West

West ranks 54th out of 87 freshmen for agreeing with the limited-government, supply-side group’s agenda.

As reported earlier this year, West agreed with the Club For Growth on economic and fiscal issues 64 percent of the time in 2011. That compares to a 71 percent score for the average freshman and a 69 percent score for the average Republican House veteran.

West didn’t go along with all the spending cuts the Club For Growth advocated in 2011 and voted for a debt ceiling increase that angered many tea partiers.

* Share/save this post *

Leder

Romney visits the Tampa home of Dick and Cornelia Corbett on Wednesday afternoon, then heads to Coral Gables for a reception at the Biltmore and a dinner at the home of Phil and Pat Frost. There’s also a Romney reception and private lunch in Jacksonville on Thursday before the presumptive Republican nominee arrives in Boca for a Thursday evening reception at Woodfield Country Club and then dinner at Leder’s nearby home.

In each city, Romney’s schedule includes a general reception for $2,500 donors, a VIP event with a photo opportunity for $10,000 contributors and a private meal for those who pony up $50,000.

Leder is the co-founder of Sun Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in Boca Raton.

Leder has given $125,000 to the pro-Romney superPAC Restore Our Future and showered contributions on a variety of Republican candidates, including Sen. Marco Rubio and Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown. In Florida’s 2012 Senate race, Leder gave $5,000 to Adam Hasner‘s GOP campaign before Hasner switched to a U.S. House race; Leder recently gave $2,500 to Rep. Connie Mack‘s Senate bid.

Leder also gave $4,800 to Charlie Crist‘s 2010 Senate bid before Crist bolted the GOP. And he has contributed to South Florida Democratic U.S. Reps. Ted Deutch and Debbie Wasserman Schultz and former Democratic Rep. Ron Klein.

* Share/save this post *

Nelson’s attorney sent TV stations a letter saying the ad produced by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is untrue and stations have “a duty to protect the public from the spread of false information and deliberate deception.”

In Palm Beach County, WPTV Channel 5 says it will continue running the ad.

“We reviewed the content of the letter and determined that we will continue to air the spot as ordered by the client,” said WPTV Vice President and General Manager Steve Wasserman.

The health care bill calls for overall Medicare spending to increase over the next decade. But it projects that future spending will grow at a slower rate than projected before the bill was passed, resulting in savings of about $500 billion.

In an evaluation of the health care bill shortly before it passed in 2010, Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas W. Elmendorf said of the projected Medicare savings that it was “unclear whether such a reduction in the growth rate of spending could be achieved, and if so, whether it would be accomplished through greater efficiencies in the delivery of health care or through reductions in access to care or the quality of care.”

* Share/save this post *

MacNamara will leave July 1. Scott announced the veteran capital insider will be replaced by Adam Hollingsworth, who leads the right-of-way division for Flagler Development Group.

Hollingsworth is a former chief-of-staff to ex-Mayor John Peyton of Jacksonville. He left the mayor’s office to work for the Florida Republican Party in advance of Scott’s election, and also served on the incoming governor’s transition team.

“I’m grateful for Steve’s invaluable assistance in helping advance my agenda to strengthen education, create jobs and lower the cost of living for Floridians,” Scott said in a statement Saturday, while praising MacNamara for guiding a generally successful agenda for the governor through the Legislature this spring.

Scott added, “I believe Steve has had a tremendous impact on me and Ann as well as my administration and our state. I respect his efforts and ideas.”

MacNamara’s departure comes at least a few months ahead of his planned exit, but was hastened by media reports questioning his awarding no-bid contracts — one worth $5.5 million — to close associates while he worked for Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island. Former associates also accused him of being an overly controlling presence in the governor’s office.

Last week, a complaint against MacNamara also was filed with the state’s Commission on Ethics, accusing him of using governor’s office staff to assist him in inquiring about a college presidency opening in Montana. MacNamara and his wife own property in Montana, and influenced Scott and his wife, Ann, to buy near them. 

MacNamara left the Senate presidency job last June to join Scott, taking over as the new administration’s approval ratings tanked with Floridians, angered by deep budget cuts worsened by the governor’s difficulties connecting with the public.

MacNamara immediately attempted to soften the governor’s image — with Scott most days going without a necktie, suddenly visiting editorial boards he had shunned, and adopting a more cooperative approach with the Legislature.

Scott’s approval ratings remain lousy among Floridians, according to polls. But in his resignation letter, MacNamara pointed with pride toward his work helping Scott repair his first-year image.

“It is my belief that I have helped Floridians begin to know the real Rick Scott,” MacNamara wrote Saturday. “A man who listens to them, who tries to understand their issues and concerns, and works diligently to solve their problems.”

Before joining the governor’s office last June,  MacNamara directed wholesale housecleaning in the Senate administration, forcing out a number of longtime staff directors.  Some of the contracts MacNamara steered to associates and friends were part of his effort to improve the efficiency and transparency of Haridopolos’ office, qualities he also said he brought to Scott’s administration.

But MacNamara also drew controversy. Several Scott agency heads left over the past year, later citing MacNamara’s hands-on approach as interfering with their ability to lead, sometimes over seemingly petty matters.

 Doug Darling, chief of the Department of Economic Opportunity, a key agency for the job-promoting Scott, abruptly quit in January after MacNamara countermanded his order denying the state’s film commissioner a trip to the Sundance Film Festival.

MacNamara earned $189,000 as chief-of-staff.

He previously was chief-of-staff to former House Speaker John Thrasher, and served as an agency head under former Republican Gov. Bob Martinez. MacNamara is a tenured professor in communications at Florida State University, but helped shape Scott’s views of higher education as being rife with waste and overpaid administrators.

