or worsens.

 ”These contingencies will provide self-executing direction on how to enact reductions or provide additional spending authority, without accessing reserves, should circumstances change,” wrote Cannon, R-Winter Park, who is a lawyer, by profession.

Alexander, who declined to say much about the House approach, said the Senate did plan to move ahead with its budget work. But he said leaders there were still concerned about economic shifts that might effect the spending plan, which takes effect July 1.

Still, Alexander said the House’s idea about building in proposed cuts as contingencies, “is another option to deal with this concern.”

While Scott built his $1 billion public school increase by cutting almost $2 billion in Medicaid spending, the biggest share coming in cuts to hospitals, Cannon outlines a different course.

He said the House wouldn’t go along with Scott’s plan to overhaul immediately the way hospitals get reimbursed for treating poor, elderly and disabled Floridians. But Cannon hinted that deep reductions in general government, transportation and environmental programs would be deployed, instead, by the House to find school dollars.

The House also pulls close to $300 million from state trust funds for use elsewhere in the budget – double what Scott proposed diverting from these accounts. But the House has to set aside as much as $100 million for tax breaks in the coming year, topping the roughly $35 million the governor has proposed. 

The Florida Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union and a powerful ally of the Legislature’s outnumbered Democrats, were cool to the House’s proposal. Andy Ford, the FEA president, said the proposed school increase doesn’t come close to offsetting the $1.3 billion in cuts imposed by Scott and lawmakers last year.

Scott’s proposal would boost average per-pupil spending by $142, to $6,372, which is still well below the record $7,126 reached in 2008, before the recession forced deep cutbacks. Classroom spending currently is at its lowest level in six year.

“Every child in Florida deserves a high-quality neighborhood school – and it’s within our means to provide one,” Ford said. “But we must understand that investing in our children pays the highest dividends…This proposal puts a small bandage on the gashes inflicted with last year’s budget. We need to do better.”

 

Senate President Mike Haridopolos has fast-tracked two privatization bills, referring them to a single committee before they head to the floor for a full vote.

Haridopolos sent the bills to the Rules Committee that yesterday agreed to allow the measures to get a full vetting.

One of the measures (SB 2038) resurrects a prison privatization plan shot down by a Tallahassee judge last year because of the manner in which lawmakers ordered the outsourcing of the 18-county region of southern Florida’s corrections operations.

The other proposal (SB 2036) deals with Tallahassee Circuit Judge Jackie Fulford’s ruling in the prison privatization case. Under that bill, lawmakers would be able to privatize any state functions by including the outsourcing in the budget state and without having public input until after the deals are done.

Although the privatization effort was not heard in any committees last year, the budget committee debated the proposal after it appeared one of the spending bills, Thrasher pointed out. He said he’s scheduled his next meeting, when the bills will be heard, to run for nearly four hours.

“It will get a full hearing,” Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, said. “We will take those bills up first and we will take whatever time is necessary.”

Lawmakers have not, however, before taken time to debate the measure giving them the ability to include privatization directly in the budget.

“Because we hadn’t had the court decision. Now we’ve got the court decision,” Thrasher said.

An Internet café showdown is shaping up after a Senate committee overwhelmingly approved a measure that would regulate the “casinos-on-corner” shortly before the sponsor of a proposal that would shut them down withdrew his bill from consideration.

The Senate Regulated Industries Committee signed off on the regulation of the cafés (SB 380) after hearing from proponents who said the facilities provide up to 13,000 jobs and are a place for seniors to socialize.

“We have never had one, eensy-teensy, bit of crime,” said Julie Slattery, who owns two Internet cafés in Melbourne.

“This is a business. It’s a real business. It’s a form of entertainment,” Slattery said. She asked the committee to regulate rather than shut the locales to “get rid of whatever it is you’re afraid of.”

But prosecutors and the Florida Sheriffs’ Association objected that the cafés are a venue for crimes and illegal gambling and need to be shuttered.

Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, the bill’s sponsor, rejected those arguments, noting that prosecutions have not resulted in a single conviction.

“I guess there’s a shortage of real crime out there so there’s a need to create some more so you can go prosecute it,” Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, said, adding that traffic problems and robberies often take place at convenience stores.

“Should the next bill ban convenience stores, too?” he said.

After passing the regulatory measure by an 8-1 vote, the committee then took up a bill (SB 428) that would outlaw the facilities. That proposal is similar to one passed by a House committee earlier this week and mirrors the criminalization Gov. Rick Scott yesterday said he’d like lawmakers to impose.

But before the committee could vote on his bill, Sen. Steve Oelrich asked the committee to temporarily put it aside, fending off the panel possibly killing the measure. That would have put an end to the possibility of outlawing the cafés for the rest of the session.

