Attorney General Pam Bondi sent the Legislature’s redistricting plans to the Florida Supreme Court on Friday — a move that will start justices’ review of the maps.

Under state law, Bondi had 15 days to act. But she sent the proposals to the court about 24 hours after they earned final approval from the state Senate.

Justices will have 30 days to examine the plans.  The court is asked to determine if the plans for redrawing the state’s 40 Senate districts and 120 House seats complies with state law, including new constitutional standards requiring that boundaries be drawn without concern for incumbents or either political party.

The Florida Democratic Party has already filed suit in Leon County Circuit Court against the congressional map, also approved Thursday.

Gov. Rick Scott is expected to sign the plan into law next week. Scott’s action is expected to bring another lawsuit by the League of Women Voters, La Raza and Common Cause of Florida, which contend the Legislature’s ruling Republicans designed the plan to help the party maintain its majority in the congressional delegation.

Gov. Rick Scott said Tuesday he has little interest in a fellow Republican’s plan that guts the state’s Department of Health, while also closing Lantana’s A.G. Holley Hospital.

Even before he was sworn-in, Scott’s transition advisers gave him a blistering review of the DOH, dismissing it as a wasteful bureaucratic agency ripe for change. Legislation by Rep. Matt Hudson, R-Naples, would decentralize most of the department’s services, and give county commissions authority to run county health departments.

So far, though, the proposal looks like a no-sale with Scott.

“I’m trying to figure out what it does,” Scott said.  “Does it improve quality? Does it reduce costs? Does it improve service? If if it doesn’t do something that makes the lives of Florida’s citizens better, why would we think about doing that?

“I haven’t seen anything — the way it’s been explained to me — in the bill that does any of those things,” Scott concluded.

Several public health advocates blasted Hudson’s proposal Monday when it cleared a House subcommittee.

The measure would largely get the state out of the business of running county health departments, turning them over to county commissions to operate. State and federal dollars would be steered in block grants to county governments, based on population, which would gain more control over how the dollars are spent.

About 12,000 state Health Department jobs would be slashed, although supporters of the move said many would convert to county positions. A.G. Holley’s closure, seen as another cost-saving move, would shutter Florida’s last remaining tuberculosis hospital, most likely by January.

Gov. Rick Scott acknowledged Tuesday that he’s been lobbied by Florida members of Congress on the redistricting plan expected to be sent his way soon.

But the Republican governor didn’t want to mention any names.

“Oh, I don’t think anybody wants me to talk about any of those conversations,” Scott said, when asked if U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, was among those contacting him.

West last week announced that he would leave his battleground congressional district, straddling Palm Beach and Broward counties, to run this year in a proposed new district, which includes Martin and St. Lucie counties, and part of Palm Beach.

West’s decision emerged as part of a GOP three-step dance – touched off by U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, who said he’d run in a newly drawn, mostly rural and interior Florida district.

Former House majority leader Adam Hasner of Boca Raton completed the moves by announcing he was abandoning his U.S. Senate run to run in the district that West was exiting.

House and Senate redistricting leaders say they have kept their distance from members of Congress, mostly in an effort to comply with constitutional amendments approved by voters in 2010, which ban new electoral boundaries from favoring incumbents or parties.

Scott, though, said at least some in Florida’s delegation have reached out directly to the executive office. While Scott isn’ authorized to act on legislative maps, he can veto the congressional plan.

“I’ll review it when I get it,” Scott said of the congressional proposal. “I’ve had a few phone calls from some people that have had questions about it. My response is, ‘send me what your proposal is, and I’ll review it at the time.’

Senate Reapportionment Chairman Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, said Scott’s contacts with unnamed members of Congress doesn’t strike him as out of line — or unconstitutional.

“Any citizen is entitled to petition their government for the redress of grievances,” Gaetz said.

In partyline votes, the House on Friday approved redrawn boundaries for legislative and congressional districts — sending the maps back to the Senate, which is expected to sign-off on the proposal next week.

