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Florida Weekly Government Roundup: Scott Signs Bills, Opponents Hire Lawyers

Gov. Rick Scott spent the week signing major pieces of legislation into law, a not-so surprising list dealing with growth management, gun rights and health care that had been priorities for the governor and the Republican-led Legislature.

But while Scott’s Sharpie was flying, groups affected by many of those bills began the march to the courthouse doors, an equally expected development that will likely be repeated in the weeks ahead on such issues as elections, abortion, and what physicians and their patients can talk about during visit.

Meanwhile, the 2012 elections came into closer focus this week as one GOP contender got booted off a conservative talk radio show while his two opponents piled on as part of their own attempts to curry favor with the conservative wing of the Republican Party, the support of which is critical to their aspirations to unseat Democrat U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson 18 months from now.

BILL SIGNINGS

Following his previous week’s budget signing, Scott spent the week signing other Republican priorities into law.

Scott penned his name to a pair of bills that backers hope will change the way Florida’s $20 billion Medicaid program is run. Tucked within a couple dozen bills, Scott signed the measures (HB 7107 and HB 7109) that attempt to funnel most of the state’s 2.7 million Medicaid recipients into managed care programs.

The state must now convince the federal government, which picks up most of the Medicaid tab, to let it make the change from the traditional fee-for-service model that has defined the health safety net since its inception.

Scott also affixed his signature to a sweeping change in growth management law, reversing a quarter century of policy in shifting responsibility for growth decisions back to the locals. When that was the case a couple decades ago, lawmakers found little ability to regulate growth with a regional viewpoint. With the new law, the pendulum goes back the other way, with Republicans having said that state management of growth simply slowed growth and prevented job creation.

In a nod to gun owners, Scott also approved a pair of bills pushed by the National Rifle Association, which flexed its political muscle throughout the 60-day session.

One measure (HB 45) prevents local governments from enacting stricter gun ordinances than state law provides. The bill passed with minimal opposition. The other (HB 155) bill prevents doctors in certain situations from asking patients if they own guns or have them in their homes.

The original bill imposed stiff penalties and provided few exceptions for health practitioners who might want to include gun safety questions in a battery of queries like whether a pool is fenced in or are there pesticides within a child’s reach.

With comfort language inserted to allow most health practitioners to get around the “Don’t Ask” provision, the Florida Medical Association dropped its opposition to the bill, a decision that provided political cover for many lawmakers caught between two powerful constituencies.

Mixing health care and law enforcement, Scott did a little whistle stop tour Friday as he signed, –and signed again and signed again — a measure (HB 7095) to clamp down on pain management clinics that distribute legally obtainable prescription drugs to “patients” for handsome profits under the nose of law enforcers who can do little to stop the often deadly transactions.

The so called “pill-mill” bill makes a number of changes to state law to stem the tide of pain clinics, which legally distribute controlled substances that critics say are raising more havoc than those illegal drugs purchased from old-school drug dealers who work on a street corner. The law requires tracking of the wholesale distribution of certain controlled substances, bans doctors from dispensing controlled drugs like oxycodone and provides money to prosecute.

“This legislation will save lives in our state, and it marks the beginning of the end of Florida’s infamous role as the nation’s pill mill capital,” Scott said while making stops in Tampa, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale.”

Apparently, Scott had drugs on his mind. Earlier in the week, he signed legislation (HB 353) requiring recipients of temporary cash assistance to pass a drug test before being allowed to collect benefits from the federal program that replaced traditional welfare in the 1990s.

The bill requires applicants to pay for the drug tests, the cost of which will be reimbursed if they pass.

Recipients who fail must foot the bill for the test and forgo economic assistance for at least a year. Florida becomes the first state in the nation to require such tests of all recipients.

LAWSUITS BEGIN FLOWING IN:
While Scott was busy signing bills into law, others were equally occupied with attempts to undo things that have already been done.

On Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union said it was asking a court to delay enforcement of a bill signed into law in May that makes it harder for voters to cast ballots in the much anticipated 2012 presidential election as an effort to reduce fraud. Opponents called the bill
a “trifecta of voter suppression.”

The bill (1355) reduces the number of earlier voting days and makes it more difficult to cast provisional ballots, changes Democrats say are thinly veiled attempts to discourage the types of efforts that helped President Barack Obama win in 2008. The bill also places tougher restrictions on voter registration groups, a move that promoted the League of Women Voters to say it would cancel registration efforts in the state.

“This new massive law has nothing to do with improving elections and everything to do with who will get to vote in 2012 and we’re ready to have that conversation with the Department of Justice,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida.

Earlier in the week the ACLU also filed suit over an executive order signed earlier this year by Scott that requires public employees to be drug tested.

Meanwhile, Travelocity.com, Orbitz, and Priceline.com filed lawsuits this week challenging hotel bed taxes sought by Broward County. The lawsuits, filed Tuesday in Tallahassee, argue that Broward County acted unconstitutionally earlier this year when it told the companies and subsidiaries that they owed a total of $484,000 in tourist-development taxes, interest and penalties.

2012 ELECTIONS IN THE CROSS HAIRS.
With the 2012 elections coming into planner view, Republican candidates continued their courting of the conservative wing of the party, a segment of the GOP electorate that plays an especially important role in the primary. In some cases the date didn’t go so well.

Taking a page out of Rick Scott’s playbook, Senate President and U.S. Senate hopeful Mike Haridopolos went on conservative talk radio to score some points with voters but instead sidestepped his way into a corner during an interview.

Haridopolos was unwilling to give a yes-no answer on whether he supports a federal budget proposal by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R- Wis., that includes a dramatic restructuring of Medicare, a national issue that has many Republicans running for political cover. Haridopolos got booted off the show by talk show host Ray Junior whose repeated queries were re-directed by Haridopolos to the successes of the 2011 state legislative session. Finally Junior had enough.

“OK, get him off my phone, get rid of him,” Junior said before hanging up.

STORY OF THE WEEK: Several major pieces of the Legislature’s work were signed into law – including a couple of the most potentially far reaching bills passed in recent years. One returns management of growth decisions to local government, another overhauls the Medicaid system, essentially shifting nearly all Medicaid patients into private managed care plans. Gov. Scott also signed a bill cracking down on pain clinics that enable addicts, and a new requirement for drug testing for public assistance recipients.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “How could you possibly not have all that information? You’re running for Senate.” Conservative radio talk show host Ray Junior before hanging up on Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Mike Haridopolos who said he needed more information before deciding whether he would have supported a controversial and highly publicized GOP backed budget measure.

By Micheal Peltier
The News Service of Florida