Florida lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a measure now on its way to Gov. Charlie Crist that would prohibit adoption agencies from discriminating against gun owners.

The Senate voted 38-2 on the bill (HB 315) this morning, with Democratic Sens. Ted Deutch of Boca Raton and Frederica Wilson of Miami the only hold-outs. The House earlier unanimously passed the measure.

Story here.

Senate President Jeff Atwater allowed Democrats to talk about repealing the state’s gay adoption ban during the afternoon session today.

Sen. Nan Rich has tried and failed for the past four years to have her bills that would do away with Florida’s 33-year-old prohibition against gay couples or individuals adopting.

But today, Atwater allowed Sen. Charlie Justice to offer an amendment on a bill that would prohibit adoption agencies from discriminating against gun owners. Justice’s amendment proposed a similar prohibition for discrimination based on sexual orientation.

“Whether a person owns a gun or not has no bearing on his or her ability to be a loving parent,” Rich, D-Weston, said.

The ban on gay adoption is a “far graver inequality,” she said, and is “a law grounded on fear and ignorance rather than in sound public policy.”

Gay couples are allowed to be foster parents but are barred from permanently adopting the children. More than 3,000 Florida kids are waiting to be adopted and about 25,000 of them live in foster care.

A state appeals court is currently considering whether the law is unconstitutional, as some judges have recently ruled. The 1st District Court of Appeals could rule at any time on a case in which a judge allowed Martin Gill, a gay Miami-Dade County man, to adopt two foster children who have been in his care for years. The state is appealing the adoptions.

“I know this amendment is not going to pass today and that Florida’s discriminatory adoption ban will not fall today,” Rich concluded. ”It’s been four year since there’s been any debate on this issue in any official Senate proceeding in any Senate committee and it’s been 33 years since this issue has been debated on the floor of this chamber. It’s about time we did something about that.”

Justice, D-St. Petersburg, withdrew the amendment before a vote could be taken.

Rep. Scott Randolph, D-Orlando, offered a similar amendment on the House floor this afternoon. He also withdrew the measure before it could be voted on.

Federal prosecutors in Florida are trying to keep a serial child molester behind bars in California for crimes George Joseph England allegedly committed in Palm Beach County.

England, now 65, is accused of buying then-five-year-old Jackie Zudis from her mother in Vietnam in the early 1970s. He claimed her as his adopted daughter and kept her as a sex slave for more than a decade, authorities say.

England sexually assaulted three of her young friends, skipped out of sentencing in California and lived for years in Florida — including Palm Beach County — using the fake name of a dead baby.

(more…)

A bill that’s one of House Speaker Larry Cretul’s priorities that would make 911 call tapes secret is on the fast-track in his chamber but lacks a Senate sponsor.

Cretul is pushing the measure on behalf of Florida Farm Bureau President John Hoblick, whose 16-year-old son died from a lethal combination of alcohol and illegal prescription drugs. Hoblick, out of town when his son Jake died, heard his older son John’s 911 call on the news.

House staff and the bill sponsor Rep. Rob Schenk, R-Spring Hill, kept the Speaker’s blessing of the bill hush-hush until this week when Cretul told a St. Petersburg Times reporter that Hoblick asked him to do something about the 911 calls.

Cretul used a seldom-used procedural maneuver today to guarantee that the measure (PCB GAP 10-03) passed. He temporarily assigned one of his lieutenants, House Speaker Pro Tem Ron Reagan, R-Bradenton, to the committee. Cretul didn’t need the insurance, however; the Government Policy Accountability Council approved it with an 8-5 vote.

Despite the Speaker’s clout in the House, the bill lacks a Senate sponsor.

Sen. Garrett Richter had originally agreed to run a companion for Schenk. But an open government shell bill he had sponsored that could have been used for Schenk’s bill was designated to be heard in the Banking and Insurance Committee, which has nothing to do with the 911 calls, he said. Richter backed off the bill even before controversy surrounding it - some victims and First Amendment lawyers staunchly oppose it - began this week. The Naples Republican said he won’t sponsor the measure.