The move came with few fireworks. But it did include efforts by ruling Republicans and outnumbered Democrats to set some legal standards for redistricting’s upcoming course through the courts.

Spanning seven hours of debate over two days, Democrats basically charged the proposed maps again pack minority voters into select districts, “bleaching” surrounding seats to make them more likely to elect Republican lawmakers. Democrats say maps were flawed early, when Republicans sought to maintain current minority access districts.

House Redistricting Committee Chairman Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, denied the allegation.

“The last thing we would ever want to do is pack, and there is none of that in any way, shape or form,” Weatherford said.

Weatherford also blistered Democrats for listening more to legal advice than judging the merits of the maps.

“If a decision is based on politics, and if you’re pushing the red button because an attorney told you to, I can’t respect that,” Weatherford said.

Redrawn legislative and congressional district maps, which Democrats say will unfairly maintain Florida’s Republican dominance,  are readied for a final vote Friday in the state House.

Redistricting Chairman Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, withstood hours of questioning Thursday from Democrats. He denied that new electoral boundaries were drawn to help or hurt incumbents, or assure that Republicans retain control of the Legislature or congressional delegation.

“At no point, were these maps drawn with any political intent,” Weatherford said.

But the Democrats are clearly looking to build a legal case against the maps, which must be reviewed by the state Supreme Court and the U.S. Justice Department, to assure minority-voting rights are protected.

The House is poised to vote Friday, sending the plans back to the Senate for final action, probably next week. The courts would then begin their work.

Here’s the rest of the story: http://bit.ly/yaNwA4

Gov. Rick Scott said Tuesday that he’s ready to put the brakes on tuition hikes for college and university students across Florida.

“I don’t believe in tuition hikes,” Scott said. 

He added, “We have to do what the private sector has done, what every family has done. We have to tighten our belts to see how we can save money. That’s the first thing I want to focus on: How do we reduce our costs, rather than how do we raise tuition.”

Last week, 300 Florida university students rallied at the Capitol to oppose what looks like another push by the Legislature to approve a tuition increase. Tuition at five Florida universities has climbed 60 percent over the past four years, while students at the other six public universities have weathered a 45 percent boost in that time.

The presidents of the University of Florida and Florida State University earlier this month urged a House committee to give schools authority to begin charging higher tuition for science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs — the STEM degrees that Scott says are the path to employment in the evolving economy.

The House budget committee Wednesday looks set to approve another potential 15 percent boost in university tuition as part of its $69 billion state spending plan. College tuition would climb 8 percent, under the plan.

Florida’s tuition has been climbing even as state support for universities has dropped 24 percent since 2008, shifting more school costs onto students and their families. The state’s tuition remains the 45th lowest rate in the country.

But while universities have been cutting programs to reduce costs, Scott thinks more reductions can be made at the administrative level.

Six-figure salaries paid to high-level administrators seem to have endured Florida’s prolonged economic slump. Over the past year, they’ve become a rallying point at campus protests.

“I want the cost of living in this state to be lower than other states, I don’t want it to be higher than other states,” Scott said. “Would you think that way in business? You’d wouldn’t say, ‘Oh, gosh. The other business, it costs them more to do things, so let me raise my prices.’ You don’t do that. You figure out, how can we be efficient.” 

Gov. Rick Scott declined to say who he voted for in Florida’s Republican presidential primary, after casting his ballot early Tuesday at a community center a couple blocks from the Governor’s Mansion.

Florida’s chief executive, who had declined to endorse or campaign with any of the contenders in the race, continued to keep his distance.

“It’s a secret ballot, fortunately,” Scott said.

He acknowledged though, his favorite had “less than 10 letters in their last name,” a standard that covers the field.

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.

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.

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.

With all eyes on Florida in the GOP presidential race, Senate President Mike Haridopolos might have been justified saying “I told you so” about the Sunshine State’s early Republican primary next week.