Although he didn’t comment directly on the accusations that have lately hounded him, MacNamara closed his two-page resignation letter by hinting that he was the target of those losing out on government contracts under the belt-tightening Scott. He also suggested that Scott would continue to defy these critics.

“As you continue to cut government waste,” MacNamara wrote, “those vendors of goods and services will work diligently to twist the story and bring about public pressure to stop these cost savings. Good luck with that!”

* Share/save this post *

The poll shows 42 percent of voters like the job he’s doing as governor — compared with 44 percent who disapprove. The disapproval rating is better than the chilling 54 percent marks Scott earned in late April in two separate surveys, Public Policy Polling and Rasmussen Reports.

While PPP found Scott’s approval still hovered low — at 34 percent, Rasmussen gave Scott better numbers — 43 percent backing from voters.

The Post reported earlier this week that the Republican Party of Florida has paid almost $1 million since March for a TV campaign, promoting the governor’s push for $1 billion more for public schools and helping state unemployment fall to a three-year low behind what the ads label Scott’s “pro-business initiatives.”

But with his barnacle-scraping approval ratings, Scott is likely to emerge this election season as a candidate Democrats and their allies seek to tie to presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

“Rick Scott’s not on the ballot, but the philosophy he espouses will be, and that’s what will be our focus,” said Rich Templin, a spokesman for the Florida AFL-CIO, which represents 500,000 workers in the state.

* Share/save this post *

Scott was in West Palm Beach earlier this week promoting the measure (HB 119) that he said will go a long way toward reducing accident fraud and high insurance premiums, which have plagued Florida’s mandatory, no-fault personal injury protection (PIP) coverage.

“This was done for the benefit of consumers and not for the benefit of insurance companies,” Scott said at the event, held at the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.

But Russel Lazerga, a Dania Beach lawyer who represents hospitals seeking to recover PIP claims, said he expects the new law will only force more health care providers into court to receive payments.

The PIP bill was hastily cobbled together in the waning hours of the 2012 session and includes conflicting language that raises questions of whether insurers could be considered exempt from paying claims between July 1 and Jan. 1, 2013 to hospitals, chiropractors, dentists, doctors and others.

 ”I see a mountain of red tape ahead,” Lazerga said.

Lazerga, who said he has helped 350 hospitals and other medical facilities receive $20 million in disputed insurance payments over the past 15 years, said insurance companies can use the flaw in the new law as a “heavy-handed negotiating tool,” when hospitals submit claims.

Hospitals could choose to accept lesser payments, Lazerga said, rather than take chances on the insurance company refusing to pay anything — with insurers banking on the law’s gap to help them win in court. Also, it’s possible that medical providers will end up suing each other to collect a larger portion of a $10,000 PIP claim — especially if one of the competing providers is in a profession whose reimbursement status is clouded because of the flaw in the new law.

The changes are the state’s latest attempt to overhaul the $10,000 PIP coverage required since the 1970s. The system, intended to reduce lawsuits and get payments issued quickly for treating injured motorists, has been plagued by frequent complaints about fraud, staged accidents and high insurance rates.

The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration this week sought to resolve the new law’s problems by issuing a memo saying that it considers all providers still eligible to receive insurance payments. Changes to eligibility outlined in the law would not take effect until Jan. 1, according to AHCA’s memo.

 In the memo, AHCA’s general counsel, Stuart Williams, acknowledged the conflict “would place the agency in a conundrum.” But he concluded, the “agency believes that the (law) applies the same effective date of January 1, 2013 to both the new licensure requirement and the…exemption.”

But whether a state agency can correct a conflict in law with a simple memo is a deeper question, said Mark Seidenfeld, an administrative law expert at Florida State University.

“A memo, executive order or rule issued by an agency can influence a court in deciding the intent of the new law,” Seidenfeld said. “But there’s no guarantee. You can be sure, though, this is going to be challenged in court.”

* Share/save this post *

Palm Beach County’s Business Political Action Committee has endorsed Delray Beach Mayor Woodie McDuffie for elections supervisor over incumbent Susan Bucher while supporting two other countywide elected officials who face challenges: Property Appraiser Gary Nikolits and Clerk ‘n’ Comptroller Sharon Bock.

BIZPAC tends to favor Republicans in contested partisan races, but the group endorsed state Rep. Joseph Abruzzo, D-Wellington, for a new west-county Senate seat over Republicans Melanie Peterson and Geoff Sommers.

Read BIZPAC Chairman John R. Smith‘s discussion of the group’s endorsements here.

* Share/save this post *

Mack and other members of Congress are allowed to send “franked” mail to their constituents at taxpayer expense. But about two-thirds of a recent 90,000-piece mailer from Mack’s office touting his “Penny Plan” to reduce the federal deficit went to addresses outside his Fort Myers-area district.

Mack campaign spokesman David James said a New Jersey-based subcontractor who also does work for Mack’s campaign mixed up mailing lists and sent the congressional mailer to a list that included voters outside Mack’s district.

The vendor, William McClintock Associates, sent a letter to Mack on Wednesday accepting blame for “a mistake on our part” and including a copy of a $17,992 check to the U.S. Treasury to cover the postage for the pieces that went outside Mack’s district.

Mack called the improper mailing “unintentional” in a Wednesday letter to the House Franking Commission, the bipartisan panel that reviews the content of members’ mailings before they go out.

After getting Mack’s letter and the vendor’s admission and check, Franking Commission Chairman Aaron Schock, R-Ill., sent Mack a letter today telling him, “You have complied with the law and no further action will be taken by the Franking Commission.”

LeMieux, in a conference call with reporters, wasn’t buying it.

