More than 1,800 pages of emails and other documents from Republican consultants will be reviewed in coming weeks by a former Florida Supreme Court justice who will determine whether they should be made public in a lawsuit looking to overturn the state Senate’s new redistricting map.

Leon County Circuit Judge Terry Lewis on Friday said that Major Harding, chosen by lawyers for both sides as a special magistrate in the case, should go through the disputed records behind closed doors to decide their fate.

Lawyers for voters groups want access to the material from Gainesville-based Data Targeting, Inc., a political affairs firm, which counters that the information is both irrelevant in the lawsuit and also poses a business threat, since the data could contain trade secrets.

Adam Schachter, attorney for the League of Women Voters and Common Cause of Florida, said Friday that so far, only 166 pages of documents have been made public by the firm. Another original party in the lawsuit, the National Council of La Raza, withdrew from the case this week.

The voter groups contend that redrawn Senate districts should be thrown out because Republican leaders illegally shared data and
maps with political consultants. The voter-approved Fair District amendments to the state constitution prohibit districts from being drawn to help or hurt incumbents.

But the organizations suing say such communication has become evident in the first rounds of data already provided by the Legislature and various consultants subpoenaed in the lawsuit.

In a brief hearing Friday, Lewis acknowledged the mass of emails he’d reviewed included some names he was familiar with from the political fight over redistricting. Others were from people he didn’t know — but “some (emails) suggested that somebody was being copied” with the information exchanged, Lewis said.

Gov. Rick Scott joined with the state’s largest teachers’ union late Sunday to endorse the $480 million included in the state budget for pay raises — saying it will guarantee at least $2,000 hikes for teachers around the state.

The House and Senate included the same $480 million Scott had sought. But while the governor proposed $2,500 across-the-board pay raises, legislative leaders insisted the money be based on merit.

Scott and Florida Education Association President Andy Ford said the structure of the package set to be voted on Friday by the Legislature means every teachers will get at least $2,000, but that some could pull in as much as $3,500 next year. Counties will have to develop performance measures to determine the final raises through collective bargaining.

Scott said the proposal builds “on our work to implement performance pay, while also allowing school districts the flexibility to use the $480 million in new funding to give every Florida teacher a pay raise. Our teachers are some of the best in the nation
and they deserve to be rewarded for their great work.”

Ford said, ““Through the collective bargaining process, FEA remains committed to working with local school districts to develop fair, valid, reliable and transparent processes to reward the success of Florida’s teaching force. Through bargaining with local
elected school boards, the success of such classroom personnel can be financially recognized in a manner which best meets the needs of local school districts.”

An effort by leading House Republicans to close the Florida Retirement System’s traditional pension plan to new employees cleared its final committee stop Thursday — after undergoing some changes that did little to ease overwhelming opposition from public workers’ unions.

Rep. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, endorsed an amendment that continues to make new hires eligible for disability and death benefits — a provision whose earlier absence had infuriated police and firefighter unions.

More than 60 opponents of the legislation — many police and firefighters in uniform — signed up to speak against the bill (CS/HB 7011) which cleared the State Affairs Committee on a 12-5 partyline vote. But restoring the disability and death benefits didn’t soften their criticism of the bill.

Democrats were locked in opposition to the measure.

“There’s no reason for it,” said Rep. Dwayne Taylor, D-Daytona Beach. “It defies logic. This is a bad, bad, bad idea.”

New hires seeking a retirement account would instead be required to join a defined contribution investment plan beginning Jan. 1.

The legislation is a top priority of House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, who maintains that the FRS is underfunded and will command increasing millions of dollars from Florida taxpayers to keep it afloat in future years, a
stance disputed by many experts.

Republicans on the committee said it was important for the state to act swiftly.

“This plan will decrease the financial risk to our taxpayers,” said Rep. Jake Raburn, R-Lithia.

But opponents warned that the legislation is not only unnecessary, it’s potentially dangerous. The $126 billion pension fund is used by more than 623,000 state and local government workers and another 335,000 retirees.

The FRS is considered 87 percent funded. Most analysts acknowledge that 80 percent is the benchmark for a fund considered to be on solid financial footing.