The legislature moved Florida’s primary date up from its originally scheduled date to Jan. 31 over the objections of state and national GOP leaders. Haridopolos and others wanted to elevate the state’s role in determining the eventual nominee.

With Newt Gingrich surging in the polls after unexpectedly trouncing Mitt Romney in South Carolina, Florida could be “the lynchpin to one person winning” the race, Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, said.

“Every once in a while it feels good to be right,” Haridopolos, a Romney backer, said this morning. “It was a risk, don’t get me wrong. But we thought it was a good risk. Clearly the eyes of the nation if not the eyes of the world are on this…I think it’s a good thing.”

And national coverage of the candidates stumping around sunny, mild-climed Florida may help solve some of the state’s budget problems as well, Haridopolos said.d

“This is like free advertising for our state and it wasn’t Visit Florida that had to pay the tab,” Haridopolos said.

Watching candidates “in their shirt sleeves” in sunny Florida may prompt Northerners to consider relocating their businesses to or visiting Florida, Haridopolos, a former New Yorker, said.

“So I think it’s been a jackpot,” Haridopolos said. “And I think we’re in the place where we deserve to be.”

Florida is the bellweather state in the general election and deserves to be so in the primaries, Haridopolos said, after the lesser-known candidates have been weeded out in Iowa and New Hampshire.

I love these kind of competitions – except when I’m in races. I like the ones where no one runs against me. It’s a lot more successful,” the former U.S. Senate candidate joked. “But to be serious. I think it’s good. I think this will elevate our candidate.”

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.

Senate Democratic Leader Nan Rich said Friday that she will not propose alternative maps next week when the Republican-controlled chamber is expected to approve new boundaries for congressional and Senate districts.

Rich said outnumbered Democrats will take their chances that judges — who get to review the redistricting plans — will find the GOP-led effort unconstitutional.

“The court will have the last word,” Rich said.

Earlier this week, Rich said she planned to introduce a Senate Democratic plan modeled heavily on proposals already unveiled by the League of Women Voters, Democracia USA and Common Cause, which slightly reduce the minority voting populations in several districts now represented by black lawmakers.

Rich accused Republicans of “packing” Democrats into districts under the plans now before the Senate. She said the approach violates the voter-approved Amendments 5 and 6, measures, supported by most Democratic legislators and allied groups. The amendments bar district lines from being drawn that help a party or incumbents.

But Rich’s plan to unveil a map as a floor amendment was criticized by Republican senators, who said the move didn’t allow time for the revamped plan to be reviewed. More telling, though, may have been that Rich drew resistence from a few fellow Democrats — with Sen. Larcenia Bullard, D-Miami, critical of any effort that would reduce minority voting strength.

In explaining her decision to drop plans to propose maps, Rich said Friday that in debate before the Senate Reapportionment Committee earlier this week, ”there was so much vitriol, I didn’t want to see that happen on the Senate floor.”  

Former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham has sent out an end-of-year call from the newly created Florida Conservation Coalition, urging environmental activists to buttonhole their legislators before the Jan. 10 session begins.

The coalition was unveiled last month, with plans to lobby Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican-led Legislature to revive state funding for water quality programs, the Florida Forever land-buying program and Everglades restoration, which supporters say have been staggered by budget cuts since 2007.

In his email blast to activists, Graham condemns last spring’s policy changes and spending reductions.

“In three short months of 2011, the Governor and Legislature set Florida’s once proud conservation laws and programs back four decades. In so doing they have handed us a very heavy lift. But what choices do we have? We surrender, or we fight back,”  Graham said.

He concluded, “Our immediate job is to convince the Legislature that they went too far and must correct and reverse its misguided actions of 2011.”

The coalition includes Audubon of Florida, 1000 Friends of Florida, the Nature Conservancy, Florida Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club, Trust for Public Land and League of Women Voters.

