Florida Weekend Recap – April 3

Florida Weekend Recap – April 3

A recap of this week’s best political and policy happenings; Historic City News brings you what you missed this week in Florida policy and politics.

Week in Review for March 30 – April 3, 2015

BUSINESS & INDUSTRY
A House panel approved a bill to fix the inadvertent illegalization of some arcade games that resulted from last year’s attempts to crack down on internet cafes hosting that acted as online gambling parlors, but detractors said the new bill could cause new problems by accidently making bingo illegal. ● Indian River County sued to stop All Aboard Florida, which hopes to build a passenger rail service that will eventually run 32 trains a day from Miami to Orlando, from gaining approval to issue $1.75 billion in tax exempt bonds. ● An influential Senator has indicated support for an extension of the Seminole Tribe’s monopoly on banked card games, despite a sweeping gambling proposal by Rep. Dana Young working its way through the House that could allow destination casinos in the state. ● Disputes about the state’s alcohol regulations are still brewing, but 64 ounce growlers came once step closer to legalization after a Senate committee sent a bill by Sen. Jack Latvala to the chamber floor.

ECONOMY
Sen. Nancy Detert’s film incentive bill got the nod from a Senate committee Thursday, but not before the Sarasota Republican ripped into a representative for Americans for Prosperity, an organization that has papered her district with mailers that accused of her of giving money to “Hollywood moguls.” AFP, who Detert said was funded by the Koch Brothers, later fired back at Detert, saying that she wanted to “change the organization’s First Amendment rights to donor privacy.” ● Small and mid-sized businesses were optimistic about the future of the state’s economy, according to a new survey by PNC Financial Services Group, but despite 70 percent of business owners saying they were more optimistic over the past six months, only 10 percent of surveyed owners said they were planned to hire new employees. ● The House Finance and Tax Committee officially adopted its $690 million #NoTaxIsSafe tax cut budget.

EDUCATION
Responding to the ongoing backlash about Florida’s standardized testing, the Florida Senate passed a sweeping bill that would place limits on the use of tests in the state’s public schools. The vote followed two days of debate during which some leading Republican senators said that the state had gone too far with a series of changes that were first initiated by former Gov. Jeb Bush. “We’ve made some mistakes and we were bold,” said Sen. Alan Hays. “I feel like now our obligation is to honestly admit our mistakes, apologize for them and correct them.” ● Students would have more freedom to choose public schools, both within their school districts and across district lines, under SB 1552. That proposal was revamped by a Senate panel to let districts decide which of their schools have room to accept new students, an effort to address some of the logistical issues they have raised. ● The House and Senate are debating the value of promoting civic duty among students headed for college. The Senate proposal (SB 960) would allow students to complete the volunteer component of the Bright Futures Scholarship by working for political candidates. The House plan (HB 747) rejects that idea.

ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
A House measure meant to clamp down on the Public Service Commission’s power in favor of consumers passed its first committee. Rep. Mike La Rosa is sponsoring the proposal (HB 7109) that he says is a “consumer friendly bill,” but advocates like the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy’s Susan Glickman say “this bill doesn’t go nearly far enough.” ● Two measures that would put hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” in the state’s existing regulatory framework and shield proprietary chemicals used in such processes passed their first committee. The legislation is opposed by environmental activists and Democrats who say the state should be banning the energy extraction process altogether, not regulate it. ● The Senate approved an amendment to its budget steering $35 million more to Florida Forever. The move was welcomed by environmentalists, but didn’t bring the grand total for land-buying anywhere close to the $170 million asked for by conservationists. ● Acting outraged: more than 50 actors from a Broward County acting group were paid $75 to protest buying land south of Lake Okeechobee. Environmentalists say the land is needed to send discharged water from the lake south to alleviate pressure on eastern and western estuaries.

HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES
Rep. Richard Corcoran asked legislators to “go to war” against special interests he said were muddling talks over Medicaid expansion in Florida. Corcoran staked out the House’s position that there would absolutely be no expansion and chided the Senate for including such an expansion in its budget. “We’re not dancing this session, we’re not dancing next session, we’re not dancing this summer,” said Corcoran, the House’s top budget writer. ● The Senate is also fending off attacks from other conservative groups like Americans for Prosperity, who’ve launched a campaign of ads and mailers shaming Senate President Andy Gardiner for supporting the private-sector alternative to Medicaid expansion. But the embattled Senate president has reinforcements in the form of a TV ad released by A Healthy Florida Works, the business group behind the Senate’s private expansion plan. The video advertisement thanks Gardiner for his “courage during crisis” and calls on Floridians to support the upper chamber’s plan. ● A bill (HB 633) instituting a 24-hour waiting period for abortions, sponsored by Rep. Jennifer Sullivan was passed by its final committee and now heads to the House floor. Sen. Anitere Flores, R-Miami, is carrying the Senate’s version — SB 724, which as two more committee stops.

LAW & ORDER
Two gun bills that have drawn significant amounts of controversy passed the House Judiciary Committee Thursday. One of them, to allow concealed carry permit holders to take their guns on college campuses, has drawn criticism from universities and campus police departments. The second, to allow superintendents to designate individuals with certain qualifications, is in trouble after the Senate version of the proposal was not heard in a Senate education committee. ● An omnibus prison reform bill was approved by the Senate, but its faces an uphill battle in the House, which has proposed a much more limited version of the bill. ● The Legislature made its first move toward strengthening Florida’s texting while driving ban after a Senate committee approved two bills that made distracted driving a primary offense. ● A bill to make Florida’s unenforceable sexting law…well…enforceable cleared its first committee in the Senate.

POLITICS
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio is expected to announce his 2016 presidential run April 13. His decision has resulted in a cacophony of news about elected officials potentially switching jobs. At the state level, Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera is looking at Rubio’s seat. ● The battle for the Senate presidency between Sen. Jack Latvala and Sen. Joe Negron is apparently far from over. Senate Majority Leader Bill Galvano said that based on Senate tradition, it would be premature to hold a caucus now to designate Senate President Andy Gardiner’s successor. “I have not made that decision yet,” Galvano said. “If we were to call a caucus, it would be something that I would discuss with the president (Gardiner). Traditionally, the way it works in the Senate, caucuses for the succeeding term for Senate president take place in December.” ● The Florida Senate voted to block Attorney General Pam Bondi from challenging President Obama’s executive action on immigration through an amendment to the annual budget. The vote took place during lunch when several members weren’t in the room. A few minutes later the chamber changed its mind and voted the amendment down.

PUBLIC SECTOR
Fifteen bills dealing with different aspects of public records law were discussed and voted on by various committees and the two chambers this week, including one bill that shields the private information of military service members from the public because of terrorism fears. HB 185, sponsored by Rep. Matt Gaetz would allow active and former military members to tell government agencies to keep private personal information that would otherwise be public record. The bill originally applied only to members of special operations units, but Gaetz said he expanded the language because the Islamic State group posted a “kill list” with names and addresses of 100 soldiers. ● Two different public records lawsuits continued to wind their way through the legal system, as the Florida Cabinet voted to hire law firm Shutts & Bowen to represent it in a lawsuit over the firing of former Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Gerald Bailey. In August, the law firm hired Daniel Nordby, the former general counsel to the Florida House. The second suit deals with a Florida law allowing politicians to use blind trusts to shield their assets. Jim Apthorp, plaintiff in the case alleging that law is unconstitutional, asked the Florida Supreme Court to review a decision by a lower court upholding that law.