Gov. Charlie Crist wants to ban texting and driving, joining a movement already underway to force drivers to forgo messaging while they’re behind the wheel.

“I think it would provide some safety for our people,” Crist told Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles Executive Director Julie Jones.

Jones’ legislative proposals didn’t include the ban, already sought by several lawmakers who vow passage of a ban during next year’s legislative session.

She said she’d add it to her list along with a request to beef up the state’s aggressive driving laws which no carry no penalty.

Florida law now identifies “aggressive drivers” as those who break two laws simultaneously, for example tailgating while speeding.

But there’s no additional penalty for being an aggressive driver and there’s no special identifier tagging the miscreants.

Jones wants lawmakers to change that and also force the aggressive drivers to attend drivers’ school.

Some folks might not like that, observed Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink.

“I bet your insurance company’s not going to like it either,” she said.

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.

Draper supporters march in the Bay County July 4 parade. Photo via Draper's campaign Facebook page.

Audubon of Florida lobbyist Eric Draper said today he will end his two-month campaign for state agriculture commissioner to focus on his job with one of largest environmental groups in the state.

“All non-profit organizations are facing unprecedented financial times,” Draper said in a statement. “I had thought these manageable challenges but now find they require my full efforts.”

Draper’s announcement cuts to three the field of Democrats seeking the job: former state Democratic Party Chairman Scott Maddox, former state Rep. Rick Minton Jr. of Fort Pierce and former Suwannee County Commissioner Randy Hatch. Republicans running include U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam of Bartow and state Sen. Carey Baker of Eustis.

Republican Ag Commissioner Charles Bronson is leaving office in 2010 due to term limits.

Draper has been with Audubon since 1995. Before that, he was the staff director for the House Majority Office under Democratic Speaker Peter Wallace and Majority Leader Jim Davis. Draper also worked for The Nature Conservancy.

Attempting to frame the agriculture position as the “top environmental steward” on the Florida Cabinet, he raised $35,125 in his first month of the race and attracted nearly 1,000 supporters to his campaign’s Facebook page.

Read the letter he sent to supporters after the jump.

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Correction: Because of reporting errors, a previous version of this story indicated that Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink had approved a pardon for Gerald McCranie, who had been listed as a sex offender. Gov. Charlie Crist, Attorney General Bill McCollum and Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson approved the pardon. According to a spokesman, Sink did not sign the pardon.

Virgil McCranie is ecstatic. After more than a decade of marriage to his “Romeo and Juliet” sweetheart, the stigma of being branded a sex molester has finally been lifted.

The Board of Executive Clemency, comprised of Florida Cabinet members Gov. Charlie Crist, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, Attorney General Bill McCollum and Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson, granted McCranie a full pardon this week after leaving the Panama City Beach resident in limbo after the last clemency meeting in June.

“It sat there for two hours before I opened it,” McCranie said in a telephone interview today.

McCranie, now 34, and his wife Misty, now 28, fell in love when was he was 19 and she was 14. Since then, they’ve raised four children while struggling to make ends meet.
But their story is no fairy tale.

Misty and her father pressed charges against Virgil, accusing him of raping the minor. The rape charge was dropped but he was charged with lewd and lascivious acts against a minor and was sentenced to two years of probation.

That’s when the father of four’s nightmare began, McCranie told the clemency board in June.

He was placed on the state’s sex offender web site and has been unable to hold down a job or attend his daughter’s dance recitals, he said as he and his wife pleaded with the board to grant him a pardon.

The board took his case “under consideration,” leaving the couple in limbo.

The fact that three of the four clemency board members are running for statewide office - Crist for U.S. Senate and Sink and McCollum for governor - added to the pair’s worries.

That changed when they finally opened the letter containing the governor’s executive order and a copy of the certificate of clemency.

“I hadn’t felt that good since I was 19. I felt clean,” McCranie said.

McCranie said he hasn’t been able to hold down a job because of his sex offender status. Now he won’t have to wonder “if it was me not being good enough to do something or just me getting a bad shake from what I did,” he said. “I’m happy.”

Florida will buy 403 acres in St. Lucie County to protect the Indian River Lagoon and infuse the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution with research money under a $24-million deal approved Wednesday by Gov. Charlie Crist and the Florida Cabinet.

The deal secures another piece of the 26,380-acre Indian River Lagoon Blueway project that is a priority for the state’s premier land conservation program, Florida Forever. The state has purchased more than 4,000 acres for the project.

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