Gov. Rick Scott drew cheers from a tea party rally on the steps of the Old Capitol when he pledged, “the right things are happening,” and urged the 300 activists to keep the heat on Tallahassee.

“We’ve got the next 60 days,” Scott said on the Legislature’s opening day, as a similar crowd opposing his budget proposal rallied across the street. “We’ve got to make sure we finish strong. Show up every day, and let everyone know what you believe in. Don’t be hesitant, don’t be shy.”

Scott hinted he needed help from the crowd of conservative activists to get his pension-cutting, government-shrinking budget approved by fellow Republicans in the Legislature. The crowd roared.

“Thanks for working for us,” shouted Jack Pritchard, 70 a retired mechanical contractor from Marion County.

Scott kept talking, “The right things are happening because of you,” the governor said.

Facing the worst budget year in memory, new Republican Gov. Rick Scott and the GOP-packed Florida Legislature begin the 2011 session this week, pledging to slash spending and make good on campaign pledges that powered them last fall.

With the approach of the opening day Tuesday, unions, teachers and scores of groups in the cross hairs of budget cuts have been rallying against Scott and fellow Republican leaders who, in turn, are pulling support from tea party loyalists eager to shrink government.

Though it hasn’t commanded the national attention of Wisconsin and other partisan battlegrounds, purple state Florida is in for a bruising spring, with lawmakers looking to close a $3.6 billion budget hole and revive an economy flat-lined by an almost 12 percent jobless rate.

“Priority number one is the budget,” said House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park. “Everything else is number two.”

But it’s not a simple numbers game.

Political ideology is shading most of the exchanges between Republicans in power and Democrats pushed to Florida’s fringe by the November elections.

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Organizers across the political spectrum Friday began taking aim at the state Capitol for next week’s opening of the two-month legislative session.

The Facebook-drive Awake The State protest has about 30 rallies planned Tuesday from Key West to Pensacola — with critics of Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican-led Legislature’s budget-cutting the focus.

 Teachers, government employees, cops and firefighters form the core of those pushing back against proposed pension overhauls, but expected reductions in schools and health-care programs are drawing more opponents, said Damien Filer of Progress Florida.

“I’ve heard from a lot of people who say, `this is going to be my first rally of any kind,’” Filer said. “I’ll be interested to see what kind of momentum remains among people after next week.”

A West Palm Beach rally is planned from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., Tuesday, in the 100 block of Clematis Street.

Tea Party activists expect to counter-punch, with several thousand Scott supporters expected in Tallahassee. (more…)

Sen. Arthenia Joyner of  Tampa and Senate Democratic Leader Nan Rich of Weston on Friday renewed Democratic call for Attorney General Pam Bondi to drop her push to tighten Florida’s standards for restoring civil rights to felons after they completed their sentences.

 ”With a staggering unemployment rate of 12 percent, I’d think the attorney general would want to support any effort to help Floridians who have fully paid their debts to society, to find work,”  Rich said.

In a shocker for civil rights advocates and Democrats, Attorney General Pam Bondi is looking to undo Florida’s limited automatic restoration of rights for felons. Bondi said she was likely to have a proposal to put before Gov. Rick Scott and the Cabinet next month.

“I don’t believe any felon should have an automatic restoration of rights,” the Republican Cabinet member told reporters Thursday morning. “I believe you should have to ask, and there should be an appropriate waiting period” of three to five years.

Joyner, though, said she felt Bondi’s move was aimed at placating tough-on-crime tea party advocates.

“From fighting Floridians access to family doctors, to withholding civil rights, it seems the Republican politicians are more interestedin hurting Florida than helping her,” Joyner said Friday.

Gov. Charlie Crist says he’s scheduling a trip to The Villages (pictured right) as soon as possible after FOX News Sunday host Chris Wallace indicated that Marco Rubio may have a problem brewing with some tea party folks there. “At The Villages, they’re not happy with you, sir,” Wallace told Rubio.

“It was a bit surprising to me,” Crist said about that moment in their debate. “Maybe the speaker has miscalculated again as it relates to the electorate.”

Sounds like the problem is Rubio hasn’t responded to some questionnaires, according to the Talking Points Memo.

But Rubio received the message. From the minutes of the Tri-County Tea Party (Villages) meeting on Monday:

[President Pam Dahl] asked for a show of hands from all who had written letters and emails to Fox, and many hands went up in the air. Pam said those letters and emails really were heard and she received a call from Fox News to find out what was going on, and Joe Angione had received a call, too. When Marco Rubio’s campaign manager heard about TCTP sends out messages to over 1,000 people and those communications go out to over 35,000 people, they said they would like to arrange to Marco Rubio to come to one of our meetings to address TCTP in person.