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A pair of greyhounds did the marketing this morning for activists in the Capitol pushing an animal-friendly agenda.

Sen. Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach, and Rep. Dana Young, R-Tampa, had “Johnny” and “Twiggy” on hand at a press conference for their proposal to allow dog tracks to keep their card rooms and other gambling activities but put an end to greyhound racing.

Sachs, whose district is home to the Palm Beach Kennel Club, said the state needs to quit subsidizing the dying industry and allow the pari-mutuels to stop the dog races that have become just an excuse to offer more lucrative poker games.

And, the bipartisan pair said, their “decoupling” bills (SB 382, HB 641) will put an end to the inhumane treatment of some greyhounds at smaller tracks. The pari-mutuel industry also supports the measures.

“It’s just not where we’re at as a people anymore,” Sachs said.

A similar proposal died on the last day of last year’s session over a dispute about tax breaks for the dog tracks, including PBKC.

The Humane Society of the United States, the ASPCA and GREY2K USA are also backing a measure (SB 488, HB 527) that would allow counties to charge an extra $10 for animal cruelty fines and let the money be spent on spay and neuter programs.

The animal rights groups are opposing a proposal (SB 1184, HB 1021) dubbed the “ag gag” bill that would make it a crime to take pictures or video of agricultural property.

Texting while driving would be a new moving violation under a bill approved by a Senate committee this morning over the objections of Sen. Joe Negron, who said distracted drivers can already be punished under existing law.

Negron cast the sole “no” vote on the measure (SB 416) which would make texting and driving a secondary offense – meaning police could not ticket drivers unless they are pulled over for another reason – punishable by a minimum $30 fine and a six-point drivers license violation if it results results in an accident.

Florida law already includes a reckless driving – which carries a minimum $25 fine and can result in prison sentences –moving violation, which should cover problematic texting, Negron argued. That means law enforcement officers can now pull over “someone weaving down the road while they’re texting” and give them a ticket, said Negron, a lawyer.

And it would be difficult for authorities to determine if someone texting just because they are using an electronic device, Negron said.

“What if I was just looking at my Blackberry to get the address of where I’m driving to. Is that texting because I punched a number and something came up for me to read? What about navigation devices? To me there are legitimate uses of electronic device while you’re driving. Texting is not one of them,” Negron said.

The bill is based on a sample law provided by the U.S. Department of Transportation, encouraging states to enact legislation to ban texting and driving. The Senate Communications, Energy and Public Utilities Committee approved the measure, sponsored by Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice, by a 12-1 vote this morning.

Negron said lawmakers need to be careful before creating new crimes, which he said they have done too often in the past.

“I think if we would simply enforce the careless driving law that we already have that that would send a message to stop that,” he said.

A bill prompted by Casey Anthony‘s acquittal last year of murdering her two-year-old daughter Caylee received unanimous support from a Senate committee this morning.

The measure (SB 858) would make it a third-degree felony for parents or guardians to lie to law enforcement officials during an investigation when a child under the age of 16 is missing and is seriously injured or dies. Each count would be punishable by up to 5 years in prison and up to $5,000. Under the proposal, Casey Anthony could have been sentenced to 20 years behind bars for misleading police in the investigation into her missing daughter who was later found dead.

“I think it would be utterly reprehensible for a parent to know that their child is missing and intentionally steer law enforcement in the wrong direction,” bill sponsor Joe Negron, R-Stuart, told the Senate Criminal Justice Committee this morning.

The bill is not as far-reaching as other proposals that include making it a crime to fail to report a child missing within a certain period of time. Negron said that’s because law enforcement officials advised that such a law might confuse parents, some of whom already mistakenly believe they must wait 48 hours before contacting authorities when a child goes missing.

But Sen. Alan Hays questioned whether the penalty was severe enough.

“I share your dismay, disgust, reprehension, everything, just the repulsiveness, the very idea of a parent willfully giving false information,” Hays, R-Umatilla, said. “Sen. Negron, I’m ready to throw them in jail and throw the key away.”

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The gambling bill that would allow three casinos to open in Florida remains stalled in the House after a second workshop on the proposal Wednesday afternoon.

And it remains unclear whether the controversial proposal will even get a vote in the House Business and Consumer Affairs Committee.

House Business and Consumer Affairs Committee Chairman Doug Holder said he’s still in the information-gathering stage and is not sure whether the bill (HB 487) will even get a vote in his committee or what the next move is.

“That could entail another workshop. It could entail ending the discussion. It could entail a vote. It just depends on how comfortable we feel. Certainly at this point we’ll digest all the information we just received,” committee chairman Doug Holder, R-Sarasota, said after about an hour of testimony late Wednesday afternoon.

The committee heard from proponents of the measure, including casino operators eager to set up shop in Florida, and split business industry lobbyists who spoke both for and against it.

