Florida Gov’t Weekly Roundup: Drawing Lines And Writing Books In Tally

July 14, 2013

When most residents of the country thought about Florida this week, the first thing that came to their minds was likely not a Supreme Court case. Or the net worths of state officials. Or the pending book by former Gov. Charlie Crist.

Instead, their eyes were on state prosecutors’ case against George Zimmerman, who is charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, a black teenager, during a confrontation between the two in Sanford. Zimmerman says he was acting in self-defense.

http://www.northescambia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/floridaweeklly.jpgWith fears that racial tension could boil over if Zimmerman is acquitted by the jury, which began deliberations Friday, state officials were sure to stress that they were prepared for unrest.

“We’ve got great sheriffs, police chiefs, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, I’ve been in contact with them, they’re ready for whatever happens,” Scott said during a Thursday morning appearance on WPEC TV in West Palm Beach. “But hopefully the right thing happens here, and we’ll have a verdict that everybody understands.”

But elsewhere in the state, there were less intense but still weighty issues.

HOW BINDING IS ‘BINDING?’

It didn’t have the drama of the Zimmerman case, but there was still plenty of finger-pointing and a helping of angry words at the Florida Supreme Court in a case over redistricting. But this was over an arcane if significant legal principle — whether state legislative districts can be challenged in lower courts once the Supreme Court has signed off on them.

According to a 5-2 majority — the kind of majority that court-watchers have grown used to — the answer is yes, as long as those claims are based on the kind of evidence that justices don’t consider when they do constitutionally mandated reviews of the maps as part of the once-a-decade redistricting process.

The Florida Constitution says decisions from those Supreme Court reviews “shall be binding upon all the citizens of the state.” But writing for the majority, Justice Barbara Pariente said Thursday that didn’t apply to more fact-intensive lawsuits than the automatic reviews, especially now that the constitution also includes the anti-gerrymandering “Fair Districts” amendments.

“Simply put, the framers and voters clearly desired more judicial scrutiny of the legislative apportionment plan, not less,” Pariente wrote.

But in a pointed dissent, Justice Charles Canady wrote that the opinion would deaden the intent of the “binding” provision, known as section 16(d).

“With this decision, we confront the prospect of unending litigation concerning legislative redistricting — a prospect that section 16(d), by its plain terms, undeniably was designed to preclude,” he wrote.

A coalition of voting-rights organizations that are challenging the Senate map cheered the decision. Republican lawmakers were less enthusiastic — or “understandably disappointed,” in the words of a spokeswoman for Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville.

“The president stands by the maps as well as the Legislature’s redistricting process,” spokeswoman Katie Betta said in an email. “The 2012 redistricting process was the most open and transparent in Florida’s history and produced maps which are compliant with Florida’s constitution, facts which the president believes will ultimately be affirmed.”

THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE TV AD?

Republicans are also likely to be “understandably disappointed,” or perhaps downright livid, when they get a chance to read the pending memoir from former Gov. Charlie Crist. Crist and Dutton, a publisher, said the Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat would pen a book called “THE PARTY’S OVER: How the Extreme Right Hijacked the GOP and I Became a Democrat.”

The publicity for the book suggests it’s part revenge for Crist being pushed out of the Republican Party in 2010 and part manifesto as he gears up for a bid for his former job, this time as a Democrat.

“I’ll share my very strong feelings about what’s happened to the Republicans, how the party I grew up in has been hijacked by extremists, losing its compassion and common sense,” Crist said in a press release issued by Dutton. “I’ll describe exactly what I saw and what it made me realize.”

It will no doubt be required reading for observers of state politics, but Republican Party of Florida Chairman Lenny Curry was already laughing off the idea of a bestseller from the man his party used to promote.

“We didn’t know that Charlie Crist was launching a new career as a fiction writer,” Curry said in a statement. “But we do want to thank him for the hundreds of pages of rhetorical ammunition he will be giving to us and his primary opponents.”

HOW MUCH DO YOU MAKE? HOW MUCH DID YOU RAISE?

With disclosures of state officials’ public wealth now being posted online, and the fund-raising statements of candidates also being published this week, there was plenty of gossip to be had about money. One takeaway: Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam is doing rather well in both departments.

Putnam, whose wealth is tied to the family-owned Putnam Groves, led the three Cabinet officers with a net worth of $7.2 million, an increase from $6.49 million in 2011. His net worth had dipped from $6.8 million in 2010, when he was elected commissioner.

One thing he might not have to spend much of that money on is his re-election campaign. The Republican commissioner, often mentioned as a future candidate for governor, raked in $591,011 in contributions between April 1 and June 30, far more than other statewide candidates — and almost 60 percent of the $966,788 raised by the Florida Democratic Party over the same time frame.

“Big thanks to everyone who helped kick off my reelection (with) such momentum!” Putnam said in a message on Twitter. “Nearly 2000 donors have invested in our vision for Florida!”

Also doing well: Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Fort Walton Beach Republican gearing up to run for his father’s Senate seat, reported raising $252,360 for that 2016 contest.

Speaking of the elder Gaetz: The co-founder of VITAS Healthcare Corp. and former Okaloosa County schools superintendent is worth $26.2 million — tops among more than a third of senators who have publicly declared themselves to be millionaires. And with some forms not yet ready for public release, the group of millionaires could grow.

REMAKING THE GRADE

Current county school superintendents — who might not be worth as much as Gaetz — were more concerned with what Education Commissioner Tony Bennett will recommend to the State Board of Education next week in an effort to counter what the superintendents say could be an alarming drop in school grades on the state report card.

In a letter to the state board, Bennett recommended continuing a year-old policy that prevents schools from dropping by more than one letter grade on those report cards, though he preemptively pushed back on any suggestion that such a policy watered down the state’s accountability system.

“To be clear, my recommendations, outlined below, are made not to soften the blow of higher standards or to reduce the number of failing schools, but rather to advance the best policy for Florida’s students and position our state for a successful transition to full implementation of the CCSS (Common Core State Standards) in the 2014-2015 school year and beyond,” he wrote.

Bennett also recommended tweaking how students at so-called “ESE centers,” which teach students with disabilities, are accounted for.

Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee, said he saw the changes recommended by Bennett as a “good, reasonable response.” Montford, who also serves as the CEO of the Florida Association of District School Superintendents, took part in discussions between Bennett and the superintendents about the grades.

“Clearly, I think this is a fair approach to it,” Montford said.

STORY OF THE WEEK: The Florida Supreme Court ruled that a case challenging the Senate’s redistricting plan can go forward despite an earlier ruling by the court that there was nothing on the surface that indicated the map violated the anti-gerrymandering “Fair Districts” standards.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “It is reminiscent of divorce court, where the louder each one screams, the more interesting it becomes to the audience.”–Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida, on the war of words between Crist and the state GOP.

By The News Service of Florida

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Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News