Republican leaders, however, say that unfunded actuarial liability is $19.2 billion — a level they say is alarming.

Still, those defending the fund say the shortfall would exist only if every pensioner demanded their full payments at once, which analysts say would never happen.

While the measure could head to the House floor as early as next week, the Republican-led Senate seems to have little interest in going that far.

A more modest change, proposed by Sen. Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, advanced Thursday in the Senate’s Governmental Oversight and Accountability Committee.

The bill (SB1392) would give new public employees an incentive by cutting their payroll contributions to 2 percent if they join the investment plan. If they choose the traditional plan, they’d pay 3 percent.

The only new workers required to join the investment plan would be senior managers, under Simpson’s bill. Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, has come in favor of Simpson’s proposal.

The division between the House and Senate makes it likely that some kind of compromise will have to be forged for any FRS changes to clear the Legislature this spring.

“It looks like we’ll have to sit down and talk to Sen. Simpson,” Brodeur conceded after the House vote.

A group of tea party organizations is apologizing for what they called “disrespectful and inappropriate behavior by some conservative activists at a Senate committee meeting earlier this week.

Leaders of more than a dozen Florida-based tea party groups – including Palm Beach County Tea Party’s Pam Wohlschlegel – signed off on a letter sent the apology to senators today while asking lawmakers not to create a state-based health insurance exchange. That was the issue that drove dozens of tea partiers led by lawyer KrisAnne Hall, who later got into it with Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville. Hall and others were demanding the state “nullify” the federal health care act, upheld this summer by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Our compatriots were responding from an over-abundance of passion for freedom. They were spontaneously trying to participate in a process that has been frustrating and opaque for years and their response was not pre-meditated and not intended to interfere in your process,” the leaders wrote today. “However, speaking over a sitting Senator who is using his allotted time to represent his constituents is unacceptable. We cannot allow basic rules of civil conduct to be violated and we will endeavor to ask our fellow patriots to respect the process in ways we ask to be respected as well. We stand ready to assist you in your efforts to protect the natural rights of Floridians protected by the Florida and U.S. constitution to life, liberty and property.”

Some of the tea partiers at the Senate committee’s Monday meeting interrupted and booed Senate Democratic Leader Chris Smith, D-Fort Lauderdale. Smith pointed out that the U.S. Constitution is an “imperfect document” that had to be amended to do away with slavery.

Gaetz further angered Hall with a history lesson about Andrew Jackson that included a reference about shooting and hanging Civil War-era “nullifiers” that launched an Internet firestorm.

Gov. Rick Scott was urged Friday to veto $149.6 million in hometown projects and other suspect spending in the state’s proposed $70 billion budget, including millions tucked in by legislative leaders.

Florida TaxWatch released its annual “turkey watch” as a prelude to Scott’s planned budget signing next week. Last year, Scott vetoed a record $615 million in spending but recently told the Post he didn’t expect to get anywhere near that level in the latest round.

Still, TaxWatch President Dominic Calabro said Scott should rely on a simple guide when reviewing legislative spending proposals.

“When in doubt, take it out,” Calabro said.

In addition to the amount TaxWatch targeted for veto, the business-backed research organization recommended Scott take a closer look at $21.3 million in economic development projects. TaxWatch said it’s likely some can spur the economy, but added that the state’s Department of Economic Opportunity should give this 16-project list more scrutiny.

A handful of Palm Beach County budget items were marked as turkeys Friday. Among them, $1 million for water treatment work in the Glades area, $250,000 for security at this fall’s presidential debate at Boca Raton’s Lynn University, $50,000 to help prepare a master plan for Torry Island development, and $500,000 for widening Riviera Beach’s 13th Street.

Tony Brown, executive director of the Riviera Beach Community Redevelopment Authority, earlier told the Post the 13th Street money would help the city complete a project it sees as vital to connecting a nearby industrial park to the Port of Palm Beach. He called the state’s expected contribution a “good public partnership” for a city strapped by several years of budget deficits.

Legislative leaders saw several of their hometown projects questioned.  Two of the biggest spending items TaxWatch opposed were in the backyard of Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, with $14 million for a Brevard College public safety institute and $10 million for economic development condemned as turkeys.

