Despite the lure of big bucks in a bleak budget year, House Speaker Dean Cannon is dubious about a proposal to allow up to three Las Vegas-style casinos in South Florida.

“I remain very skeptical,” Cannon, R-Winter Park, told a gathering of reporters and editors at the Associated Press Florida Legislative Planning Session this morning.

Cannon said he remains “philosophically opposed to the expansion of gaming in the state.” His counterpart, Senate President Mike Haridopolos, has pledged that the Senate will have an up-or-down vote on the measure (SB 710, HB 487).

Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, and Rep. Erik Fresen, R-Miami, released their “destination resort” proposal last week. The plan, in its preliminary stages, also creates a statewide gaming commission.

Yesterday, a coalition of faith groups came out in opposition to the proposal, naming its defeat their top priority during the legislative session that ends early in March.

Cannon said he’s aware of a potential deal being crafted by lawmakers that would allow the from one to three casinos in South Florida in exchange for shutting down unregulated Internet cafes. But, he said, “I’ve yet to see a concrete plan to accomplish it.”

Cannon also said he would not pursue a plan to split up the Florida Supreme Court, an idea he pushed but later abandoned during the session this spring.

Just two days before the legislative session was supposed to end, the two professions at the center of a deregulation bill started girding up for what ultimately proved to be a sine die train wreck.

The National Kitchen and Bath Association, already represented by Nick Iarossi – a rising star on the Tallahassee lobbying scene – and his associate Chris Schoonover, added seven more prominent lobbyists to its team: Sarah Bascom (already doing PR for the group), Louis Betz, Michael Corcoran, Chris Floyd, Yolanda Jackson, Ron LaFace Jr. and Gerald Wester.

On the opposite side: interior designers, the profession the Florida House wanted to deregulate to the chagrin of thousands of interior designers and universities with specialty graduate programs. Tallahassee powerhouse Ron Book and his entourage began representing the Interior Designs Association Foundation back in February. But on May 5, the foundation also enlisted the aid of some of the Capitol’s most influential lobbyists: former RPOF lobbyist Rich Heffley, Brecht Heuchan, Guy Spearman, Sean Pittman and Missy Timmins.

In the end, those latest to the game won out.

In a stunning rebuke to GOP leadership, the Senate killed the dereg bill – keeping regulation of interior designers – late Friday afternoon on what was supposed to be the session’s last day, setting off the vendetta-laden denouement to what might have otherwise been a collegial hanky drop but devolved into public remonstrations from House Speaker Dean Cannon and a bleary-eyed Senate President Mike Haridopolos in the wee hours of the morning Saturday.

Lawmakers approved a $69.7 billion spending plan and quietly ended the 2011 legislative session at 3:35 a.m. without any pomp and circumstance.

Instead, the 60-day session ended with Senate President Mike Haridopolos and House Speaker Dean Cannon publicly rebuking each other over with Haridopolos accusing Cannon of playing “silly games” and Cannon claiming to “take the high road” by rejecting a controversial Senate tax break.

Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, called his members back after 2 a.m. this morning to take up a tax-break proposal that includes a three-day sales tax holiday for back-to-school shoppers after the House stripped out a tax break for at least one greyhound dog track in Senate Rules Chairman John Thrasher’s district.

Haridopolos apologized for asking them to return about an hour after he sent them home and instructed them the session would reconvene at 10 a.m.

Shortly before Haridopolos recalled the Senate, Cannon gaveled down the House without passing two claims bills that were Haridopolos priorities. Eric Brody was set to get $12 million from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office for an accident more than a decade ago that left him severely disabled, and William Dillon was slated to get less than $1 million after being wrongfully imprisoned for nearly three decades for a crime he didn’t commit.

“They should have been served today by this legislature. Politics got in the way today and I’m embarrassed,” he said.
Gov. Rick Scott left the building around midnight as the legislative session devolved into chaos. Scott had been scheduled to participate in the ceremonial white hanky drop but instead went home to bed because he had a busy schedule this weekend, his spokesman Brian Burgess said.

The House approved the budget shortly before 2 a.m., about two-and-a-half hours after the Senate and following some very hard feelings between the two chambers.

The House then took up the disputed tax break bill (CS/SB 7203).

