The House released its version of a gambling proposal, slated for its first committee vote tomorrow, that opens the door casinos in what could be a permanent game-changer for Sunshine State tourism.

While both the House and Senate plans would allow up to three high-end “destination resorts” to open, the House proposal would limit them to Broward and Miami-Dade counties, where slot machines outside of Indian casinos are already up-and-running thanks to voter approval.

The two plans (HB 487, SB 710) include differences about who could give the casino licenses, who would oversee a new gambling agency and the future of Internet cafés.

- Internet cafés: HB 487 would ban them altogether. SB 710 would regulate them, charge operators $100 per terminal and allow local government to prohibit them.
- Games: SB 710 would allow pari-mutuels in the counties where destination resorts open to offer the same games that the casinos have, meaning dog and horse tracks and jai-alai frontons near the casinos could have blackjack, roulette or craps.
- Voter approval: Both bills would require voters to approve the destination resorts by referendum. But the House version would only allow the casinos to be licensed in Broward or Miami-Dade counties.
- Oversight: HB 487 would give the governor and the Florida Cabinet oversight of a new agency – the Department of Gaming Control. The governor and Cabinet would also choose which casino operators would get resort licenses. SB 710 would create a statewide gambling commission that would oversee the Department of Gaming. The commission would pick the casino vendors.
- Taxes: Both set a 10 percent tax rate for game revenues at the destination resorts and would lower the tax rate on slot machines at pari-mutuels (now 35 percent) in counties where a destination resort opens to 10 percent.

After two workshops, the House Business and Consumer Affairs Committee will vote on the bill tomorrow morning. The Senate Regulated Industries Committee approved Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff’s version weeks ago but faces an uphill battle at its next stop in opponent John Thrasher’s Rules Committee.

Senate Democratic Leader Nan Rich got the last word in a partisan flame war with Senate Majority Leader Andy Gardiner over firing prison workers vs. closing a corporate tax loophole.

Rich launched the skirmish when she fired off a statement accusing Senate President Mike Haridopolos of ignoring her proposal that would net $500 million a year by putting an end to the “water’s edge” tax break multi-state corporations receive but companies based only in Florida do not.

“If the Senate President is serious about reportedly fighting ‘like hell to try to find some savings,’ he needs to redirect the Senate’s aim to where the confirmed savings can be found,” Rich, D-Weston, said.

Senate budget chief JD Alexander, R-Lake Wales, estimates the state could save at least $16.5 million a year with a prison privatization measure that would outsource Department of Corrections operations in an 18-county region in southern Florida. The embattled proposal is now on hold in the Senate and prompted Haridopolos to eject Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, as chairman of the Senate Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Committee for his public vilification of the plan.

Gardiner accused Rich of employing a “knee-jerk, Democratic reaction” of raising taxes on already struggling Florida families and businesses. The Orlando Republican said the savings from the outsourcing would be better spent on education or health care in a time when lawmakers are fighting to close a $1.4 billion budget hole.

“It is irresponsible to trivialize a significant, multimillion-dollar savings,” Gardiner shot back in a statement. “It is my hope that we will soon see more solution-oriented language from the senator and less hot air.”

Rich didn’t leave it at that. She blamed her GOP counterpart of more “of the strong-armed tactics the Republican leadership is currently deploying to ram through” the privatization proposal.

“When a member of the Republican leadership deliberately distorts my words advocating for corporations to finally pull their own weight as a “knee jerk reaction” of “raising taxes” on Floridians, his so-called ‘response’ is not only wrong, but patently false. He’s correct, we ‘don’t need bills that raise taxes,’” Rich responded.

Rich’s proposal (SB 1590), which has not yet been heard in committee, levels the playing field for in and out-of-state businesses, she argued.

“Given the events Floridians have watched unfold this week – the inability to muster the votes to layoff thousands of corrections officers from their jobs, the punishment of a Republican Senator rightly critical of the prison privatization scheme, and now the accusation that Democrats want to raise taxes because the GOP so fears my legislation that could spare Floridians from the additional loss of critical services already cut to the bone – Senator Gardiner would do well to admit the real agenda behind their ‘teachers versus corrections officers’ privatization drive,” Rich said.

Hasner: Jumping into District 22; others could move in or out as well.

A day after freshman U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, announced he’s leaving the district to run in a more Republican-friendly district to the north, former state House Majority Leader Adam Hasner of Boca Raton confirmed this afternoon that he’s abandoning his Republican U.S. Senate bid to pursue the District 22 seat.