He noted that Mack’s mailer mentions Sens. Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Pat Toomey as supporters of the Penny Plan bill. Paul announced his endorsement of Mack this week, which LeMieux said is evidence that the mailer was timed to hit mailboxes around the same time.

“It is not an honest mistake. It is a coordinated campaign effort. We have come to see that we cannot trust Connie Mack on a variety of issues,” said LeMieux, who for months has been attacking Mack for decades-old fistfights and more recent financial woes.

LeMieux said the Mack mailer appeared to be targeted to frequent Republican primary voters. He based that on a dozen or so people outside Mack’s district who had contacted LeMieux’s campaign after getting the mailer.

Mack spokesman James said that because of the vendor’s mistake, he did not know to whom the piece was sent.

LeMieux also contended that the vendor’s $17,992 check to the Treasury amounted to an illegal campaign contribution to Mack because the mailer outside the district benefited Mack’s campaign. Federal law limits contributions to $5,000 and allows them only from individuals, not businesses.

While the content of the mailer is similar to a campaign piece, it does not mention an election or other candidates and was approved by the Franking Commission, which is supposed to ensure that official mailings are not overly political.

James called LeMieux’s accusations “desperate.”

* Share/save this post *

The justices heard oral arguments in the unusual case involving Roman Pino, a drywall hanger whose lawsuit has already been settled. It’s the first foreclosure case to come before the state’s high court since the housing collapse.

Pino’s case against the Bank of New York Mellon focuses on whether lenders or other plaintiffs can escape penalties after filing bogus documents with the court simply by voluntarily dismissing the lawsuits. A voluntary dismissal allows the bank to refile at a later date.

The Palm Beach County homeowner accused the bank of using false documents in its foreclosure proceedings against him. Pino and the bank have since settled the case, but his lawyers want the high court to decide whether trial court judges have the ability to overturn voluntary dismissals.

The justices peppered Amanda Lundergan, a lawyer with the Tom Ice law firm that represented Pino, with questions during oral arguments this morning. They seemed to have trouble understanding what harm Pino had suffered.

“What it seems like to me, you’re just looking for a ‘gotcha’ to get out of the mortgage. Am I wrong?” Chief Justice Charles Canady said.

“Absolutely wrong,” Lundergan said. “This is not about Mr. Pino. This is about the bank and the fraud that was committed.”

But Bruce Rogow, who represents the bank, said Pino’s lawyers are essentially asking the judges to change court rules about voluntary dismissals and that the foreclosure case could have far-reaching effects.

“We have not had problems. This is, because it’s a mortgage foreclosure case, because there are a lot of those cases, it has attracted a lot of attention. But I think we have to look at this in the universe of general civil litigation. And this has not been a problem in general civil litigation,” Rogow said.

In Pino’s foreclosure case, his lawyers challenged a document created by the Law Offices of David J. Stern and sought to question employees about its veracity. On the eve of those depositions, the bank moved to dismiss the case, blocking the court’s ability to address any sanctions.

Ice made headlines with the Pino case in 2010 when he was featured in a national magazine article about Florida’s so-called “foreclosure mills” and the discovery of allegedly fraudulent documents.

The robo-signing scandal was just breaking at the time, Florida’s foreclosure “rocket dockets” were full speed ahead, and David J. Stern’s Plantation-based firm was a foreclosure empire handling more than 100,000 cases statewide. It has since closed after losing most of its clients in the wake of the scandal.

* Share/save this post *

The survey by veteran Democratic pollster Keith Frederick shows the race tied at 45 percent apiece, with 10 percent undecided. The same poll shows Republican Mitt Romney leading President Obama by a 49-to-46 percent margin in the district.

West represents Palm Beach-Broward congressional District 22, but when redistricting gave that district a Democratic tilt, he announced he would run in the new District 18, which is fairly evenly split between Republicans and Democrats.

West campaign manager Tim Edson scoffed at Murphy’s poll, but declined to offer any information on polling the West campaign has done.

“We do not discuss strategy or internal survey numbers,” Edson said. “This ‘poll’ is a pathetic commentary on Patrick Murphy and his campaign. If he is going to concoct poll numbers, he should at least show himself in the lead.”

* Share/save this post *

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is launching a Florida ad campaign that targets Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and Democratic congressional hopefuls Lois Frankel and Alan Grayson on health care.

The Chamber wouldn’t reveal what it’s spending, but Chamber Political Director Rob Engstrom said it will be “enough resources to be able to move public opinion in a significant way.”

Nelson and Grayson voted for the federal health care law in 2010. A recent Quinnipiac University poll showed 53 percent of Florida voters want Congress to repeal it.

When former West Palm Beach mayor Frankel announced her candidacy last year, she wouldn’t say whether she would have voted for the health care law. The Chamber ad highlights Frankel’s straddle, then points out she submitted a resolution to the U.S. Conference of Mayors in 2008 supporting a single-payer national health insurance plan.

The anti-Nelson ads will air in Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Tallahassee and in the Panhandle but not in South Florida.

The anti-Frankel spots will run on broadcast and cable TV in the West Palm Beach market, but not the pricier Miami/Fort Lauderdale market. Frankel is running for a Palm Beach-Broward congressional seat against fellow Democrat Kristin Jacobs. The winner will face Republican Adam Hasner.

Frankel, asked to respond to the Chamber ad, said today that she would have voted for the Affordable Care Act in 2010.

“I strongly support health care reform and believe everybody should have access to quality health care. While not perfect, I would have supported the Health Care Reform Bill,” Frankel said in a statement released by her campaign. “Unlike my Tea Party opponent, Adam Hasner, I do not want to go back to a world where people are rejected for pre-existing conditions, where women are discriminated against and pay more than men for care, or students can’t stay on their parents insurance until they are 26. I do think the bill should have included a public option, and I will fight for that as a way to improve it. There are things we can fix in this bill, but we can’t turn back the clock on the progress we’ve made and return to partisan bickering.”