But the House remained angered by the Senate’s killing a pair of professional deregulation bills earlier in the night — with House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, saying that move broke an agreement between the two chambers.

“In light of the Senate’s inability to meet that obligation, I’ve decided that our chamber would take the high road…and send it all to the Senate tonight, and leave no ambiguity,” Cannon said.

The House took up the tax-break bill, voted to remove the Jacksonville track provision, repackaged the measure as HB 143 and sent it back to the Senate. With the budget behind them, and the tax-break package structured to their liking, Cannon and House members adjourned at 2:07 a.m., Saturday.

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With less than 12 hours to go, lawmakers are now close to sealing a deal further cracking down on pill mills.

The final deal will include a ban on doctors dispensing powerful narcotics with no exemption for workers’ compensation physicians, no cap on the amount of doses pharmacies can dispense – a major sticking point for Sen. Mike Fasano, shepherding the bill in the Senate. It does include Attorney General Pam Bondi’s proposed language stiffening penalties against rogue pain management clinics and doctors. It will also ban pharmaceutical companies from contributing to the private foundation that pays for the state’s prescription drug database.

Limiting the amount of highly addictive pain drugs that get on the street has become a priority of Gov. Rick Scott, who testified before Congress on the issue last month touting his plan to track the drugs from the wholesaler to the pharmacy to the doctor. Scott had to give up on capping the dosage amounts after cancer hospitals and hospices complained the limits would keep them from being able to treat patients in chronic pain.

Procedurally, the Senate will take up the House’s bill (HB 7095), put the compromise language on it, and send it back to the House for a final vote before 10:16 p.m. That’s the earliest lawmakers can vote on the budget, the only thing they’re constitutionally required to do during the 60-day legislative session, and they are expected to call it quits shortly after. Gov. Rick Scott plans to join House Speaker Dean Cannon and Senate President Mike Haridopolos for the traditional sine die hankie drop.

The House and Senate reached a compromise on one of House Speaker Dean Cannon’s priorities that would have split the Supreme Court.

Instead, the proposed constitutional amendment (HJR 7111) would give lawmakers more control over court rules, require Senate confirmation of gubernatorial appoints to the high court and allow the Florida House to scrutinize judicial complaints.

What the bill doesn’t do – split the court in two and set a fixed amount of funding – permitted its passage by a 28-11 vote Tuesday evening.

Cannon’s accepted the deal, his spokeswoman said.

“The Speaker will consider the proposed Court Reform Amendment a win with or without the Supreme Court component. It does not appear that the Senate will go as far as the House in terms of bold reform, but Speaker Cannon believes in all of the policy and is proud of the debate that was initiated,” Cannon, R-Winter Park, spokeswoman Katie Betta said in an e-mail.

The Florida Senate may “the most conservative Senate ever,” as President Mike Haridopolos boasted at the onset of the legislative session.

But it’s apparently not conservative enough to pass House Speaker Dean Cannon’s sweeping overhaul of the Supreme Court that would, among other things, split the court in two.

As the clock winds down until lawmakers sine die on Friday, the Senate plan today is to remove at least that part of the proposed constitutional amendment, keep the provision allowing the legislature to have control over the court’s rules and send it back to the House for another vote.

“Our members have felt pretty strongly about splitting up the Supreme Court,” Senate Majority Leader Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, said. “What you’re going to see is an option sent back to the House.”

Senate GOP leaders (who have a 28-12 majority) won’t say out loud that they don’t have the 24 votes needed to pass the proposed constitutional amendment.

But Gardiner, whose job is to count votes and corral the GOP caucus, conceded the speaker’s priority measure wouldn’t pass as is.

“You never count out votes until you sine die but I do think there’s a strong sense amongst our members about the Supreme Court piece,” Gardiner said.

A rewrite of the House’s plan to shut down pill mills brings the chamber closer to the Senate, bringing a standoff between GOP legislative leaders closer to resolution.

The House’s latest plan, which will be voted on by the budget committee this morning, keeps the current pill mill regulations, maintains the prescription drug database House Speaker Dean Cannon and Gov. Rick Scott previously wanted to scrap, and limits the amount of narcotic prescription doses pharmacies can dispense. Senate President Mike Haridopolos has refused to back down from his support for the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program, now underway after two years in limbo.