The Florida Republican Party said Tuesday that its pre-presidential primary debate will be held Jan. 26 at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville.

A co-sponsor for the debate is the Hispanic Leadership Network. The debate will be broadcast on CNN.

“This is a great event for Jacksonville and for UNF,” said Lenny Curry, Florida’s Republican Party chairman, and a Jacksonville businessman. “This venue will highlight how important Jacksonville and the First Coast region are to Florida and the nation by hosting a debate that includes our next president.”

Florida has set Jan. 31 for its primary, drawing penalties from the Republican National Committee for placing its contest ahead of  a March 6 cutoff. The party had been trying to reserve the earlier dates for states which traditionally hold the nation’s first contests — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.

The nation’s first nominating contest will be the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses.

The UNF debate will mark the third debate originating from Florida, the nation’s biggest toss-up state in the presidential contest. Nationally televised debates featuring the Republican presidential field were held in September in Tampa and Orlando.

Gov. Rick Scott said Friday that the state’s new 10 percent unemployment rate for November is a sign that “clearly, we have turned the corner.”

The rate was 0.4 percentage points lower than a revised October rate and below the 11.9 percent posted in November 2010.  In Palm Beach County, the jobless rate was 10.1 percent – slightly topping the statewide figure, but still down .2 percent from the previous month.

“That’s a real positive,” Scott said of the statewide decline.

Florida’s unemployment decline tracks what’s occuring nationally. Florida’s rate still is higher than the nation’s 8.6 percent November jobless level, which is also down .4 percent from a month earlier.

 A total of 8,500 new jobs were added in Florida last month. Scott said that brings the total net new jobs for the year to more than 120,000.

Gov. Rick Scott ripped the Obama administration Friday for rejecting Florida’s application for Race to the Top education dollars, deriding the decision as stemming from the state’s refusal to accept the money “with strings attached.”

Nine states were authorized by federal officials to share $500 million in grant money aimed at accelerating  improvements in early childhood programs. California, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Washington state will get the dollars to make strides in pre-kindergarten education.

Scott said he suspected Florida was turned down because the state did not commit to continuing programs after federal dollars expired — a move he said was aimed at avoiding making state taxpayers pick up the tab for new government services.

 ”When Florida’s application was submitted for the grant in October, we made it clear that we would not accept grant money with strings attached, additional state spending obligations, or requirements that created new burdensome regulations on private providers,” Scott said.

 ” We stuck to our principles, and unfortunately our insistence against irresponsibly using one-time dollars for recurring government programs did not win the favor of the administration in Washington,” he added.

Race to the Top, the centerpiece of Obama’s education policies, has proved a thorny issue for Republicans. In the GOP presidential field, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is a staunch opponent, while Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, is a fan.

The funding approach also supports many of the early-learning measures promoted by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and state legislative leaders.

Still, Scott defied tea party activists in October when he submitted the state’s application.  But he was lured by the prospect of winning as much as $100 million in federal cash for the state — in a year when he wants to pump-up Florida K-12 spending by $1 billion.

Scott insisted, though, that he wouldn’t go along with federal officials dictating terms for how the state spent the money.

Florida won a $700 million federal grant under the program last year, in its second attempt at landing the cash. But Scott has pushed back millions of dollars in aid tied to Obama’s health care overhaul. The state’s Tea Party Network, also openly demanded in the fall that he steer clear of the Race to the Top effort.

But for all the line-in-the-sand drawing, Scott in September agreed to some conditions in advance of the application.

At Scott’s urging, the Legislative Budget Commission accepted a $3.4 million federal grant under the Affordable Care Act to provide home visiting services to at-risk families. Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, was among those urging against the move, saying the program’s mission was murky, and he feared it could result in the state facing additional costs.

Feeney

Former Florida House speaker and ex-congressman Tom Feeney was named Thursday as president and CEO of Associated Industries of Florida, the big business lobby.