Hasner begins the congressional campaign with about $670,000 in cash from his Senate run. He also picked up an endorsement from West, who said, “I wish him the best, believe in him wholeheartedly and look forward to working alongside of him on Capitol Hill.”

District 22 is divided nearly evenly between Republicans and Democrats now, but state legislators are expected to approve a map that gives District 22 a pronounced Democratic tilt.

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In a rare use of political muscle, Senate President Mike Haridopolos has stripped Sen. Mike Fasano – a fierce opponent of prison privatization – of his post as chairman of the Criminal and Civil Justice budget committee.

Haridopolos kicked Fasano off the committee after putting on hold for the second day a troubled prison privatization measure splitting the GOP caucus despite the support of the senate president and Gov. Rick Scott. Scott today called several Republican senators opposed to the measure (SB 2038) into his office to try to convince them to get behind the measure that would outsource all Department of Corrections operations in the 18-county region in the southern portion of the state.

“I just felt I had lost confidence in him to fill that mission” as chairman of the committee in charge of spending on prisons and other criminal justice operations, Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, told reporters late this afternoon.

Fasano said he met with Haridopolos briefly after the Senate session broke this afternoon and was told he would no longer be chairman. The meeting lasted two minutes at the most, Fasano said.

“Unfortunately, this is about the special interests of Tallahassee. This is a perfect example of when they don’t get their way, and leadership doesn’t get their way, they start firing people, or they start removing legislators from their chairmanships,” Fasano, R-New Port Richey, said.

Taking over for Fasano will be Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, and Sen. Jim Norman will assume her role as chairman of the Senate Finance and Tax Committee.

Sources close to Democratic congressional candidate Patrick Murphy say he’s giving serious thought to following U.S. REp Allen West, R-Plantation, and leaving District 22 to run in a new Palm Beach-Treasure Coast District 18.

West’s move lets him run in a more Republican district since state lawmakers are about to make his old district more Democratic. For Murphy, the move would avoid a primary against Lois Frankel.

Frankel could get some Democratic company in her race. There’s speculation that Democratic Broward Commissioners John Rodstrom and Kristin Jacobs could jump into the District 22 race.

Republican Adam Hasner is also expected to drop his Senate bid for a District 22 run.

After a heartfelt debate from both sides, the Florida Senate approved a measure authorizing student-led prayers at schools as long as adults are not involved.

The “inspirational messages” proposal (SB 98), proposed by Orlando Democratic Sen. Gary Siplin and approved by a 31-8 vote, would allow school boards to adopt policies granting students the right to have prayers at any school assembly but school administrators, teachers, coaches or other personnel from scrutinizing or participating in the prayers.

A handful of Democrats argued against the bill, saying students already have the opportunity to pray privately objecting that the measure could create divisiveness.

“We don’t have an issue in the state of Florida with the lack of ability of public school students to pray openly.
What we want to do is keep our public school kids with the one inspirational message they all need: study, study, study.
When they come to the school they can park their religious beliefs at home,” said Sen. Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach, who is Catholic.

But Sen. Joe Negron argued that schools have gone too far in limiting students’ speech.

“We’ve gone from one extreme now to the other extreme. We’ve gone from neutrality toward religion to hostility to religion,” Negron, R-Stuart, said.

Some senators of both parties who previoulsy voted against school prayer bills spoke in favor of the measure, including a warning from that the bill may backfire.

Inspirational messages are OK, Sen. Nancy Detert said.

“And when it becomes not OK, when you get little smart-alecky kids who are going to proselytize the Koran…That’s when your school board should shut it down,” Detert, R-Venice, said.

Despite emotional testimony from county officials and prison employees, the House budget committee rejected a bid Wednesday to stop Gov. Rick Scott’s plan to close Jefferson Correctional Institution in rural North Florida.

The move was similar to the decision last December to close the state’s oldest lockup, Glades Correctional Institution, which similarly caused further economic upheaval in western Palm Beach County.

“This may be a 100-year event for this county,” said Rep. Leonard Bembry, D-Greenville, whose district includes the prison, told the House committee.

The Republican-led panel, however, sided with the decision by Scott and the state’s Department of Corrections, to close JCI, one of 11 lockups and work camps the administration plans to close because of a declining inmate population. Bembry sought to direct $10 million from the state’s prison privatization funding to avoid closing the facility, which is the county’s largest employer.

Close to 200 jobs will be lost — or about 6 percent of the county’s workforce. Jefferson County, which adjoins the state capital’s Leon County, has a population of 14,000. Dozens of residents packed the budget committee’s hearing room Wednesday.