The strike-all amendment on the bill (HB 7095), which will be introduced this morning, also prohibits doctors from dispensing all Schedule II and III medications. Those include highly addictive oxycodone and hydrocodone.

And the proposal also requires all doctors and health care practitioners except those treating chronic, non-cancer patients to register with the state before they can prescribe controlled substances. The Senate’s plan does not include the limitations on doctors.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, who supports the House revision, is expected to testify before the committee at 10:30.

GOP House leaders hatched a new plan to keep the Florida Supreme Court from scrapping the legislature’s proposed constitutional amendments from the ballot.

The new plan (HB 1261) is the latest salvo in House Speaker Dean Cannon’s battle with the high court, which last year removed three proposed constitutional amendments the legislature attempted to put on the ballot. Cannon released his latest plan to overhaul the Supreme Court earlier today.

The latest proposal would require that the full text of a proposed amendment goes on the ballot even if the court rules the ballot summaries are misleading, confusing or defective. Court challenges about the summaries would have to be filed within 30 days after the amendments are filed with the secretary of state.

A House committee is expected to vote on the measure tomorrow.

Florida House Speaker Dean Cannon said there’s nothing to a Democrat’s accusations that he was scolded for saying ‘uterus’ on the House floor during debate last week.

State Rep. Scott Randolph’s suggestion that his wife should “incorporate her uterus” to keep government out of it went national this week with his appearance on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show.

The to-do prompted a fashion craze in the Capitol this week – women (and men) are sporting pink buttons bearing the word ‘UTERUS’ on them.

Randolph said he was chastised by GOP leaders for saying ‘uterus’ on the floor.

“That is silly,” Cannon, R-Winter Park, told reporters this morning. Cannon said he hasn’t spoken with Randolph, D-Orlando, in weeks.

The Speaker said he never banned the use of the word ‘uterus’ and went on to bash Randolph, who used the term during debate on a union bill.

“One of the reasons why he is probably one of the least effective members of the Democratic caucus is he substitutes things that have provocative value or shock value rather than making a policy argument,” Cannon said. “Not only have I not spoken to him, not reprimanded him, nor had any conversation with him, we haven’t banned the word uterus from the floor.”

Randolph, also a lawyer, disagreed.

“I think I’m the most effective at calling out their radical agenda,” Randolph said. “A Legislature that is bought and sold by the Florida Chamber of Commerce will not let us pass bills that effectively protect the middle-class and effectively protect women from their radical agenda.”

House Speaker Dean Cannon’s latest overhaul of the Florida Supreme Court would retain a single court but divide it into two divisions – criminal and civil – and increase the number of judges from seven to 10.

Cannon made the concessions after taking into consideration objections from the Florida Bar and judges, he said at a press conference this morning.

The GOP leader has wrangled with the high court since it killed three constitutional amendments pushed last year by the Republican Legislature.

Cannon, a Winter Park lawyer, said he’s trying to foster an environment in which “the branches can have an appropriate discourse” but which reaffirms the legislature as “the policy-making branch.”

Cannon also backed off his earlier plan to revamp the way judges are selected for the bench. Cannon’s originally wanted to scrap the Judicial Nominating Commissions, the governor-appointed panel that give the names for prospective Supreme Court judges to the governor, who makes the appointments. Cannon’s latest plan would allow Gov. Rick Scott to select new members to the panel.

And Cannon’s reversed his position on opening up complaints about judges. Instead of opening up the records to everyone, Cannon wants to make it easier for the House, which has the authority to impeach judges, to get the records. The records would then be open to the public after impeachment proceedings begin.

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GOP leaders in South Carolina and Iowa are pushing national Republican leaders to yank next year’s convention from the Sunshine State unless lawmakers change the presidential preference primary date.

South Carolina GOP Chairwoman Karen Floyd sent a letter to members of the Republican National Committee this morning saying Florida is “thumbing its nose” at the committee’s rules, Politico http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/52303.html today.

“Simply put, if Florida does not respect the process by which our primary calendar was set, the RNC should not be bound to the process by which the convention site was selected,” Floyd wrote.

Iowa GOP Chairman Matt Strawn sent out a statement backing up Floyd.

Florida’s 2012 primary is currently set for Jan. 31, a violation of both parties’ rules requiring the primary to be held no earlier than in March.

