Sen. Carey Baker’s effort to rescue the vendor who has printed the state’s driver license handbook for five years went nowhere today and seems to be destined for the cutting room floor.

Baker had originally proposed a bill (SB 2342) that would keep Ken Underwood in the running for a contract with the Department of Motor Vehicles and Highway Safety which he now prints for free in exchange for advertising his National Safety Commission driver’s ed schools.

Baker, R-Eustis, rewrote the bill to appease opponents, including Underwood’s competitors, but he asked the Governmental Oversight and Accountability Committee to skip a vote on it today, as he did last week, because it was clear the revisions didn’t pass critics’ muster.

DHSMV chief Julie Jones, who canceled the contract after the end of the year, told the committee that “We need to overcome the perception of an endorsement of one company.”

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NRA lobbyist and political heavyweight Marion Hammer’s targeting a bill that ostensibly has nothing to do with weapons except that the bill’s Senate sponsor Carey Baker owns a gun shop.

A controversy over the state’s drivers license handbook has the former president of the National Rifle Association loaded for bear.

Baker, R-Eustis, is backing a bill (SB 2342) that would force the state to extend a contentious agreement with Ken Underwood, the Ponte Vedra Beach owner of a driver ed school, in which he prints the drivers license handbook for the state’s Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles for free.

In return, Underwood gets to advertise his businesses in the handbook.

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The Florida Cabinet just appointed Julie Jones to head the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

Until now, Jones served as the head of law enforcement for the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and was instrumental in search and rescue operations following the devastating hurricanes that struck Florida in 2004 and 2005. She also oversaw rescue operations in Mississippi in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Jones pledged to continue an emphasis on customer service.

“This is a huge opportunity and the trust that you place in me,” she said. “This is a huge agency that I think touches every single citizen in the state of Florida. It’s a huge responsibility.”

Jones replaces Elektra Bustle.
I intend to take your…

good customer service…
and continue the good things this agency’s done thus far.