Recognizing Palm Beach County day today, PBC home-boy Sen. Dave Aronberg recited some facts about the state’s largest county before giving a shout-out to some county officials watching the Senate session from the East Gallery.

Aronberg, D-Greenacres, introduced PBC Commissioner Burt Aaronson as “The Godfather of Palm Beach County.”

Aaronson was first elected to the commission in 1992.

Aronberg’s intro may be considered a dubious distinction, considering that three of Aaronson’s former county commission colleagues are in prison for corruption charges.

The Senate considered some sweeping changes to Public Service Commission, the panel that oversees billions of dollars in utility rates, without voting on it.

The measure (SB 1034), which Senate President Jeff Atwater previously said he wanted passed out of the chamber today, is on the fast-track in the Senate but isn’t moving so quickly in the House.

The proposal, backed by five-member Public Service Commission and Public Counsel J.R. Kelly (who represents consumers), is aimed at injecting new ethical standards into the maligned regulatory agency entangled in secret messages swapped between staff and a Florida Power & Light Co. lawyer. That and other questionable actions did not break any Florida laws, a number of investigations found.

The changes, proposed by longtime PSC critic Sen. Mike Fasano, would require that all written and oral communications between commissioners and their aides, called ex parte communications, be put in the public record and placed online where everyone can see them.

“We had staff and commissioners that were communicating with multi-billion dollar utility companies and we didn’t know anything about it. Absolutely nothing. Now when anybody has access to them, we’re going to know within 72 hours after their transmission,” Fasano, R-New Port Richey, said.

The measure would also bar commissioners and their aides from going to work or lobbying for the utilities they regulate for four years, which would be twice the current restriction.

Senate Democratic Leader Al Lawson tried but failed to keep the limitation to two years, arguing that the restrictions surpass those of even lawmakers who control the state budget and who are barred from lobbying for just two years.

The bill would affect all the electric, water and gas companies that are regulated by the commission. Under the proposal, a company could be fined one-tenth of one percent of its annual operating revenue for violating the restrictions.

The Senate could vote out the measure as early as tomorrow.

Gov. Charlie Crist signed into law a tax break for businesses ten minutes before he began his state-of-the-state speech this evening.

The measure (HB 7033) will delay about $1.8 billion in unemployment tax payments for Florida businesses that will jump from $8 per worker to $100 per employee on April 1.

The higher tax rate kicks in in April because the number of jobless workers in Florida, among the highest in the nation, has wiped out the trust fund that pays for unemployment benefits.

Putting off the tax hike for two years means that Florida lawmakers today agreed to continue to borrow from the federal government to replenish the fund and rack up $675 million in interest payments. Those costs will be passed on to businesses over the next five years.

“Decisions are being made as we speak. Business owners are trying to determine what they’re going to do next to be able to deal with this Friday’s pay roll. This is what this bill’s about,” said Sen. Rudy Garcia, R-Hialeah.

The Senate unanimously approved the bill (HB 7033), which the House also unanimously passed earlier today.

Senate President Jeff Atwater launched his opening day remarks with an attack on his federal counterparts for wanton spending, then laid out a pro-business agenda for the 2010 session and a push to water down class size restrictions put into the Florida Constitution in 2002.

“Over the next sixty days you will each search your souls, come to your own personal decisions, but for my part, I will not participate in the evisceration of the American dream, I will not lower my vision, I will not choose the easy path, and I will not stand idly by while Congress smothers the next generation with its self indulgence and irresponsibility,” Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, said early in his speech.

Atwater, who is leaving office this year to run statewide for chief financial officer, also recognized seven senators leaving office this year because of term limits, including Alex Villalobos of Miami. Villalobos would have been at Atwater’s place at the podium today were it not for a coup that Atwater and his supporters staged more than two years ago.

Atwater, a descendent of Florida Gov. Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, was joined by other family members in the audience who were in town for the opening of an exhibit on Broward at the Old Capitol.

Listen to Atwater’s speech here.

Or read the text of his speech here.