Frankel’s campaign has already incorporated the Chamber ads in a new fundraising appeal.

“We can’t let the extremists and the powerful special interests buy this election,” says an e-mail to Frankel supporters titled “Outside Groups Attack!”

* Share/save this post *

The state’s Agency for Health Care Administration said in the three-page memo that it intends to eliminate a six-month gap in eligibility for health care professionals that potentially would allow insurance companies not to pay some personal injury protection (PIP) providers such as doctors, chiropractors, medical schools and dentists.

Under the law signed by Scott last week, these providers were to lose their eligibility July 1.

Later in the act, providers’ eligibility is restored — but not until Jan. 1, 2013, a glitch that raised concerns about whether insurance companies might have legal standing to stiff health care professionals who treat accident victims covered by the $10,000 mandatory PIP policies Florida motorists carry.

The PIP system has been plagued by fraud and excessive billings, lawmakers and investigators have said. Scott pushed hard for the changes included in this year’s legislation (HB 119), although critics say the new law is too favorable toward insurance companies and doesn’t do enough to reduce PIP rates for consumers.

For its part,  AHCA is attempting to make the new law workable with its memo,  tamping down concerns about the flaw with the dates.

 In the memo, AHCA’s general counsel, Stuart Williams, acknowledged the conflict “would place the agency in a conundrum.” But he concluded,  the “agency believes that the (law) applies the same effective date of January 1, 2013 to both the new licensure requirement and the…exemption.”

 But whether a state agency can correct a conflict in law with a simple memo is a deeper question, said Mark Seidenfeld, an administrative law expert at Florida State University.

“A memo, executive order or rule issued by an agency can influence a court in deciding the intent of the new law,” Seidenfeld said. “But there’s no guarantee. You can be sure, though, this is going to be challenged in court.”

Although not directly related to the problems with the new law, Miami personal injury attorney Marlene Reiss said she is already planning to sue to have the measure overturned as unconstitutional.

Reiss contends the new law undermines a 38-year-old Florida Supreme Court ruling that endorsed the state’s PIP law as effectively balancing a motorists’ reduced rights to sue with the promise of swift payments of medical claims.

* Share/save this post *

Polls show Scott remains unpopular with most Floridians – a position Florida Democrats hope to exploit in coming weeks by tying the governor to presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney. The state GOP poured almost $1 million into TV advertising the past six weeks, trying to bolster the governor’s image.

 But narrow the audience to just Republicans — and Scott’s holding his own. He even draws praise for attending plenty of state GOP events, like the $50-per-person fund-raiser planned the evening of May 15 at the Marriott at Boca Center.

Palm Beach County Republican Chairman Sid Dinerstein told the Post for a Sunday story on Scott’s political standing that Democrats will be mistaken if they think he’ll hurt Romney in the state. Dinerstein said Scott’s draw among Republicans was evident at last weekend’s state GOP meeting in Tampa, where the governor drew a standing ovation that refused to quit.

“He couldn’t get people to sit down,” Dinerstein said. “They love him. He’s done the Lincoln Day dinners. He’s been a partner in our fundraising. If the Democrats want to use him against Romney, I say bring it on.”

* Share/save this post *

Obama’s new “Go” ad, above, and Reagan’s 1984 “It’s Morning In America” spot.

President Obama‘s reelection campaign isn’t declaring that “it’s morning in America” as Ronald Reagan did in 1984, but a new 60-second ad airing in Florida and eight other swing states proclaims that “we’re coming back.”

Reagan’s memorable reelection ad highlighted America’s recovery from recession and concludes: “Under the leadership of President Reagan, our country is prouder and stronger and better. Why would we ever want to return to where we were less than four short years ago?”

Obama’s ad puts the comparison to the previous administration at the beginning. The first quarter of it details the economic meltdown that took place in 2008 — “all before this president (emphasis in the ad) took the oath.” Later, the narrator says, “We’re not there yet. It’s still too hard for too many. But we’re coming back.”

The ad also trumpets the killing of Osama bin Laden, the withdrawal of troops from the unpopular war in Iraq and the auto industry bailouts as successes.

* Share/save this post *

Neuhoff

“If we take a look at President Obama’s leadership and we see that he has been calling to tax the top 2 percent, to have them pay their fair share, this similar thing can happen here in the county by looking at millage rates for specific properties – perhaps the top 2 percent of those properties,” Neuhoff said at a candidate forum last week.

While the idea might appeal to primary voters in the heavily Democratic district where Neuhoff is running, it appears to run afoul of the Florida constitution.

Neuhoff is running against term-limited Commissioner Burt Aaronson‘s chosen successor, Mary Lou Berger, and attorney Steven Meyer in the south-county District 5 Democratic primary.

Read about it in this week’s Politics column.

* Share/save this post *

“The state has a vested interest in ensuring its higher education system produces world-class talent to serve as engaged citizens and meet the demands of Florida’s emerging knowledge-based economy. It’s time to assess the progress of prior reform efforts and identify strategies to improve efficiencies and enhance the system’s effectiveness as an economic catalyst.” Scott said in a statement announcing the “Blue Ribbon Task Force on State Higher Education Reform.”

Dale Brill, president of the Florida Chamber of Commerce Foundation, will chair the seven-member panel. The other six members will be chosen by House and Senate leaders and Board of Governors Chairman Dean Colson and Vice Chairman Mori Hosseini. The panel is slated to deliver its recommendations to Scott in November.

