Florida Gov’t Weekly Roundup: Legislature Gets Moving As Session Approaches

February 22, 2015

After weeks of slogging through introductions, presentations and briefings on the mechanisms of government — the legislative equivalent of “what I did over summer break” reports — lawmakers are following Gov. Rick Scott’s old campaign slogan and getting to work.

Not all the committees have been cooling their heels and hearing about the finer points of funding formulas and organizational charts, of course. But policy discussions that were moving along slowly before this week began taking shape as legislation, and some of that legislation is starting to head toward the House and Senate floors.

http://www.northescambia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/floridaweeklly.jpgElsewhere, though, things were slowing down. The Joint Legislative Budget Commission slammed the brakes on subsidies for sports stadiums, something that could have as much to do with bargaining chips as with populist rage over billionaire team owners getting state help for construction or renovation projects. And the battle over whether to split the College of Engineering shared by Florida A&M University and Florida State University ended with an agreement to move forward together.

Meanwhile, the discussion of what to do about the widespread agreement that Florida students are over-tested finally got started in earnest. At least one state exam is already on the chopping block, and more changes could be on the way. The specifics will have to wait until the legislative session gets underway March 3 — when all the planning of the last week is likely to be overturned in the 60-day whirlwind that follows.

GUNS AND PRISONS

Perhaps the most controversial bill to be heard this week won’t be found on the priority lists of the House speaker, the Senate president or Scott. But it’s on a priority list of a group that might even hold more sway: gun-rights supporters.

The Senate Criminal Justice voted 3-2, on party lines, to allow people with concealed-firearms licenses to carry guns at state colleges and universities. Meanwhile, people without concealed-firearms licenses could carry weapons during emergency evacuation orders, under a separate measure backed by the committee.

But the guns-on-campus bill (SB 176), which would lift a longstanding ban on carrying concealed weapons on campuses, has drawn most of the heat this year.

Committee Chairman Greg Evers, R-Baker, the sponsor of the proposal, displayed a map of sexual offenders living near the Florida State University campus as he called the bill a safety issue.

“The problem is that in gun-free zones, that we have on college campuses right now, those gun-free zones are just an incubator for folks that won’t follow the law,” Evers said.

But Sen. Audrey Gibson, D-Jacksonville, argued that the proposal would allow “mini-militias” to form on the state’s campuses.

“I believe it sends the wrong message to not only our students within the state of Florida, but people who may intend to come to Florida for college,” Gibson said. “It certainly sends the wrong message to their parents.”

While gun-rights groups like to tout their support for law-abiding citizens, the Senate committee is also dealing with how to ensure the safety of Floridians who run afoul of law enforcement. It gave a preliminary nod this week to a corrections overhaul that would make it easier for inmates to file complaints, create new penalties for rogue guards who abuse prisoners and establish a governor-appointed commission to oversee prisons and investigate wrongdoing.

The proposal (SPB 7020), sponsored by Evers, would also allow inmates’ families or lawyers to pay for independent medical evaluations and would expand opportunities for old or sick inmates to get out of prison early.

And the measure would require each prison to track use-of-force incidents and the Department of Corrections to post an annual report documenting those incidents on its website.

Department of Corrections Secretary Julie Jones called the measure, which still has several committee stops before heading to the floor and so far lacks a House companion, a “work in progress” but said she is “cautiously optimistic.”

“Sen. Evers has taken a bold approach to trying to fix the problems that he sees,” Jones said after appearing before the panel on Monday.

The embattled corrections agency is grappling with state probes of questionable inmate deaths, lawsuits from investigators who claim they were retaliated against after exposing a cover-up of the death of an inmate who died at a Panhandle prison and complaints about dangerously low staffing levels at dozens of state-run facilities.

$TADIUM $UB$IDIE$

Last year, lawmakers hoped to create a process that would help them evaluate sports stadium proposals and decide which, if any, might warrant support from sales-tax dollars. The hope was that the process would prevent a gusher of lobbying aimed at putting the projects with the most friends or best advocates at the top of the list.

To borrow a racing term: Gentlemen, start your engines.

The Joint Legislative Budget Commission, comprised of seven senators and seven representatives, agreed this week to move any funding decisions regarding the stadiums — Daytona International Speedway, the Miami Dolphins’ home of Sun Life Stadium, EverBank Field in Jacksonville and a soccer stadium in Orlando — to the regular legislative session.