The 60-day 2010 legislative session began with the usual pageantry as Senators, their families, Gov. Charlie Crist and the Florida Cabinet and the Florida Supreme Court crowded into the Senate chambers for Senate President Jeff Atwater’s opening day speech.

The chamber was filled with opening-day flowers, one of the only exemptions in the gift ban law barring lawmakers from accepting presents of any kind, including food.

Among the guests attending this morning: Linda King, widow of the late Sen. Jim King, the Jacksonville Republican who died earlier in July after a bout with pancreatic cancer and who once served as Senate President.

The Senate dedicated a committee room to King and read a resolution honoring the veteran lawmaker who was instrumental in getting end-of-life legislation passed.

Stay tuned for audio of Atwater’s remarks and other opening day treats, including the House’s session kick-off, winding up with Crist’s 6 p.m. state-of-the-state address.

After taking billions of dollars in federal economic stimulus money to balance the state budget last year, Senate President Jeff Atwater and House Speaker Larry Cretul along with other GOP lawmakers are demanding that the federal government balance its budget to put an end to the escalating federal deficit now surpassing $12 trillion.

“Unless something is done with Washington’s irresponsible fiscal behavior, Florida’s economy will drown in debt,” Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, said at a press conference this morning.

Atwater and his cadre want the feds to balance the nation’s budget as Florida lawmakers are constitutionally required to do in the Sunshine State.

But that didn’t stop the legislature under Atwater and Cretul from accepting at least $12 billion in federal stimulus money - more than $3 billion used to balance this year’s Florida budget and nearly another $6 billion plugged into next year’s. That money helped add to the nation’s rising debt.

“It’s a gaping inconsistency to take that money happily to fill giant holes in our budget and then turn around and criticize the very people who gave you the cash,” said Rep. Keith Fitzgerald, D-Sarasota.

Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, is sponsoring a joint resolution that, if passed by two-thirds of the Florida legislature, would have the state joining 19 other states asking Congress to convene an amendments convention to propose a constitutional amendment requiring the balanced budget and limit federal lawmakers’ ability to pass mandated spending down to the states.

But Florida lawmakers have done the same thing to local governments over the past decade, forcing them to take up a large share of education spending by passing down mandates and making counties pick up the tab for other items.

Congress would have to call the amendments convention if 34 states make the request. Passage of the constitutional amendment would require ratification by three-fourths, or 38, of the states.

Senate Majority Leader Alex Diaz de la Portilla, term-limited out of office this year, is considering a run for Congress.

U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart said today that he will not seek re-election this year. His brother Mario, a U.S. Representative from a neighboring district, plans to run for Lincoln’s seat.

That opens up Mario Diaz-Balart’s seat, which he won with just 52 percent in his last election against Democrat Joe Garcia.

Diaz de la Portilla says he’ll be the frontrunner in that race the day he enters and he’s already calling potential contributors who he said are ready to back him.

“I’ve got a proven track record as actually making good policy not just political hack work like others have,” Diaz de la Portilla said today. “As majority leader, I’ve proven my ability to reach across the aisle and deal with many, many democrats.”

DLP’s older brother Miguel is running to replace him in the state Senate and their younger brother Renier sits on the Miami-Dade County School Board.

DLP has served in the state legislature for 16 years, starting as a state representative in 1994.

“I have had the honor and privilege of serving my community as a state
senator and I am seriously considering the opportunity to continue to
fight for the people of Florida on a national level in the United
State Congress. I will make my final decision soon after thoughtful
and deliberate consideration,” Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, said in a statement.

One brave senator and a few courageous volunteers sampled the controversial prison ‘food loaf’ banned in some states that drew questions during a criminal justice budget meeting last week.

Sen. Arthenia Joyner asked prison officials last week to give her the nutritional value of the culinary concoction - also called “behavior modification loaf,” “nutri-loaf” or “suicide loaf” - used to punish misbehaving prisoners.

This morning, Department of Corrections Chief of Staff Richard Prudom arrived at the Senate committee meeting with two loaves of the questionable meal and the “special management meal” recipe.