Florida GOP leaders aren’t backing down. They say they’re doing what they can to ensure that Florida plays an integral role in the selection of the 2012 Republican presidential nominee.

Get over it, Senate President Mike Haridopolos suggested in a statement. The Merritt Island Republican and U.S. Senate candidate wants the Sunshine State to be fifth in the primary lineup, after New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina and Nevada.

Read Haridopolos’ and House Speaker Dean Cannon’s reactions after the jump.
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It’s no secret House Speaker Dean Cannon is no fan of the Florida Supreme Court. He’s pushing a proposal that would split the court into two and require Senate confirmation of justices, appointed by the governor.

Now, Cannon, R-Winter Park, is going after the seven judges’ staff attorneys.

The House budget cuts the number of attorneys by nearly half – from 30 to 14, a savings of about $1.1 million.

Supreme Court staff say the proposed cuts will slow down the court’s ability to hear cases.

The House also doesn’t include any money for the Innocence Commission, a priority of Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island. The commission is investigating wrongful convictions in Florida. The Senate’s allocated just under $250,000 for the project.

And the House’s spending plan is also missing the $3.6 million the Senate spends to reduce court caseloads statewide.

The House’s latest proposal that would give retailers like Walgreens and CVS exclusive rights to dispense highly addictive pain medications is a no-go in the Senate, Senate President Mike Haridopolos said Wednesday afternoon.

The House Judiciary Committee approved the measure (HB 7095) this morning by a 12-6 vote, deepening the divide between the two chambers’ leaders over how best to crack down on pill mills.

Haridopolos insists on getting the state’s prescription drug database up and running despite his House counterpart Speaker Dean Cannon’s push to have it repealed.

The House’s latest plan to limit distribution of the narcotics by prohibiting doctors from being able to dispense them likely won’t go anywhere in the Senate, said Haridopolos, whose wife is a doctor.

“I don’t have a lot of hope for that one. We’re not even going in that direction,” Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, said this afternoon at his weekly briefing with reporters.

The House gave retail pharmacies a boost this morning in its approach to reining in pill mills by going after rogue distributors.

Rep. Robert Schenck, sponsor of the bill (HB 7095), offered an amendment that would limit dispensation of narcotics to pharmacies that are publicly traded, have more than $100 million of taxable assets in Florida or have been in operation continuously for at least a decade.

The measure would also require the use of tamper-proof prescription pads or electronic prescribing for all controlled substances.

Schenck’s amendment, approved by the House Judiciary Committee this morning, also goes a bit easier on dispensing docs than his previous proposal which would have banned them from dispensing virtually any medications. Under Schenck’s new plan, only the pharmacies could dole out Schedule II and III drugs. Schedule II drugs iclude highly addictive narcotics like oxycodone and hydrocodone, morphine, and codeine. Schedule 3 drugs include sedatives and steroid compounds. (more…)

A day after House budget committees squawked about how paltry allocations from Speaker Dean Cannon were forcing  deep program chopping, the Winter Park Republican reshuffled the books.

Cannon found another $75 million to scatter among schools, higher education and the justice budget panels –maybe easing back on some of the axe-wielding. Cannon said he and House budget chair Denise Grimsley, R-Sebring, decided to distribute the legislative lagniappe after seeing how budget subcommittees had done the right thing and focused on statewide spending issues.

On Wednesday, Justice Appropriations Chair Rich Glorioso, R-Plant City, bemoaned the cutting his panel was doing.

Wholesale spending cuts would eliminate one-quarter of the state’s more than 2,800 judicial assistants, leaving judges to do much of their own research, scheduling and brief-writing, to save $13.6 million. Judicial salaries also would be scaled-back, letting the state pocket another $11.4 million.

Rep. James Grant, R-Tampa, said the proposed cuts threatened the legal rights of Floridians.

“We are going to wind up with an umpire who can’t see the strike zone,” Grant said of the burden also being put on judges.

A Senate committee this morning unanimously approved a measure strengthening the state’s yet-to-be-implemented prescription drug database and creating harsher penalties for pill mills, one of Attorney General Pam Bondi‘s top priorities.