“I’ve already cut the private prisons 9 percent in our budget,” said Rep. Rich Glorioso, R-Plant City, chairman of the criminal justice section of the House budget panel. “If I cut them again, it would throw my budget out of whack.”

Julie Conley, Jefferson County’s economic development chief, and a former mayor, pleaded with the committee to find other areas to cut — saying there are few job prospects in her community. Conley said she understood the need to save money.

“But we ask that you do it some place that can more easily absorb the impact,” she said.

Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Cabinet are putting pressure on lawmakers to approve an all-out ban on Internet cafés now on its way to the House floor but facing a doubtful future in the Senate.

The House Economic Affairs Committee approved the bill (HB 3) this morning, drawing the praise of the Republican governor and Cabinet who want the so-called “casinos on the corner” shuttered.

Critics of the cafés, an estimated $1 billion industry which operates under state “sweepstakes” laws and are largely unregulated, say they prey on the state’s poor and vulnerable. But the café operators say they provide good jobs for their employees and a place to socialize for seniors and others.

Scott believes the store-front casinos found in strip malls throughout the state are already illegal but wants lawmakers to officially ban them.

“These store front casinos are impacting Florida’s neighborhoods and families,” said Governor Scott. “They are and should be illegal. Representative Plakon’s bill closes this loophole and I commend his dedication to shutting down these establishments,” Scott said in a statement released by Rep. Scott Plakon, the Longwood Republican who’s sponsored the bill.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater and Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam joined in the chorus demanding the shut-down.

But the Senate is moving forward with a separate measure that would regulate the cafés and impose a $100 fee per computer terminal for operators. Estimates of the number of cafés in the state range from 800 to 1,400 but all agree they have mushroomed in the past few years. Palm Beach County commissioners recently barred new cafés from opening in unincorporated areas.

The Senate Regulated Industries Committee approved a regulation measure and set aside a bill that would make the cafés illegal.

Many Republicans regard the 2008 election as a low point for GOP enthusiasm. But Florida Republicans were more amped about the state’s presidential primary four years ago than they were this year.

Not quite 1.7 million Republicans cast ballots in Tuesday’s Florida Republican presidential primary — about 276,000 fewer than in 2008. Turnout Tuesday was 41.1 percent — down from 51 percent four years ago, when Florida effectively handed John McCain the Republican nomination.

Evidence of an enthusiasm problem in the GOP?

“I don’t think we have an enthusiasm gap,” says Republican Party of Florida spokesman Brian Hughes.

“I would argue you had more competitive top candidates who were putting money into get-out-the-vote,” in 2008, Hughes said.

The 2008 GOP field included McCain, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee. Tuesday’s race was essentially a two-man contest between Romney and Newt Gingrich as Rick Santorum and Ron Paul spent little or no time or money in the state.

Also, the 2008 primary ballot included a statewide property tax-limitation question that helped drive turnout. There were no other statewide ballot questions or races on Tuesday’s ballot.

While a high Republican voter turnout was credited for the GOP’s dominance in the 2010 midterms, only 34.7 of registered Republican voters in Palm Beach County turned out for the 2012 primary.

In 2008, 44 percent of GOP voters went to the polls in an race that helped John McCain win the nomination.

In a low turnout, Mitt Romney easily won in Palm Beach County with about 54 percent of the vote. Newt Gingrich had about 28 percent, Rick Santorum 10 percent and Ron Paul around 7 percent.

Time will tell what the low turnout means, and whether GOP voters are unenthusiastic about the candidates or were simply willing to let others decide the nominee before backing that person in the general election.

As a small number of last-minute voters arrived at St. Edward Church this evening, Beverly White Yeager held high a Mitt Romney campaign sign on the sidewalk.

White said she stood outside with the sign for about four hours this morning, but came back tonight to be sure she got as many Romney supporters as possible.

“I know it’s the only way we are going to bring back America,” she said.

Earlier today, Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher said St. Edward was one of the busiest precints during today’s primary.

Polls closed at 7 p.m.

CELEBRATION — A constant critic of his millionaire opponent’s wild spending, Newt Gingrich raised nearly $10 million in the last three months of last year but ended 2011 about $1.2 million in debt, according to a campaign finance report filed today.

The Associated Press said the report showed the GOP presidential candidate started the year with about $2 million in the bank.

A Gingrich spokesman said roughly half came from people who gave more than $250 while the other half was from those who gave $250 or less.

“We are a campaign of small dollar donations,” R.C. Hammond told reporters as the former House speaker wrapped up his election day campaigning. Hammond said about 200,000 small-dollar donations have been made to the campaign this year.