A Senate committee gave Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff’s version (SB 710) its first thumbs-up on Monday. Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, had fast-tracked the bill and is still insisting that he wants the bill to get a vote by the full chamber.

But the proposition is in limbo. Senate Rules and Calender Committee Chairman John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, opposes the bill and said he wants to wait to see what the House does before he takes it up in his committee.

Holder said his chamber isn’t taking its cues from the Senate.

“We’re going through the process in our way. We realize it’s a little bit slower than the pace of the Senate but we are going to vet this fully before making any final decisions,” Holder said.

GOP leaders – including all three Cabinet members – have lined up with social conservatives, law enforcement officials, the Florida Chamber of Commerce and the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association in opposition.

Associated Industries of Florida, the Florida United Businesses Association and the construction industry are all pushing the casinos, promising that the high-end “destination resorts” will create thousands of new jobs and pump untold millions into the state’s anemic economy.

And the state’s existing pari-mutuels are flexing their considerable muscle with demands for equity in taxes and games as the proposed casinos, creating the possibility of roulette, craps and blackjack far beyond the South Florida area targeted by the bill’s sponsors.

On Wednesday, casino operators tried to dispel fears that the casinos will transform the Sunshine State’s family-friendly image into a Las Vegas or Atlantic City gambling mecca.

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Trying to fix what they call a glitch in a state gun law that went into effect in October, two Delray Beach Democrats are pushing a measure that would make it illegal to bring firearms into child care centers and public buildings.

Sen. Maria Sachs and Rep. Lori Berman filed bills that would change a new law approved by the legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Scott that went into effect in October. The new law, which includes civil penalties and removal from office for local officials who ignore it, forced state agencies, municipalities and counties such as Palm Beach to scrap hundreds of measures dealing with guns.

After the law went into effect, state police were also forced to reverse their policy and allow firearms to be brought into the Capitol although weapons are still barred from legislative committee meetings. The same law applies to local government meetings – guns are permitted in the building but not where officials are publicly gathered.

“The same rule should apply to the building where the meeting is taking place,” Berman said.

Under the new law, people are allowed to bring guns into child care centers but are still barred from bringing them into public schools or college and university campuses.

“If you’re not allowed to carry a gun into a school where children are five years old, I’m sure the law should extend to those who are four, or three or two,” Sachs, a former prosecutor, said. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

The Palm Beach County Commission, which unanimously voted to support the bills (SB 1340, HB 1087), last month filed a lawsuit against Scott and others over the law, arguing that it is unconstitutional and that the sanctions “are simply a form of political bullying that serves no governmental purpose” and have a “chilling effect.”

Commissioner Shelley Vana, a former state representative, stood beside Berman and Sachs at a press conference announcing the proposals this morning.

She said their effort will make Floridians, especially children, safer and called it “another major step in rectifying a tremendous wrong and helping local governments keep their citizens safe.”

The measures are unlikely to gain traction in the GOP-dominated legislature, especially in an election year. The National Rifle Association pushed the new law last year.

But Sachs said the issue is one of public safety, not partisanship.

“I know Palm Beach is a pretty progressive county…but I know that every other county will follow us,” she said.

In the chamber’s first action on the opening day of the 2012 legislative session, the Florida Senate overwhelmingly approved two claims bills, priorities of President Mike Haridopolos that failed to pass last session.

One measure (SR 2) would pay $1.35 million to William Dillon, locked up for 27 years before DNA evidence cleared him of a Brevard County murder. Haridopolos, who sponsored the claims bill, said that the compensation would help correct the injustice done to Dillon.

“At least show when you make a mistake, you own up to it and you try to make it right. That’s what being a compassionate person is all about,” Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, said before the 39-1 vote.

The Senate also signed off on a controversial claims bill that would pay the family of Eric Brody $10.75 million. Brody was catastrophically injured in 1998 when a Broward Sheriff’s deputy crashed into his car. Brody, then a high school senior, was left brain damaged and confined to a wheel chair.

A last-minute deal between Brody’s lawyers and insurers was finalized just before the Senate passed the bill (SR 4) with a 37-2 vote.

Lawmakers have tried for four years to get the “Brody bill” passed. Last year, the House’s failed to take it up on the final day of session, causing the session to end in chaos and Haridopolos to keep senators on hold until the wee hours of the morning before finally abandoning hope that the House would pass the measure.

The bill’s sponsor Sen. Lizbeth Benacquisto, R-Ft. Myers, said carrying the bill for two years was a lesson in determination: the determination of Brody’s parents and advocates and of her Senate colleagues in their support.

“But most importantly, it is the determination of one individual who stood so strongly to make sure we would not leave the building until Eric was taken care of,” Benacquisto said, referring to Haridopolos.