The meeting ended without Joyner, D-Tampa, or any other committee member sampling the loaf, which resembles a holiday fruitcake with visible chunks of carrot instead of citrus.

But Chairman Victor Crist gave in when urged to try it and conducted an ad-hoc taste test with a Senate aide, a reporter and a lobbyist.

The consensus: the worst thing about the loaf is its consistency, which one guinea pig likened to “something that’s been eaten before.”

“It’s not real tasty.”

“It doesn’t smell bad.”

“It’s awful.”

The recipe calls for carrots, spinach, black-eyed peas, beans, vegetable oil, tomato paste, grits, water and oats.

DOC’s loaves, baked at the nearby Wakulla Correctional Institution, had an overpowering smell of spinach and a mushy consistency with a bland taste that, while far from a gastronomical delight, did not induce a gag reflex when sniffed, chewed or swallowed.

But Crist said that, with a little gravy and heated up as the recipe calls for, most people probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the loaf and genuine meat loaf.

“I don’t find anything offensive about it,” Crist, R-Tampa, said, “but it’s not something I’d order off the menu.”

A race for an open Panhandle state Senate seat may stymie success of a jobs package.

State Rep. Dave Murzin, House Economic Development and Community Affairs committee chairman, took a swipe at the Senate’s jobs package sponsored by Sen. Don Gaetz.

Murzin, a Panhandle Republican who is running for a Senate seat neighboring Gaetz’s district, was asked about the Gaetz proposal at an Associated Industries of Florida event in Tallahassee yesterday.

“It’s a great package. If I had a $150 million it might be some good ideas. But quite frankly I don’t have $150 million. I think I stopped counting at about $150 million,” Murzin, R-Pensacola, told the crowd of business lobbyists.

Gaetz’ bill includes a $1,000 tax break for businesses that hire an out of work Floridian and a variety of other corporate tax breaks or incentives to induce them to put the unemployed back on the job and to get them off Medicaid and other state benefits.

Murzin said his package will be more realistic.

“So yeah, we’ll take a look at some stuff but quite frankly we’ll roll out a jobs package, an economic incentives package, an economy package that actually works, doesn’t necessarily cost a lot of money because …an economic package that Floridians can afford,” Murzin said. “I’m not really into it for the is still trying to figure out exactly how much it will cost and how much it could save).headlines. I’m actually into it to put Floridians back to work.”

Gaetz, who is backing Murzin’s opponent Rep. Greg Evers in the Senate race, expressed tongue-in-cheek surprise at Murzin’s inability to come up with the money to pay for the package. (Gaetz says his staff

“Well, Rep. Murzin is welcome to his opinions. I wish him well this session. And in his future. I wish him well in everything except his aspirations to be a senator. In all other cases I wish him well,” Gaetz, R-Destin, said.

Food loaf. It’s what inmates hope isn’t for dinner.

As if prison food isn’t bad enough already, naughty inmates are fed a mystery “meat” called “food loaf.”

What exactly the loaf is made up of and what prisoners do to warrant the punishing meal isn’t clear either.

“Food loaf” is also known as called “meal management loaf,” “nutri-loaf” or “behavioral loaf in prison circles. In some prisons the concoction is made up of all of the day’s food put into a blender with some oats thrown in and baked into a loaf.

It is given in some prisons to unruly inmates who throw their food trays at correctional officers and was served in the past to Florida inmates with no utensils.

Currently, inmates in Vermont are suing prison officials over the use of the food loaf and which some states have banned.

Sen. Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa, asked Department of Corrections Chief of Staff Richard Prudhom at this morning’s Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations meeting morning to give her, in writing, the caloric value of the mystery package and the department policy on offenses that result in the loaf.

Prudhom said he will report back.

The state spends $2.33 a day for three meals and a snack on the 100,000 prisoners behind bars.

First, the good news: Florida’s economic woes have hit bottom, the legislature’s chief economist Amy Baker told the Senate yesterday.