Scott last week vetoed a measure that would have given the University of Florida and Florida State University the ability to raise tuition as high as they want. The university presidents insisted the unprecedented authority was necessary to bring tuition at the institutions more in line with the higher-ed market.

But in his veto message, Scott said schools first need to reduce costs and administrative salaries and prove that their degrees equate to jobs for students.

State university system Chancellor Frank Brogan said Florida’s already “traveling toward a new frontier of accountability” and he hopes the Blue Ribbon panel will rely on work already done by the Board of Governors that will create “the most accountable public university system” in the nation.

“In particular, the Board’s Strategic Plan and Annual Accountability Report provide more than 60 System-wide comparative data points at-a-glance. I am confident that these products taken together can provide the strongest possible foundation for this group’s discussion,” Brogan said in a statement.

Board of Governors Chairman Dean Colson reacted with a cautious response that stopped short of an endorsement.

“Additional support for Florida’s public universities is always welcomed, especially if it accelerates the achievement of the Board’s goals and metrics for our university system,” Colson said in a statement. “During the past two years, the Board of Governors has laid out a comprehensive vision through three significant work products: a new 2025 Strategic Plan1, transformed metrics in the Annual Accountability Report2, and a three-year work plan template3 that each university will present annually. We look forward to a meaningful dialogue that bolsters a shared vision for the State University System.”

* Share/save this post *

Wilkins, a Baptist who is also the Florida’s chief operating officer, sent the missive to DCF workers yesterday after offering the prayer at a National Day of Prayer event – also attended by his boss, Gov. Rick Scott – in the Capitol.

“This message from a Department head to all subordinates is shocking and unconstitutional,” Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation wrote in a letter to Scott and Wilkins’ general counsel yesterday. “The message gives the appearance of government endorsement of Christianity. Civil servants should not be subject to such ridiculous calls to religion in the workplace.”

Wilkins’ prayer refers to the Old Testament without mentioning Jesus Christ and basically asks God to protect the state’s children and families and help them to be better people.

“Help them to grow into a complete understanding of their authority in You, Lord, while retaining a submissive and humble spirit. We pray that the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control grow in them daily. We pray that they find their identity in You and view themselves as Your instrument, and that they will know that they are fully complete in You, and You alone,” part of his prayer reads.

The memo is part of an “ongoing dialogue the Secretary has with employees” to share information about his public appearances and agency activities, Wilkins’ spokesman Joe Follick said.

“Neither this message or any of the Secretary’s daily actions on behalf of the agency’s 13,000 employees and providers ever carry any attempt to impact every American’s right to believe and follow their faith of choice.
We are proud to have the nation’s best social services team working to improve this state and are proud that among our employees are men and women of all faiths,” Follick said.

But sending the prayer to employees is unconstitutional because it violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibiting government sponsorship of religious messages, Gaylor argued.

“Government officials may of course attend private functions on their own time as private citizens. It is a misuse of office, however, for government actors to use their position to disseminate their religious messages spawned by the National Day of Prayer. A state department head may not use state resources to promote such a sectarian message,” Gaylor wrote. “Governor, you have taken the oath of office to uphold the secular U.S. Constitution and the Constitution of the State of Florida, and you must ensure that your office and public officials under your oversight do not abuse their position to further their personal religious beliefs.”
Read Wilkins’ entire prayer after the jump.

“Dear Lord,

We thank You for this beautiful Lord’s day! It is a celebration to be able to come together to pray to you, Our Sovereign God, for the children and families in our great state of Florida. We come to you today with complete reverence for all that You are, Lord, and we thank You that You are sovereign over all of Your creation.

Lord, We pray that You will pour out Your Spirit upon the children and families in this state. We pray that You will deliver them from any evil that would rob them of their lives, that would steal away their uniqueness and giftedness or compromise the path that you’ve called them to walk, or to destroy the person that You created them to be. May they not be a follower of anyone but You, Lord, but may they be a leader of people into Your kingdom.

Help them to grow into a complete understanding of their authority in You, Lord, while retaining a submissive and humble spirit. We pray that the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control grow in them daily. We pray that they find their identity in You and view themselves as Your instrument, and that they will know that they are fully complete in You, and You alone.

In Jeremiah, You tell us that You know the plans You have for us…plans to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us a hope and a future. We pray that our young people will see themselves as You do–from their future and NOT from their past. Help them be convinced that Your thoughts toward them are thoughts of peace and not of evil, and that You will give them a future and a hope. Teach them to look to You as their hope FOR the future. Help them to understand that it is You who has saved us and has called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to Your purpose. We pray that their commitment to being who You created them to be, enable them to grow daily in confidence and boldness.

You created each one of your precious children uniquely different….each perfect with the talents and abilities to do Your will here on Earth. We pray that You will develop those talents and abilities, so that they can be used for Your glory. We pray as they recognize that they are uniquely different from anyone else that You have created, that no feelings of inadequacy, fear, or uncertainty will keep them from following You and being willing to be used for Your purposes. May they hear the call You have on their lives so that they do not spend their lives living in a state of confusion, trying to figure out what it is that You would have them do with their lives.

Let their talent never be wasted, watered down by mediocrity, or used to glorify anything or anyone other than You, Lord. We pray that You will reveal to them what their life work is to be and help them excel in it. Bless the work of their hands, and help them see that they can be used to help others.

In Proverbs, You tell us that, “A man’s gift makes room for him, and brings him before great men.” We pray that whatever our precious children do, that it will find favor with You and with others and it will be well received and well respected. We pray that the gifts and talents that You have placed in them be released to find their fullest expression in glorifying You.

We know that You are the One that oversees all that we do and we thank You that You are with us in serving the children and families and ask for a special blessing for the most vulnerable. We ask You to lead us, to guide us, and to direct our paths as we do Your will and we will give You all of the glory and praise!