House budget chair Denise Grimsley, R-Sebring, also would lose $520,203 for an international baccalaureate program at Sebring High School and incoming Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, would have $389,825 axed from a science and technology program at a local middle school, if Scott follows TaxWatch’s recommendation.

But one of the most controversial spending provisions of the spring session was given the go-ahead Friday. TaxWatch said Sen. J.D. Alexander’s push for accelerating the creation of a 12th public university by giving independence to the University of South Florida’s Polytechnic campus in Lakeland — in Alexander’s home county — was included in legislation that was debated by lawmakers.

As a result, it doesn’t fit the organization’s definition of a turkey. But it still may not be the best use of taxpayer money. Polytechnic would receive $27 million in state start-up funds, while USF would get $16 million to cover costs stemming from the separation.

“Do we need a 12th university? I think the preponderance of our thinking is no,” Calabro said.  

Rising government costs and crumbling tax collections are leaving lawmakers facing a $2 billion budget shortfall next year, Senate President Mike Haridopolos said Thursday, a prospect few saw coming only months ago.

“Everything is on the table,” said Haridopolos, R-Melbourne, although he acknowled that tax increases are not. “But in June, I thought we’d be in a continuation budget. All the signs had us pointing in the right direction….But now we’re very concerned with revenue shortfalls.”

The House budget committee earlier Thursday estimated that lawmakers could come up between $1.1 billion and $2.2 billion short next year. The current year’s $69 billion budget was balanced by cutting spending, pulling cash from trust funds, and making government employees pay 3 percent of their pay to help cover pension costs.

A similar balancing act looks likely to commence in January, when lawmakers convene the 2012 session.

Florida economists are scheduled to meet Tuesday. They are expected to revise the state’s revenue forecast downward, with tax collections declining in the increasingly fragile economy.

Glimmers of trouble were evident this week, when funding for courts, road projects and school construction all reported shortfalls linked to the economy. But the news is a sharp departure from early last month, when economists forecast three years of clear budget sailing.

At that time, though, another leading senator, Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, conceded lawmakers would be wise not to celebrate over what appeared to be sufficient revenues to cover state spending through 2015.

Gaetz, in line to lead the Senate following next year’s elections, said last month that Florida’s economy is “on a knife’s edge.”

“We can’t move much, one way or the other, without some real damage,” Gaetz said.

House Budget Chair Denise Grimsley, R-Sebring, said next year was beginning to look all to familiar.

 “2012 is going to be another challenging year as we face a potential $2 billion shortfall; however, I am confident we will once again solve our budget challenges while keeping taxes low and encouraging private sector economic activity,” Grimsley said. 

At a Capitol crowded with what he called 500 of “friends and neighbors” from the Florida Panhandle, Niceville Republican Don Gaetz was designated Monday as the next president of the Florida Senate.

Gaetz will assume the job following next year’s elections — should the GOP retain its Senate majority, a likely development. Republicans now hold 28 seats in the 40-member Senate.

Gaetz, first elected in 2006, is the wealthiest member of the Legislature.  A retired co-founder of Vitas Healthcare Corp., a hospice care provider, Gaetz devoted most of his acceptance speech to touting plans for reviving Florida’s faltering economy.

Gaetz recalled the words of Winston Churchill, anguishing over “what a waste to be a great man in small times.”

“One thing is sure. These are not small times,” Gaets said. “They are hard times. But they can be great times.”

On track to succeed Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Melbourne, following the November elections, Gaetz encapsulated his future leadership in three promises.

He vowed to bolster the state’s political ethics, make education meet the state’s economic needs, and turn Florida into a “cradle of common sense solutions,” that can draw businesses with smaller government, low taxes, and reduced regulations.

“In an angry sea of economic chaos, Florida can become a safe harbor,” Gaetz said.  

Another multi-millionaire who has pledged to fix Florida’ s economy, Gov. Rick Scott, said he liked what he heard from Gaetz, a former county school board member and superintendent.

“He understands that we really have to do the right thing with regard to education. Science, technology, engineering and math are clearly going to be key to growing our state. It’s going to be a real key to getting companies to move here,” Scott said. “I like the challenge that he set down.”