Now, the bad news: The state’s unemployment rate is expected to climb to 12 percent as early as Friday when the most recent job numbers are released, Baker said.

And more bad news for lawmakers as they struggle to craft a budget with up to $3.3 billion - about 4 percent - less than they had for this year’s $66.5 billion spending plan.

Although the national recession is over, Florida’s not going to show an economic recovery for at least another year, Baker and University of Florida economist David Denslow told the Ways and Means Committee, which about 30 of the 40-member chamber attended after Senate President Jeff Atwater asked them to sit in.

“We think we’ve hit bottom and we’re going to hover around the bottom for a wile before we start picking up,” Baker said.

The economy will start picking up next spring, she said, but even with normal growth rates, the recovery is coming off a very low base level so the turn-around will be very slow.

It will be three years “before you’re going to be out of the hole on a lot of measures,” Baker said.

Read the story here.

On the other side of the fourth floor rotunda, House Democrats wrote a letter to GOP leaders saying they don’t like their approach in determining what the state’s critical needs are.

They want to look not only at expenditures but at revenues as well. (Translation: higher taxes?)

But that’s not likely to happen on the Senate side.

Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, told his members yesterday he “won’t extract another dollar” from Floridians.

Senate President Jeff Atwater kicked off a meeting detailing the state and the country’s dire economic condition with a stern, no-new-taxes speech as lawmakers prepare another belt-tightening budget.

Atwater contradicted questions about how to close what could be up to a $3 billion spending gap this year, saying the premise was incorrect.

Florida will not spend more than what it brings in, Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, said.

“The people of Florida do not have one more dime to send us. So let me be clear. When it comes to constructing a state budget to meet the critical needs of the people in this state, I am not starting in a hole. I am starting from scratch,” said Atwater, who is running for chief financial officer. “We will not extract one more dollar from the small business owner of the state or from any Floridian’s wallet to accomplish the task.”

Atwater delivered his campaign-sounding remarks to a Ways and Means Committee meeting that he asked each of the Senate’s 40 members to attend. Most of them showed up.

“We should not allow the shrieking cacophony of special interests to drown out this simple fact. We have faced up to and made the difficult decisions. What we have not done and what we will not do is leave our sons and our daughters and future generations of Floridians with an intolerable burden of taxes and debt,” Atwater said, drawing the applause of the GOP members in attendance.

The committee is now hearing from university of Florida economist David Denslow and will hear from the legislature’s economist Amy Baker later.

Sen. Dave Aronberg is questioning the state’s emergency readiness given the recent ouster of emergency management chief Ruben Almaguer.

Senate Military Affairs and Domestic Security Committee Chairman Aronberg, D-Greenacres, sent Almaguer’s replacement David Halstead a bevy of questions this morning about Florida’s ability to respond to a terrorist threat like the recently thwarted Christmas Day bomber airplane attack in Michigan.

Gov. Charlie Crist forced Almaguer to resign from his position as interim director of the Division of Emergency Management last week amid accusations of nepotism, misspending and sexism.

Almaguer, brought in as deputy chief to former DEM head Craig Fugate by Gov. Jeb Bush, last Monday refused to step down then resigned after meeting with Crist’s chief of staff Shane Strum and deputy chief Kathy Mears.

Almaguer says he was forced out by his replacement, Halstead, and that he has a “clean conscience.”

Crist refused to look into Almaguer’s alleged wrongdoing despite a plea from the ousted department official for an investigation.

Among the questions Aronberg wants answered:

Who’s responsible for audits of the division, which is located under the Department of Community Affairs?

State Sen. Dan Gelber and attorney general candidate nailed down another big-name Democratic endorsement, this time from Buddy McKay, who served as lieutenant governor under the late Gov. Lawton Chiles and briefly served as governor after Chiles’ death.

Gelber, a Miami Beach Democrat and former House member, is trying to trade up for the Cabinet post just a year after he won election to the Senate.

He and colleague Dave Aronberg, a Democratic senator from Greenacres, are in a battle-of-the-endorsements.

Post On Politics had erroneously reported that the sheriffs were split on the candidates.