Forgive us of our sins, Lord.
In Your name, Amen”

* Share/save this post *

The Post‘s Stacey Singer offers a wrap-up here of Thursday’s forum at the nonpartisan Voters Coalition.

Republican Dina Keever and no-party candidate Robert Gershman also got in a few digs at Democrat Dave Aronberg, the former state Senator who is backed by the Democratic Party establishment and some big-name Republicans.

“I am not backed by the Democrats. I am not backed by the Republicans. I am truly independent,” said Gershman, who switched his registration from Dem to no party after party leaders discouraged him from challenging Aronberg.

“I am not looking at this position as a steppingstone to something else,” said Keever in an apparent reference to Aronberg, who capped his 8-year Senate career with a failed 2010 bid for Florida attorney general before launching the bid for county prosecutor.

* Share/save this post *

Wexler

Rader, a former state House member from Delray Beach, is running against current Democratic state Reps. Mack Bernard and Jeff Clemens for the Riviera Beach-to-Boynton Beach Senate district.

About one-third of the district’s voters are black and many of them are represented in the House by Bernard, who is black. Many of the district’s coastal precincts are now represented in the House by Clemens.

The district also includes the Democrat-leaning condos of Century Village, Cypress Lakes and Golden Lakes, which have been represented in Congress by Wexler and now Deutch. The condos were part of an old Senate district where Rader won a 2010 primary but lost in the general election to Republican Sen. Lizbeth Benacquisto.

Rader, who had been challenging Democratic state Sen. Maria Sachs in a Palm Beach-Broward district, jumped into the District 27 race this week.

Says Wexler in a statement released today: “I am proud to endorse Kevin Rader and look forward to actively helping him win this election. Kevin is the Democrat we need in the State Senate!”

* Share/save this post *

Attorney Barry Richard, who represented George W. Bush before the court following the 2000 presidential election, submitted a legal opinion to Dan Stengle, legal counsel for Justices Fred Lewis, Peggy Quince and Barbara Pariente.

He denied that justices using court employees to notarize filing papers amounts to what opponents call a criminal misdemeanor. State law prohibits candidates from using the services of a public employee during working hours ” in the furtherance of his or her candidacy.”

“The act of affixing a notary seal to qualifying documents does not indicate that the notary endorses the candidacy of the person filing the documents,” Richard wrote. “It simply certifies that the notary has witnessed the signature and has confirmed the identity of the person signing.”

Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood, has asked Scott to order the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to look into the controversy surrounding the justices qualifying.

The issue played out publicly last month. The court took an hourlong recess during arguments in the state Senate redistricting case to allow justices to complete their qualifying papers for merit retention this fall.

With the help of court staff,  the documents were filed with election officials only minutes before the deadline.

Since then, the issue has been seized on by opponents of the three justices, already tarred as a liberal-leaning bloc by a tea party-linked political committee called Restore Justice 2012. The campaign is seeking to make the trio the first Florida justices ever ousted in a merit retention campaign.

Plakon said Thursday that to him, the case was an obvious violation. “Every candidate learns early on, you don’t use your staff for anything political,” Plakon said. “No one should be above the law.”

But Stengle, the justices’ legal counsel, also advanced an additional level of defense. He questioned whether the justices are really candidates.

 “Florida’s district court of appeal judges and Supreme Court Justices are not elected, but appointed through the merit selection process,” Stengle said. “Every six years, they are required by the Florida Constitution to participate in the merit retention process so that citizens of Florida may evaluate their job performance. Any documents that they are required to file by virtue of their positions as appellate judges or justices to qualify for merit retention are part of routine court business.”

* Share/save this post *

Scott, whose history with email includes deleting communications made by the incoming governor and members of his transition team, hailed the new initiative as unprecedented. It will give Floridians and the media a window into how state government works, he said.

“I invite Floridians to view our emails,” Scott said, adding, “you can learn how we’re making Florida the best state for businesses to grow and create jobs.”

E-mails are available with search capabilities on the Governor’s website at www.flgov.com/sunburst through Microsoft Outlook Web Access. Individuals can access the Sunburst system by using the user name and password sunburst.  Scott also emphasized that public records requests to his office will still be honored.

“It’s a good thing,” said Barbara Petersen, director of the First Amendment Foundation, the advocacy and research organization backed by many of the state’s news organizations. “It’s also a good example for other agencies to follow, and for local governments.”

Petersen recalled amid a generally icy relationship between Scott and the media, she made public records requests last year of five of the governor’s top staffers. It took 11 months and $5,000 in copying and staff costs paid by the foundation to make public several months of governor’s office email.

The loss of email from the period between Scott’s election and his inauguration is still being investigated by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the governor said Thursday. He brought the agency in to review the matter, which was blamed on a private company that hosted the email accounts for Scott’s campaign and transition office.

Legislation was approved this year (HB 1305) that requires an incoming governor, lieutenant governor, and Cabinet members to preserve email between their election and when they officially take office. Scott signed the measure, which supporters said closed a “loophole” in the state’s public records laws.

With the new system, e-mails are to be posted within seven days of receipt or creation unless permission has been granted for an extended deadline.  The goal, however, is for e-mails to be available within 24 hours, under Project Sunburst.

Scott staffers writing the email, or receiving them from others, will determine whether the communication is a public record and make it subject to disclosure at the end of every day. Email considered to include sensitive material that should be redacted would be sent to Scott’s legal office and Office of Open Government for further review, under the new system.

Governor’s office staff don’t always use the state email server — and exchanges over other accounts would not be captured under Project Sunburst. Telephone conversations, text messages and direct messages also can still be conducted without the public looking in.