Rubio is already scheduled for a visit to The Villages, when he and U.S. House candidate Allen West are “special guests” April 13 on Sean Hannity’s book tour. (And speaking of tea parties, Rubio is headlining the April 15 Tax Day Tea Party at the 10,000-seat Sun Dome at University of South Florida.)

Florida Republican leaders bristled at the suggestion Wednesday from Palm Beach County schools Superintendent Art Johnson that the conservative, anti-spending tea party movement could force the district to cut 1,600 jobs in 2011-12.

“If the common-sense approach of reducing government spending and cutting taxes makes me part of the tea party movement, then pass me some sugar,” House Republican Leader Adam Hasner of Boca Raton said.

Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander said his spending decisions will be driven by the state’s 11.8 percent unemployment rate, not by a particular political message.

But in a page from the “All Politics is Local” chapter of Florida government, the Republican leader has a tea party activist living next door to his Lake Wales home. Alexander said he’s attended two of his neighbor’s meetings.

“He walks my dog from time to time and I have to go over and say hello to everybody,” Alexander said. “They’re very reasonable people. They are concerned about the course of the country. I welcome everybody’s involvement in the discussion of how we move the state forward.”

(more…)

That’s the headline in this Wall Street Journal story today that, of course, mentions the GOP primary between Gov. Charlie Crist and former House Speaker Marco Rubio.

In Florida, Republican leaders were elated when popular Florida Gov. Charlie Crist agreed to run for the Senate. He has adopted policies such as an aggressive approach to global warming that appeal even to Democrats. Those very policies infuriated conservatives, as did Mr. Crist’s decision to campaign with President Barack Obama on behalf of the president’s $787 billion stimulus package.

“He was Judas to the Republican Party in the state of Florida and across the country,” says Robin Stublen, 53, of Punta Gorda, co-state coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots, a loose national coalition. “He sold us out for 13 pieces of gold.”

PALM BEACH GARDENS — After drawing big crowds to Tax Day protests, town hall meetings and a march on Washington, the Tea Party movement can’t rest on its laurels, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey told a lunchtime gathering of activists here.

Armey, chairman of the Washington-based FreedomWorks group that has helped coordinate Tea Party protests, said conservative activists must continue to fight against an expanded government role in health care and then prepare for a fight on a cap-and-trade environmental bill.

“We’ve got the bad guys on the run,” Armey told a crowd of about 150 that crammed the patio of the Yard House restaurant.

“We have given the massive great big government takeover of health care a TKO for the time being. But they’re not going to go away empty handed,” Armey said.

(more…)

Something’s going on when organizers of a health care forum on a summer weekday wonder if they’ll have enough room in the 500-seat South County Civic Center.

As members of Palm Beach County’s congressional delegation prepare to hear from constituents on health care reforms this week, click here to read how groups on the left and right are urging their activists to turn out and be heard on the issue.

Read details about the public forums.

Bring “hard questions” — and some non-perishable food.

That’s the advice from one group encouraging opponents of Democratic health care overhaul efforts to show up at a Coalition of Boynton West Residential Associations meeting next week where U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, is scheduled to speak.

But those hoping to grill Klein may be disappointed. COBWRA President Ken Lassiter says visitors and their non-perishable food donations are indeed welcome at his group’s meeting, but questions from non-COBWRA members won’t be allowed.

In the heated debate over health care reform, groups on the left and right are alerting their members to public appearances by members of Congress during the August recess. Some of the events are town hall gatherings focused on health care. Others, including Klein’s COBWRA appearance, turn out to be something else.

(more…)

Supporters and opponents of a Democratic health care overhaul bill and at least one member of Palm Beach County’s congressional delegation will converge next week for a public forum sponsored by a labor-backed retiree group.

U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, plans to attend the Aug. 20 event at 1 p.m. at the South County Civic Center west of Delray Beach. The event is sponsored by the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans, which is affiliated with the AFL-CIO and supports the Democratic bill.

Other local members of Congress were invited but it wasn’t immediately clear today whether any others would attend.

Opponents of the legislation plan to show up as well.

“We’ll be there with signs but, more importantly, we’ll be there with questions,” said Everett Wilkinson, the state coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots group.

(more…)

“Don’t let Commissioner Aaronson get away with being dismissive,” organizers of the South Florida Tea Party group are urging members after Palm Beach County Commissioner Burt Aaronson last month wondered why Tea Party supporters didn’t show up for a weekday commission meeting. The group is urging members to turn out for the June 16 commission meeting to send a message to Aaronson.

A huge crowd of Tea Party demonstrators descended on the county government headquarters on April 15 to protest massive federal spending and deficits. But Aaronson was unimpressed on May 19 when a lone member of the group spoke at a commission meeting on an issue.

“You said that many people have the same feeling as you do and they participated in the tea party, but they couldn’t get here today,” Aaronson told Suzanne Squire in a video clip the Tea Party group is circulating. “Well, they seem to have found a way to get to the tea party. Why couldn’t they get here today?”