National Council of La Raza launches drive to register South Florida Hispanic voters

The National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic-rights and advocacy organization, launched a campaign Thursday to register South Florida Hispanic voters who are eligible to vote but not yet registered.

The effort is part of a broader, national move by the organization to get (coveted, swing) Hispanic voters to sign up before Election Day. In Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties alone, the group estimates that some 133,000 Hispanics are eligible to vote but have not yet registered.

As part of its Mobilize to Vote campaign, La Raza hopes to register 80,000 new Hispanic voters in Florida. Read the organization's announcement after the jump.

Watchdog group: House leaders should ask Miami Rep. David Rivera to resign

A Washington government watchdog group is urging U.S. House leaders to ask for Rep. David Rivera to step down, following the end of a state investigation into Rivera's personal and campaign finances.

Though the probe concluded this week without any criminal charges filed against Rivera, a Miami Republican, the nonpartisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, noted that prosecutors cited ambiguities in state law and the statute of limitations as reasons why they could not charge the first-term congressman.

"Reports from the Florida State Attorney and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) make clear that the only things bigger than David Rivera's acts of corruption are the loopholes in Florida law that let him get away with it," CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan said in a strongly worded statement.  "House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor pledged zero tolerance for ethics violations. This is their chance to prove it. By no measure should David Rivera be a member of the House of Representatives."

Rivera has had tough words himself for prosecutors, calling the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office investigation closeout memo "outrageous and libelous." He has also suggested he may pursue legal action against the state attorney's office.

Read CREW's full press release after the jump.

No nod from Rubio in GOP Senate primary

Lackluster fundraising, concerns about the viability of the frontrunners and the possibility of a new Republican candidate in the U.S. Senate race have made news this week. Sen. Marco Rubio, who had his own high-profile GOP primary in 2010, weighed in on the tumult among Florida Republicans who hope to defeat incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. 

"I have a tremendous working relationship with Sen. Nelson, so I won't say anything negative about Sen. Nelson," Rubio said. "As far as the Republican primary is concerned, I think we have good candidates."

"My understanding is that the chief financial officer of the state, Jeff Atwater, may be interested in running in the race. He'd be a good candidate as well. I think Florida Republicans will nominate a good  candiadte. I want us to be in the majority. I'm not that concerned about the primary."

Joe Biden Everglades bound

Vice President Joe Biden will visit Everglades National Park on Monday to talk about the Obama administration's Everglades restoration efforts, the White House announced Thursday. 

Details to come.

Gov. Scott names 17-member task force to review Stand Your Ground law

Gov. Rick Scott named 17 members of the state’s new Task Force on Citizen Safety and Protection, announcing that the group will begin looking at Florida’s controversial Stand Your Ground law in two weeks. The first meeting will be May 1.

The group includes four lawmakers—including the representative that sponsored Stand Your Ground in 2005 and one who says he helped write it—and several legal and law enforcement professionals.

“We have tapped a diverse and qualified group to carefully review our laws and our policies,” said Scott, standing next to Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, who will chair the task force.

In addition to Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, who sponsored the law, Sen. David Simmons, R-Maitland, Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando and Rep. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, will serve on the task force.

Rubio: I meant NFL commissioner, not VP

Marco Rubio's Vice Presidential Aspirations Slip from National Journal on FORA.tv 

Firmly positioning himself as more moderate on immigration than many of his Republican counterparts, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., continued Tuesday to sketch a broad outline of his own ideas on reform.

Rubio, whose proposal is aimed at keeping young people in the U.S. if they came to this country illegally as children, has been talking about the idea for weeks, partly to counter the GOP's reputation for tough rhetoric on immigration.

He also said he'd be a envoy to Hispanics this election season for Republicans -- but if asked, would turn down a vice-presidential spot.

But Rubio, speaking at a National Journal event about demographics, clearly had the vice-presidency on his mind.

"If in four to five years, if I do a good job as vice president—I'm sorry, as senator—I'll have the chance to do all sorts of things," he said.

He recovered handily, telling the crowd that those "all sorts of things" include the one job he says has all the power: NFL commissioner.

Florida didn't save money by drug testing welfare recipients, data show

Required drug tests for people seeking welfare benefits ended up costing taxpayers more than it saved and failed to curb the number of prospective applicants, data used against the state in an ongoing legal battle shows.

The findings — that only 108 of the 4,086 people who took a drug test failed — are additional ammunition for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, which sued the state and won a temporary ban on the drug-testing program in October, said ACLU spokesman Derek Newton.

Attorneys for the state immediately appealed the ban, and will face off against the ACLU again at the 11th Circuit Court in Atlanta and the U.S. District Court in Orlando in coming months.

The costs and benefits of the law — and the outcome of the court case — could reverberate nationwide. This week, Georgia passed its own drug welfare law.