Feeney succeeds Barney Bishop, who left the post last summer after seven years on the job. AIF is expected to play a central role in the upcoming legislative session as an advocate for casino gambling — pushing a major ‘destinations resorts’ package targed for Miami and two other, still-to-be-named areas of the state.

“Representative Feeney is highly respected, both as an elected official and as a Florida businessman.  He is a proven leader and will be a tremendous asset to the association. Having dedicated much of the last 20 years to public service, Tom knows what it takes to be effective in the halls of the Florida capitol and on Capitol Hill,” said Erika Alba, Chair of the AIF Board of Directors.

Feeney was the state House speaker from 2000-2002, when he was elected to Congress from Central Florida. Feeney twice won re-election, but fell out of  favor after becoming a crony of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who paid for the congressman to play golf  in Scotland, along with other perqs.

Feeney, who as a state legislator called himself a “happy warrior” for conservative ideas, usually drew high marks from business associations, anti-tax advocates and social conservatives. But running a losing campaign against Democrat Suzanne Kosmas in 2008, Feeney also ran a TV spot apologizing for his “bad judgment” in the Abramoff case.

Back in Florida, Feeney has been running a business consulting and lobbying company called Liberty Team, based in Orlando.

“With the 2012 Legislative Session just around the corner, I will be immediately rolling up my sleeves and getting to work on AIF’s top priorities,” Feeney said.

A Leon County judge Wednesday removed from the November ballot a proposed amendment that would have let state money flow to religious institutions, lifting a prohibition in place since 1885.

But Circuit Judge Terry Lewis’ decision won’t be the last word. Under a new law approved last spring, Attorney General Pam Bondi know gets 10 days to rewrite the ballot proposal — meaning it is still likely to go before voters in November.

The state’s largest teachers union as well as several religious clergy had urged that Lewis not only remove the proposed amendment, arguing that the ballot title and summary language of Amendment 7 will mislead voters, but also erase the new attorney general’s provision as unconstitutional.

Lewis agreed with opponents’ amendment argument. But he let the rewrite by the executive branch stand. But the teachers’ union was quick to declare victory.

“Amendment 7 would have required taxpayers to fund a broad array of religious programs and institutions,” said Andy Ford, president of the Florida Education Association. “The judge agreed that taxpayers and voters need to be told the truth and that the purpose and effect of the amendment was not clear in the ballot summary and was misleading to voters.”

Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood, was among the sponsors of the measure (CS/HJR 1471), approved mostly along party lines in the Republican-controlled Legislature.

Plakon and other supporters said the measure was designed merely to remove discriminatory language from the state’s Constitution, which they say is rooted in 19th Century anti-Catholic fervor. Florida is among more than 35 states with such so-called Blaine amendments, named for a former Maine congressman who proposed such a restriction in the U.S. Constitution.

Despite the prohibition, the Legislature already directs millions of public dollars each year to religious-affiliated organizations in Florida to serve foster children, prison inmates, and low-income and elderly Floridians.

The Florida Supreme Court has never embraced a hard-line interpretation of the Blaine prohibition. Instead, earlier rulings allowed such spending if it promotes the general welfare, as opposed to advancing religious doctrine.

Gov. Scott reading scriptures at Western Wall

Gov. Rick Scott, in the middle of a weeklong trade and cultural trip to Israel, has hit many of the nation’s landmarks — the most recent, a stop at Jerusalem’s Western Wall.

“The Jewish community makes invaluable contributions to our state and nation’s spiritual diversity, and it has been a humbling experience to visit this and other important sites to their faith and history,” said Scott, who was joined by Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Melbourne, on the trip.

It’s Scott’s fourth trade mission as governor. Scott also is Florida’s third governor in a row to visit Israel during his first year as chief executive. With an election year looming, both parties nationally are mindful that Florida is home to the nation’s third largest Jewish population.

More Scott photos are here:  http://www.flgov.com/israel/