Petersen said that while Scott’s step is a good one for expanding public access, it could still go further.

 ”The devil will be in the details,” she said.

* Share/save this post *

“I think we ought to finish and make sure that there’s not going to be anything like this happen again. I don’t think we’re in that position yet,” Scott told reporters after a “National Day of Prayer” event in the Capitol this afternoon. “The band’s got a great history. But we can’t afford to lose another individual like Robert Champion. So I think they ought to continue the process they’ve been going through with their task force but I don’t think it’s ready yet.”

FAMU administrators suspended the celebrated marching band and all other ensembles in the music department in the aftermath of Champion’s November death. The 26-year-old died of a homicide by hazing, authorities said, after being pummeled by his peers following the Rattlers’ loss to rival football team Bethune-Cookman.

As of Wednesday afternoon, seven of the 13 individuals charged had been arrested or turned themselves into authorities, including two in Tallahassee. Eleven individuals were charged with felony hazing, punishable by up to six years in prison. Still others may be charged in the future, Orange County State Attorney Lamar Lawson said yesterday.

Champion’s death exposed a “culture of hazing” at the historically black university. Long=time FAMU music director Julian White was put on administrative leave and the university and Board of Trustees created a task force to look into FAMU’s troubled history with hazing and how to reverse it.

Four members of the fabled band were arrested in January in connection with an unrelated hazing. And two music professors who were allegedly present during the hazing of band fraternity pledges resigned last week.

Both faculty members had been placed on paid administrative leave in late March after a Tallahassee Police Department report quoted witnesses as saying they were on hand when the hazing occurred at the home of one of the professors in early 2010.

* Share/save this post *

Epstein

The outspoken Grayson was dumped by Central Florida voters after a single term in Congress in 2010. But he’s a hero to many Democratic primary voters — and a favorite to go back to Washington in a redrawn district this year.

* Share/save this post *

Romney holds a 44-to-43 percent edge over Obama in the new Florida poll, which was conducted April 25-May 1 and has a 2.9 percent margin of error. Quinnipiac’s previous poll, released in late March, showed Obama with a 49-to-42 percent advantage in the Sunshine State.

Obama won Florida with 51 percent in 2008.

Florida has a smaller gender gap than Ohio and Pennsylvania, two other swing states where Quinnipiac also released new polls today. Obama has a 44-to-42 percent lead among women voters in Florida, compared to a 13-point advantage with Ohio women and a 17-point lead with female voters in Pennsylvania. Men favor Romney by 4 points in Florida, 10 points in Ohio and 3 points in Pennsylvania.

Obama’s 2-point edge among Florida women in the new poll compares to a 14-point gap in late March.

The new polls show Ohio a virtual tie while Obama holds a 47-to-39 percent advantage in Pennsylvania. Obama carried both those states in 2008.

In Florida, Romney gets better marks than Obama on the economy, with 49 percent saying the Republican would do a better job handling economic issues and 40 percent favoring Obama.

Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement, the new federal health care law, remains unpopular with Floridians. Fifty-three percent want Congress to repeal the law and 51 percent say they want the Supreme Court to overturn it. Only 39 percent favor letting the law stand, with 38 percent wanting the court to uphold the law.

Sen. Marco Rubio is the top choice to be Romney’s running mate for 40 percent of Floridians, with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie a distant second at 14 percent.

Ohio Sen. Rob Portman is the top Republican VP choice in his home state, while Christie is the top pick in neighboring Pennsylvania.

* Share/save this post *

Florida Sen. and tea party icon Marco Rubio was the only Gulf State Senator to oppose the measure in March. Rubio said he “proudly supported” the legislation originally, but the final Senate product had become “a raw deal that increases taxes, creates a new environmental bureaucracy, and could steer money to places like the Great Lakes and West Coast that had nothing to with the oil spill.”

LeMieux, in a Tuesday interview with a Panhandle radio station, said: “I would have voted for it…in all due respect to Marco, I know he’s a lot closer to it than I was.”

LeMieux, who was in the Senate as an appointee when the 2010 spill occurred, said “Those dollars need to come to the Gulf Coast. You remember I was in Pensacola and all throughout Northwest Florida half a dozen or so times in the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill….In general it’s a good bill and I would have supported it.”

Mack’s campaign released a statement from U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Pensacola, criticizing LeMieux.

“I am extremely disappointed that George Lemieux indicated he would have voted for the Senate Democrats’ version of the Transportation Bill,” said Miller. “Although the RESTORE Act is a critical provision for those areas affected by the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Senate version of this bill contains a massive tax increase and redirects $1.4 billion to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, creating a huge federal power grab. The House version of the transportation bill that Representative Mack and I supported did not contain the tax hikes or land grabs of the Senate bill, yet still supports the affected areas of the Florida coast. Floridians need to be careful that we don’t replace a Big Government Democrat in the Senate with a Big Government Republican. Connie Mack is the conservative we need in the Senate.”

* Share/save this post *

Jill Biden

She’ll visit Coast Guard Base Miami Beach on Thursday afternoon. The White House advisory for the event notes that Biden and First Lady Michelle Obama recently celebrated the one-year anniversary of Joining Forces, an “initiative to honor, recognize and serve veterans, service members and military families.”

Biden, who is an English professor at Northern Virginia Community College, will speak Friday afternoon at commencement exercises at Broward College in Fort Lauderdale.

No immediate word on whether Biden will be involved in any campaign activities in South Florida.

* Share/save this post *

Baxley

Baxley rips the GOP frontrunner, U.S. Rep. Connie Mack, as “not ready to serve” and says Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson “will tear Mack apart if he is the Republican nominee.”