His campaign told the Associated Press that the campaign has raised about $5 million since Gingrich’s surprise victory in South Carolina earlier this month.

All candidates have to file their reports by midnight. Reports filed by Gingrich’s chief rival, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, weren’t available. As of Sept. 30, Romney had raised $32.6 million, compared to Gingrich’s $2.9 million.

About 2/3 of voters polled coming out of Palm Beach Gardens precincts this afternoon between 3-5 p.m. said they voted for Mitt Romney. The poll was in no way scientific. Women seemed to support Romney and men were favoring Newt Gingrich, but women were dominating the mostly empty polls at mid afternoon.

Voting was going smoothly in Gardens, although a poll worker at Dwyer High complained that someone moved signs with arrows telling people where to vote.

Only two people of about 20 interviewed voted for candidates other that Gingrich and Romney.

Valerie Rueckert of Palm Beach Gardens voted for Rick Santorum.

“He’s a great man and the only one of the bunch with character,” Rueckert said. “It’s a wide-open race, and people like myself that are struggling in this economy are not swayed by lies going around in this campaign.”

Hunter Johnson of Gardens said he voted for Ron Paul because, “I believe in his statements about liberty and personal freedom. His views are more consistent with my mine.”

Many of the Romney voters said they felt he was the candidate who could have a chance against President Obama.

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Florida GOP leaders desire to elevate the Sunshine State’s prominence in selecting the presidential nominee has paid off, according to some political insiders including FOX Business Network personality Neil Cavuto.

“Bottom line, they fail at pitching it in the Sunshine State, it will be a sorry state for their campaigns in the end,”
Cavuto told postonpolitics.

Florida Republicans made a “good compromise” by sacrificing half their 100 convention delegates in today’s winner-takes-all election, Cavuto said.

More than states like New Hampshire and South Carolina that have already held contests, Florida represents a microcosm of the nation, Cavuto said in an e-mail.

“Despite all the criticism party wonks are getting for moving up the primary, I think they made a good compromise. If we’ve learned anything over the years it’s how crucial a state it remains and how diverse its populace is. How successful candidates are at wooing Hispanics, and young people, to say nothing of seniors, and young families increasingly drawn to your beautiful beaches and resorts and vacation destinations – it’s all a crucial litmus tests for candidates pitching a national message. Bottom line, they fail at pitching it in the Sunshine State, it will be a sorry state for their campaigns in the end,” he said.

Cavuto will be hosting a post-primary show tonight featuring Florida politicos Attorney General Pam Bondi – a Mitt Romney supporter- and U.S. Reps. John Mica and Connie Mack.

Polls at Wellington City Hall were empty this afternoon, and a city official said only about 100 voters had come in all day.

One Wellington resident said she brought a book to kill time while she waited in line, but was able to vote in less than five minutes. No one was inside the precinct.

Nearby, at St. Peter’s United Methodist Church, two poll workers were chatting outside, while the precinct was empty.

Elections officials expect crowds to pick up after 5 p.m., when voters leave work. Polls close at 7 p.m.

After helping secure the state’s national prominence in selecting the GOP presidential candidate by moving up the primary, Senate President Mike Haridopolos said he’ll be watching the election returns at home with his roommate, Senate budget chief JD Alexander, tonight.

“I’m low-keying it. I’ve been high-key enough in getting this early election,” Haridopolos, a Mitt Romney supporter, said during his weekly Q-and-A with reporters this afternoon. “Despite a lot of anger from some folks even in my own party…I think it clearly has come up aces for us.”

Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney and political groups supporting the candidates have spent about $25 million on campaign ads, Haridopolos said, and the early date has helped fire up Republican voters, more than 600,000 of whom had already cast their ballots before today’s election. Florida Republicans gave up half their delegates in the winner-take-all election by moving the date up and breaking national GOP rules.

“I’m looking forward to seeing the returns tonight, and I expect Mitt Romney to win,” Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, said.

Facing a tough reelection fight in a district that was redrawn with a Democratic tilt, U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, announced today that he will instead run in a more Republican-leaning district to the north that’s home to U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta.

Rooney will run in a newly created rural district that extends from western Martin and St. Lucie counties to Charlotte County on Florida’s west coast and north into parts of Hillsborough and Polk counties. Rooney represents much of that area now.

With no Republican incumbent in West’s current Palm Beach-Broward congressional District 22, sources close to former state House Majority Leader Adam Hasner of Boca Raton said Hasner is considering dropping his U.S. Senate bid and running for West’s congressional seat.

