Florida Gov’t Weekly Roundup: Sticking To Decaf

April 9, 2016

It was the espresso shot heard round the world.

http://www.northescambia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/floridaweeklly.jpgWhen Gov. Rick Scott went into a Gainesville coffee shop for a cup of joe, he instead found himself in a heated discussion with a fellow customer about abortion and jobs. The conflict between the governor and a former Lake Worth city commissioner became an Internet sensation, spawning cable TV segments, nationwide write-ups and even an attack ad from Scott aimed at his sparring opponent.

But amid the frothy coverage of the Starbucks showdown, the governor also spent part of the past week doing more than an engaging in a verbal beanbag fight. Scott signed a variety of bills, including a sweeping transportation measure, a funding plan for the Everglades and a retirement-system proposal that was a priority of Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando.

Elsewhere, significant developments bubbled up in court cases involving Medicaid and education. And a congressman who often seems to be caffeinated when he speaks about political adversaries faced a new round of stories about ties to a hedge fund that his primary opponent has used to hammer him.

SIGN OF THE TIMES

When the Legislature sent an alimony bill (SB 668) to Scott on Monday, it didn’t just mark the beginning of the clock for the governor to consider another politically sensitive issue. It also meant that Scott has received all 272 bills passed during the 2016 legislative session. The governor has already approved the vast majority of the measures and added more during the course of the week, but the bill-signing season is coming to a close.

Among the dozens of pieces of legislation Scott inked this week was a bill known as “Legacy Florida,” which opens a tap of cash to help restore the Everglades, the state’s natural springs and Lake Apopka.

The measure (HB 989), which was a priority of legislative leaders and had the support of conservationists, could annually set aside more than $250 million for restoration work. The money will come from funds that voters designated in 2014 to manage and preserve state lands and waters.

“I want to thank the Florida Legislature for fulfilling the promise I made to create a dedicated source of funding to restore the Florida Everglades,” Scott said in a prepared statement.

Conservationists considered the Legacy Florida measure their biggest accomplishment of the 2016 legislative session and hope that lawmakers will continue to carve out money from the voter-backed amendment for other priorities.

“I like the idea of earmarking. If we could just get a generous earmark for land conservation, then we will have finally achieved exactly what the voters wanted,” said Eric Draper, executive director of Audubon Florida. “But the voters certainly wanted the Everglades. That was in the first line of the amendment.”

In a victory for Gardiner, Scott also put his name on a bill (SB 7012) revamping the death benefits for first responders who are members of the Florida Retirement System. The bill would ensure that survivors of first responders killed in the line of duty who are members of the 401(k)-style investment plan get the same benefits as the survivors of employees enrolled in the state’s traditional pension plan.

It would also double those death benefits from half of the monthly salary of “special risk” class members like law-enforcement officers, firefighters and paramedics to the full amount. That change affects both investment-plan and pension-plan members.

“We do not want the spouses of Florida’s fallen heroes to struggle to meet the basic needs of their children,” Gardiner said in a prepared statement.

In another move, Scott approved a wide-ranging transportation bill (HB 7027) that drew attention for putting more money into the state’s 15 seaports. The measure boosts the minimum annual funding for the Florida Seaport Transportation and Economic Development program — administered by the Florida Ports Council — from $15 million to $25 million.

“I think what you’ll see is a continuation of investing in projects that address some of the critical growth needs that we’ve been dealing with over the last several years,” Florida Ports Council President and CEO Doug Wheeler said.

In a change that probably has less of an impact but got plenty of press anyway, Scott also signed a bill repealing the state’s nearly 150-year-old (and rarely enforced) ban on unmarried men and women living together.

While the prohibition hasn’t been used much in criminal proceedings, a House staff analysis during the session noted that it has had other consequences. For example, the analysis said the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation suspended a company’s liquor license in 1979 after finding that six people tied to the company were in violation of the law.

Floridians who wish to shack up and sell alcohol are now free to do so.

JUDICIAL REVIEW

Suing the state to change policies can take a long time. Just ask opponents of the Legislature’s redistricting plan, who waged a nearly four-year legal fight to overturn gerrymandered congressional and state Senate maps.