Here’s Baxley’s statement, released by the LeMieux campaign:

“Today I am proud to join Herman Cain and 31 other State Legislators and endorse George LeMieux for US Senate. George is a faithful husband and father, and has a solid pro-life, pro-family, pro-free enterprise, pro-Second Amendment voting record. He is the most competent candidate we have to beat Bill Nelson. Connie Mack IV is not his father. Mack has an abysmal personal financial legacy, attacked Arizona for addressing its illegal immigration problems, and supports embryonic stem cell research. I served with Connie in the Florida House and love him dearly, but he has performed poorly and is not ready to lead. Nelson will tear Mack apart if he is the Republican nominee. George LeMieux is the only candidate who can defeat Nelson and we must stand with George to take back the Senate in November.”

* Share/save this post *

Orange County State Attorney Lamar Lawson announced the charges at a press conference Wednesday afternoon in Orlando, where Champion died after being pummeled to death aboard a charter bus outside a hotel in November.

The 22-year-old’s death “is nothing short of an American tragedy,” Lawson told reporters before announcing the charges.

Lawson said the charges include 11 felony hazing charges, which carry a penalty of up to six years in prison, and 20 misdemeanor hazing charges.

The prosecutor indicated more individuals may yet be arrested and asked “others who have facts about Champion’s homicide to come forward and tell the truth.”

Champion’s death exposed a long legacy of hazing within the celebrated marching band. FAMU administrators have halted all of band’s activities until the investigation was complete and launched a task force to look into the “culture of hazing” at the historically black university.

Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings, whose child is a student at FAMU, said his team interviewed four dozen peopel in Tallahassee and spent more than 1,000 hours investigating the case.

“As the parent of a current FAMU student, I know the importance of the work that has been done in this case and how it has impacted the institution,” Demings said.

Hazing that involves bodily harm is a third-degree felony in Florida. The charges filed Wednesday were made possible by the 2005 law passed in the wake of the death of another Florida college student. The law defines hazing as any act that endangers the health or safety of a student for the purpose of admission to a school group.

Lawson said that without the law, he would not have been able to file the charges that carry enhanced penalties when someone is injured or dies after being hazed. No single blow killed Champion, who died after being pummeled to death, Lawson said, thereby preventing him to file more serious murder or manslaughter charges.

“The testimony does not support a charge of murder. We can prove participation in hazing and a death,” Lawson said.

* Share/save this post *

“We have had political conventions in this country since the dawn of the Republic,” Scott, a gun owner, wrote in a letter dated yesterday. “They are an essential means of furthering our constitutional rights to free speech and to vote. “Our fundamental right to keep and bear arms has coexisted with those freedoms for just as long, and I see no reason to depart from that tradition this year.”

Buckhorn had asked Scott to bar firearms in downtown Tampa, including temporarily restricting people with state-issued concealed carry permits from toting their guns near the convention site. City officials have decided to ban some weapons, including clubs and spears, but state law prohibits them from enacting any ordinances dealing with firearms.

“Normally, licensed firearms carried in accordance with the Florida statute requirements do not pose a significant threat to the public,” Buckhorn wrote in a letter to Scott. “However, in the potentially contentious environment surrounding the RNC, a firearm unnecessarily increases the threat of imminent harm and injury to the residents and visitors of the city.”

Scott, whose task force looking into the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law held its first meeting yesterday, strongly disagreed.

“Like you, I share the concern that ‘violent anti-government protests or other civil unrest’ can pose ‘dangers’ and the ‘threat of substantial injury or harm to Florida residents visitors to the state,’” Scott wrote. “But it is unclear how disarming citizens would better protect them from the dangers and threats posed by those who would
flout the law. It is at just such times that the constitutional right to self defense is most precious and must be protected from government overreach.”

Scott’s rejection of Buckhorn’s request is sure to resonate with Florida gun rights advocates who are up in arms over the governor’s “Citizen Safety and Protection” task force. The panel, headed by Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, is examining the Florida “justifiable use of force” chapter of state law that allows individuals to use deadly force when they feel threatened. The National Rifle Association released a statement yesterday saying it would fight to defend Florida’s first-in-the-nation “Stand Your Ground” law and other similar statutes. And the Florida Carry Inc. organization is urging its members to show up at the meetings and contact the panelists to tell them the law should not be changed.

The now-controversial law is the focus of national attention in the aftermath of the Feb. 26 shooting of Trayvon Martin. Sanford neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman claimed he shot the unarmed teenager in self-defense. Special prosecutor Angela Correy, appointed by Scott, arrested Zimmerman on second degree murder charges six weeks after the shooting.

* Share/save this post *

Rep. Eric Eisnaugle, who is in his second term representing parts of Orlando, revealed his decision in a Tuesday Op-Ed in the Orlando Sentinel. Eisnaugle said he wouldn’t duel with “my friend and fellow conservative,” Rep. Steve Precourt, R-Orlando, for the House District 44 seat they both share in the new, redistricted House map.

Precourt is a close ally of  incoming House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel.  But Eisnaugle’s decision to take one for the team also helped underscore the position of House and Senate Republican leaders that legislative and congressional maps were not drawn to help incumbents, a view apparently now shared by courts and federal officials, who have given the plans the go-ahead.

Florida Republican Chairman Lenny Curry said Eisnaugle’s “decision to put his family and his personal commitments above himself is commendable.”

Weatherford also held out the possibility that Eisnaugle’s decision to step aside — for now — may help his political future.

“ He is a true rising star,” Weatherford said of Eisnaugle. “I believe he will continue to earnestly serve his community, not as an elected official, but as a neighbor and a friend. That’s the kind of leadership that earns the trust of voters; it’s why I believe he will be back in the Florida Legislature one day.”

* Share/save this post *