The Senate Criminal Justice Committee also stripped out a measure that would have created made it easier for doctors to prescribe tamper-proof narcotics that prevent drug addicts from crushing the pills to snort or inject the pain meds. Most generic drug manufacturers wanted that out of the bill because no generic drugs yet come in tamper-proof form.

Bondi urged the committee to pass the bill (SB 818) to make it easier for her and other prosecutors to crack down on rogue pain management clinics and doctors.

Bondi said she’s “never seen anything like” the illicit pain medication epidemic in her 20 years as a prosecutor in Tampa and stressed the need for the prescription drug database opposed by Gov. Rick Scott and House Speaker Dean Cannon. A House committee recently approved a measure that would repeal the database created by lawmakers two years ago. Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, is refusing to back down from his support for the database.

“It’s unreal. It’s everywhere you go,” she said. “We need a comprehensive plan. We need the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program.”

Bondi said drug dealers thwarted by a prescription drug database in their state are flocking to the Sunshine State to purchase drugs and sell them in Appalachia.

Sen. Mike Fasano, the bill’s sponsor, also pushed the committee to sign off on his proposal.

“There’s not a person in this room today…that hasn’t been affected by this epidemic,” Fasano, R-New Port Richey, said.

The House looks poised to take another swipe at former Gov. Charlie Crist, with Speaker Dean Cannon saying Monday that veto overrides could be coming this week on a couple of bills.

The House is looking to revive legislation killed by Crist that would give party leaders in both chambers enhanced authority over campaign cash they collect. The leadership funds legislation and another vetoed bill, shielding farm land from certain local fees, were both advanced Friday by the House State Affairs Committee.

The House has scheduled lengthy floor sessions Thursday and Friday. A two-thirds vote there would position the measures for similar Senate action.

Just hours before Senate budget panels begin work Monday afternoon, House Speaker Dean Cannon did his own bit of budget calculus — unveiling the amount of taxpayer cash he’s allocated to each of the state’s big spending categories.

As usual, education is getting the biggest share of dollars, $8.2 billion for public schools, alone. Close behind is Heath and Human Services, drawing $7.1 billion in general revenue, even as both the House and Senate look to trim future costs with a sweeping overhaul of the Medicaid program.

In outlining the spending in a memo to fellow lawmakers, Cannon also made some commitments. (more…)

A measure that would bar the Florida Supreme Court from stripping proposed constitutional amendments off the ballot because of deficiencies in the ballot title or summary narrowly made it through its first stop in the Senate this morning.

The proposal (SB 1504) also would impose more restrictions on petition gatherers.

House Speaker Dean Cannon and Senate President Mike Haridopolos have gone after the court for tossing a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow Florida to opt out of the federal health care law. The proposal would require the court to send an amendment back to the state department with instructions on how to fix it and allow the secretary of state to alter it and then place it directly on the ballot without further court review.

The measure, sponsored by Sen. David Simmons, R-Maitland, would also:
-Require the paid signature gatherers to be eligible vote in Florida;
- Prohibit them from being paid by the petition;
- Require that their names be on all the petitions;
- Reduce from four years to 20 months the amount of time the petitions are valid.

The bill passed on a 7-5 vote, with Republican Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, joining Democrats in opposition.

Senate President Mike Haridopolos is refusing to back down from his insistence that the state’s prescription drug database get up and running despite opposition from Gov. Rick Scott and House Speaker Dean Cannon.

A House committee last week passed a bill repealing the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program lawmakers created two years ago but yet to be implemented. A separate bill would also scrap all of the oversight of the pill mills.

“How do I say this nicely. We have a law on the books. It’s a database. If we choose not to fund it with taxpayer dollars, whatever happens there, we have secured private sector dollars,” Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, said when asked if he supports the House’s elimination of pill mill regulation. I understand how laws are passed and it has to pass both chambers. We are not going to adjust the database. We believe it’s a very good idea. I strongly believe that we have to get a handle on this…We have no interest whatsoever of scrapping that database.”

Haridopolos said he tapped his “good friend” Sen. Mike Fasano, an ardent supporter of the database who sponsored much of the legislation cracking down on pill mills, to negotiate with the House on the issue.

“We’re the pill mill capitol of the world probably. We need to stop it. We have a device that other states have used successfully…I’m very comfortable with where we’re at,” Haridopolos said.