“I think it’s important that 160 people make decisions of this magnitude, not 14,” said House Appropriations Chairman Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’ Lakes.

The joint commission, which is primarily set up to deal with mid-year budget issues, requires a majority of votes from each chamber’s delegation for a measure to be approved. Corcoran and at least two other House members on the commission were ready to oppose the stadium-funding requests.

Lawmakers last year created a review process to try to reduce the lobbying for stadium-funding proposals. But lobbying efforts increased after the state Department of Economic Opportunity last month forwarded the four applications to the Legislature without providing expected rankings.

Lawmakers have been openly critical about not receiving rankings from the agency and had their own economists later rank the projects.

“When you add up the amount that is being invested (in the projects) in Jacksonville, in Daytona, in Orlando and in Miami you’re talking $1 billion,” said Ron Book, a lobbyist for Sun Life Stadium. “That’s what sports economic development is about. It’s about bringing Super Bowls. It’s about Major League Baseball games, soccer all-star games. It’s about bringing concerts, it’s about bringing full entertainment opportunities to the people of Florida that bring sales-tax revenue in, not only on what is being built on the facilities, but what comes afterwards.”

The commission’s decision disappointed the conservative-advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, which calls stadium funding “corporate welfare.”

“We expected the LBC to take a real stand on this issue,” Chris Hudson, Americans for Prosperity’s Florida director, said in a prepared statement. “Unfortunately the members decided to punt the issue downfield and we will have to wait and see when and how it will come back up throughout session.”

TESTING THE WATERS FOR TEST REFORM

The major action on student testing this week was supposed to take place in the Senate Education Pre-K-12 Committee, where lawmakers on the panel were set to hold a mid-week workshop on legislative solutions to the problem of over-testing.

But almost as soon as committee members had settled in their chairs Wednesday, Scott’s office announced the results of Education Commissioner Pam Stewart’s review of state assessments. Those results could lead to at least one exam getting scuttled and a review of whether more should follow.

Stewart recommended that the state get rid of a language-arts test students take in 11th grade. An exam in the 10th grade is used to determine whether students have met the state’s graduation requirement in language arts, and many educators say the later test is unnecessary.

Stewart recommended that Scott issue an executive order to suspend the test in the current school year, with lawmakers later approving legislation to permanently scrap the assessment.

The report also recommended making optional a college readiness test that some students are required to take and eliminating final exams in courses that have state-mandated tests at the end of the year. Stewart also urged local school districts to do what they can to lower the amount of time students spend on tests.

“I am recommending that we eliminate as much testing as we can,” Stewart told reporters after brief remarks before the Senate Education Pre-K-12 Committee.

But Committee Chairman John Legg, R-Lutz, would not commit Wednesday to getting rid of the 11th grade test in language arts.

“It’s one of the items on the table,” Legg said. “We are reviewing that. … It’s one of those options that we are seriously looking at.”

Other issues still loom. Education groups largely agree that the state should hold off on assigning school grades and making decisions about whether students should be promoted from the third grade or allowed to graduate based on new tests the state is introducing this year. A similar test has caused a backlash in Utah, though Legg said he still has confidence in the exam.

Lawmakers have already ensured that schools won’t face consequences from this year’s results under the state accountability system. But supporters of pushing back some of the other ways the results are used say that’s not enough.

Later in the week, one of the big education controversies of last year’s session finally drew to a close. Following an agreement between Florida State University and Florida A&M University, the state Board of Governors on Thursday approved a new structure for the Tallahassee schools’ joint College of Engineering and seemingly put to rest a months-long battle over the future of the program.

Under the plan, a 12-member board comprised of high-ranking officials and students from both schools would be created to oversee the college, though three of the members — including the two student members — would not have votes. The Board of Governors, which oversees the university system, is also requesting that the Legislature fund the College of Engineering separately, instead of doing so through FSU and FAMU, and a plan to upgrade the schools facilities will be developed.

STORY OF THE WEEK: The Joint Legislative Budget Commission deferred action on a much-watched set of proposals to subsidize sports-stadium construction and renovation projects.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “The plain truth is that campuses are not safe. They are gun-free zones where murderers, rapists, terrorists, crazies may commit crime without fear of being harmed by their victims.”—National Rifle Association lobbyist Marion Hammer, on a bill that would allow Floridians with concealed-firearms licenses to carry guns at state colleges and universities.

by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida

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Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News