Or ask groups representing pediatricians and dentists, who this week settled with the state in a decade-long lawsuit about care provided to children in Florida’s Medicaid program.

The settlement, released Tuesday, came about 15 months after a federal judge found that Florida’s history of low reimbursement payments to doctors led to a lack of access to care for many poor children. But the agreement also came after the state argued that an overhaul of the Medicaid system had effectively made the case moot.

In the end, the settlement calls for steps aimed at increasing payments to doctors, improving dental care for children and trying to make sure children get enrolled in Medicaid and receive services with minimal disruption. The document said the settlement is the “product of lengthy negotiations and compromise.”

But Tallahassee pediatric cardiologist Louis St. Petery said the effects of the settlement could take time to work their way through the system.

“I don’t see any change in access tomorrow compared to today just because the settlement agreement is in place,” he said. “The settlement agreement meters this out over one year, two years, three years, depending on which category of physicians and dentists you’re talking about. That’s a very long time.”

Education advocates have also gone to court to try to get more resources from the state, in a case that wrapped up Friday with closing arguments. Leon County Circuit Judge George Reynolds heard the arguments in a lawsuit challenging whether the state has met its constitutional obligation to provide a “high quality” system of public schools.

“The state has failed to make adequate provision by not allowing significant numbers of students to obtain a high-quality education,” said Jodi Siegel, an attorney for Citizens for Strong Schools, the group that brought the challenge. “This is not an insignificant matter. There’s over 1 million students that cannot read at grade level. There are half-a-million free-and-reduced lunch students who cannot read at grade level.”

But Rocco Testani, an attorney for the Florida Board of Education, argued that the state’s schools have made a huge amount of improvement and pointed to indicators such as scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a set of tests commonly used to compare students across the country.

“What we know is that Florida has had a remarkable journey from a state that was below average, well below average, 15, 16, 17 years ago, to a state that is now truly a leader, truly a leader, when it comes to national comparisons,” Testani said.

A GRAYSON AREA?

Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson, who’s running for his party’s nomination for a U.S. Senate seat, has never been reserved in talking about his critics. And he wasted no time ripping into the Office of Congressional Ethics after the independent body said in a report Tuesday that his use of a hedge fund merits “further review.”

Grayson, a favorite of progressive groups, quickly denied any wrongdoing during a conference call with reporters in which he questioned the ethics of the committee’s staff and labeled the allegations first filed last summer as “politically motivated,” “a witch-hunt,” and “frivolous.”

“I think that nothing will happen between now and the election, and the most likely course of events is that after the election the complaint will be dismissed,” Grayson told reporters.

The House Ethics Committee, which released the report, has made no final decision regarding the allegations that Grayson used his position as a sitting member of Congress to solicit investments into the fund, which would violate federal law and House rules.

The Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent body, found in its report that there is “substantial reason to believe” several allegations, including that Grayson permitted the use of his name by four entities linked to his hedge fund and Grayson Consulting, Inc. of Virginia; that he omitted required information from his annual financial disclosure statements; and that a Grayson congressional staffer used official resources while working for Grayson’s hedge fund.

The campaign of Grayson’s opponent, Democratic Congressman Patrick Murphy, who has received White House support in his run for the Senate, called the report “damning,” and held a conference call with reporters the day after the report’s release to continue whaling away.

Grayson said the “fishing expedition” further illustrates the Washington political establishment’s support for Murphy.

“Patrick Murphy and his D.C. establishment allies are using (this) new political witch-hunt to try to distract our Florida voters from what they really care about,” Grayson told reporters.

STORY OF THE WEEK: Gov. Rick Scott signs several key pieces of legislation as he nears the end of his work on approving or nixing measures passed by the House and Senate during this year’s legislative session.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “And if we get him onto the floor at the convention, and he loses the first ballot, then it becomes a slaughterhouse. And I’ve got my cleaver and apron handy.”—Republican political consultant Rick Wilson, a critic of Donald Trump, on the potential of defeating the businessman’s bid for the presidency at this summer’s Republican National Convention.

by The News Service of Florida

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Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News