West’s current District 22 is nearly evenly split between Republicans and Democrats. But a plan approved by the Florida Senate and up for a vote in the state House this week creates a district where Democrats have a 9-point registration advantage and Barack Obama got 56.6 percent of the vote in 2008.

If approved by the House, the new congressional map could still face legal challenges under a new anti-gerrymandering law approved by voters in 2010.

Two Democrats — former West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel and Fort Lauderdale accountant Patrick Murphy — have been running in West’s District 22 and have raised about $1.4 million apiece.

“We chased Allen West out of the district,” crowed Frankel campaign adviser Bret Wask, who said Frankel would continue to run in District 22.

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U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, announced that he’ll run for reelection in a newly drawn seat on Florida’s west coast — potentially leaving a Palm Beach County -Treasure Coast seat open for U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation.

West’s current Palm Beach-Broward seat has been redrawn with a heavily Democratic tilt, raising speculation he’d run elsewhere.

West wasn’t immediately reachable this afternoon, but many Republicans have been trying to persuade Rooney to move west to clear the path for West.

Here’s Rooney’s statement:

“I am excited to announce that I will be running for reelection in the new Congressional District 17. Over the last four years, I have had the honor of representing a large portion of the population of the newly drawn 17th district. The people of this district have always been good to me, and I look forward to representing this region for another two years. I will continue to make sure their calls for a smaller and more responsible government, a strong national defense, a prosperous economy, and much-needed private sector jobs are heard in Washington.”
“Congressional District 17 will be the largest agricultural district in Florida and one of the largest in the country, and the farmers here are among the nation’s leaders in beef and dairy production. As a member of the House Agriculture Committee, and the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy and Poultry, I will continue to be a strong voice for the people of this district. A vibrant agricultural industry is not only the backbone of this district, but a key driver of both our state and national economies, and I believe that I can best serve the people of Florida as a leader on the Agriculture Committee and a Representative of Florida’s new 17th district.”

“With my current district, Florida’s 16th, essentially cut in half during the redistricting process, I had a difficult decision to make. Barring .

Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich meets with supporters during a visit to a polling place at Celebration Heritage Hall in Celebration, Fla., Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

CELEBRATION – The Florida campaign for Newt Gingrich is over. Now, it’s just a matter of waiting for the results.

After spending nearly an hour shaking hands and signing autographs with supporters who lined up outside a polling place in this Disney-created community near Orlando this afternoon, the GOP presidential hopeful climbed back aboard his “Rebuilding the America We Love” campaign bus and drove off. Next up: His election night party at the Rosen Centre Hotel in Orlando.

He didn’t address the media at any of the four stops he made today in Central Florida. When a scrum of reporters crowded around, he would sometimes say that he was “uniting conservatives” or mention the “dishonest” ads chief rival Mitt Romney has been running.

His press secretary said that regardless of what happens in Florida tonight, the former House speaker is committed to campaigning in every state. Tea Party voters will give him the edge over chief rival, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, said R.C. Hammond.

“We will compete in every contest the country has to offer,” Hammond said. “In a race where the media’s picked frontrunner hasn’t broken 50 percent that leaves a lot of math out there for the conservative side of the party to take up which is how we’ll stay competitive in the nomination, which is why it will last late into the spring because we’ll continue to bring in delegates, we’ll continue to bring in large amounts of support.

“At the end of the day,” he concluded, “as long as Tea Party voters continue to come our way, we’ll do very well.”

Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher visits the precinct at the West Jupiter Recreation Center Tuesday afternoon.

While larger crowds of voters filled Palm Beach County precincts this morning and at lunch, precincts are not that busy this afternoon, according to elections officials.

An election deputy at Precinct 1066, located at the West Jupiter Recreation Center, said only about 200 people had voted as of 1:15 p.m., despite the fact that this precinct has 1,166 registered Republicans, the third largest number in the county.

Susan Bucher, Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections, said she’s seen a ”steady clip of voters” visiting polls, and she expects polls to get busier after voters finish their workday.

“But we won’t really know until polls close,” she said outside the recreation center.

Before visiting precincts in Jupiter, Bucher stopped by Howard Park in West Palm Beach, where she told Palm Beach Post photographer Lannis Waters that ”things are pretty smooth. There’s a steady clip of voters.” Only 35 people had voted at Howard Park as of 1 p.m., Bucher said.

Bucher also visited St. Edward Church in Palm Beach, the busiest precinct so far, she said. As of 1 p.m., 272 people at voted at St. Edward, which has 1,200 registered Republicans, the second largest in the county.