They are not.

Aronberg has the support of 10 Democratic sheriffs, including Palm Beach County’s own law enforcement rock star Ric Bradshaw.

Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, former state education commissioner Betty Castor and former U.S. Rep. Jim Davis have all thrown their support behind Gelber.

Republicans have lined up Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp and Holly Benson, a former House member who also served as secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration, in a GOP primary race that’s been virtually silent compared to the Aronberg/Gelber contest.

They’re all vying to replace Attorney General Bill McCollum, a Republican who is running for governor in a primary against another senator - Paula Dockery.

Gelber’s latest political aspiration has opened up the door for yet another former senator, Gwen Margolis, to return to the chamber.

Margolis, a former Senate President, left office before being termed out to make room for Gelber. If she wins, it would be the Miami Beach-area Democrat’s second return trip to the Senate. After serving in the state House, she switched to the Senate from 1981-1992 before making a losing bid for Congress. Margolis was reelected to the Senate in 2002.

Federal agents investigating the corruption case against Broward County political kingmaker Alan Mendelsohn questioned Senate President Jeff Atwater this morning, Atwater’s spokeswoman confirmed.

Federal Bureau of Investigations agent Brian Szczepanski and four others met with Atwater this morning for about 45 minutes, Atwater’s spokeswoman Jaryn Emhof said.

They asked questions about the “committee process and structure,” Emhof said.

“We cannot comment as to the specifics of the questions, as this is an ongoing investigation,” Emhof said.

The agents from the FBI, the Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service have been poking around the Senate all week and have visited with at least five GOP senators, including Atwater.

Atwater’s spokeswoman Jaryn Emhof did not say what the agents asked the North Palm Beach banker about but others interviewed said that they were asked questions about former Sen. Mandy Dawson, Mendelsohn and other senators whom Mendelsohn had held fundraisers for at his Broward County home.

Sen. Dennis Jones, R-Seminole, spoke with four federal agents briefly on Monday. Sen. Paula Dockery said she spoke with two agents yesterday for at least an hour. Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, said he was questioned on Monday as well.

The agents asked questions about how committee chairmanships are assigned, Dockery and Jones said.

Former Senate President Ken Pruitt picked Dawson to chair a health care committee, an unusual move because she is a Democrat. She also became ill during the 2008 session and was frequently absent but Pruitt allowed her to remain on as chairman of the committee in the GOP-dominated Senate.

The investigators include a lawyer who works in the public integrity section of the Department of Justice in Washington.

They asked questions about how committee chairmanships are assigned and about Dawson’s relationship with Mendelsohn, who was indicted in October.

Mendelsohn was the chief fundraiser for the powerful Florida Medical Association and played a major role in channeling hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions to political parties and candidates.

The federal indictment includes the claim that Mendelsohn used three political action committees to funnel $87,000 to a former public official.

The indictment doesn’t name the official. It says the money was passed through an intermediary — also unnamed in the charging document — and disguised as payments for consulting services. The indictment details 10 of the purported payments, totaling $72,000 between May 2004 and December 2005.

The largest alleged payment was $25,000 on June 21, 2004 from “PAC #1.”

O

The Florida Senate is poised to take a final vote on a rail bill approved by the House yesterday after less than two hours of debate.

The measure faced fierce opposition in the Senate but a last-minute deal cut by the AFL-CIO, the Department of Transportation and Tri-Rail cleared the way for its passage.

Leaders of the union, which has 500,000 members, had strenuously objected to the measure throughout the special session because, they said, it created a policy that would have had a negative impact on the state’s 7,000 railroad workers.

But the deal preserved up to 184 jobs for employees of CSX Inc. who work on Tri-Rail and what will become SunRail.

The deal combined with up to $15 million included in the measure for Tri-Rail is likely to sway some Democrats who had planned to vote against the measure.

Lawmakers had given themselves until Friday to finish up the special rail session.

The Senate did not make any changes to the House bill so once it passes it will go directly to Gov. Charlie Crist, a proponent of the proposal who will sign it into law.