Poll: Florida voters not happy with Tallahassee, give gov and Legislature low marks

Maybe it's the out-of-sight, out-of-mind placement of the state Capitol. Maybe it's the sluggish economy and the stubborn unemployment numbers. Whatever the reason, the latest Quinnipiac University poll sends the signal that Florida voters are not happy with Tallahassee these days -- not that they really ever are.

When asked how voters feel about the job the state Legislature is doing, voters disapprove 49 to 32 percent. The numbers are predictably partisan for the Republican-led chamber: Democrats disapprove of the job lawmakers are doing 64 to 18 percent while Republicans approve 47 to 34 percent. But the telltale signal comes from crucial independent voters, who determine the fate of all statewide races in Florida. They disapprove of the job legislators are doing 48 to 33 percent.

On controversial issues, Florida voters are pretty clear where they stand:

    *They support expanding Medicaid to cover Floridians without health insurance by 49-40 percent, virtually unchanged from a similar March poll, a clear contradiction from the firm rejection of the issue by Republican legislative leaders.

    * Voters continue to support the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law, allowing people to fight back with deadly force when threatened, 57 to 36 percent. The issue remained untouched in the last legislative session.

    * Voters want to allow path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants 58 to 24 percent, a federal issue that Florida lawmakers can only tinker with.

    * And they oppose the governor’s veto of a non-controversial bill to make it easier for children of undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses, supporting the issue 59-32 percent. The governor surprised legislators by vetoing the bill which won near unanimous support. 

As for Gov. Rick Scott, voters are warming to the Republican governor but are still not thrilled: 43 percent approve of the job the governor is doing and 44 percent disapprove. That's up from a March Quinnipiac poll when 36 percent of voters approved of Scott's performance and 49 percent disapproved.

 

Amazon giveaways popular, even if company doesn't need them

When Amazon expands, like it wants to in Florida, state and local governments practically line up to offer to pay the company to move.

Virginia officials approved $4.4 million in taxpayer subsidies so Amazon could build two warehouses in the state. California reached a deal where the online company was free from sales taxes for a year, saving about $200 million. Texas officials forgave $269 million in back sales taxes to get a new warehouse. New Jersey officials put up millions more in breaks.

All the deals were cut in the past three years. All for a company that had $61.1 billion in sales last year.

On Wednesday Hillsborough County commissioners will consider a package that could include up to $7.5 million in local and state tax breaks for Amazon to build a new warehouse in Ruskin for 1,000 employees. Hillsborough's offer was disclosed last week, shortly after Gov. Rick Scott announced that Amazon wants to create 3,000 jobs in the state by 2016.

Yet enticements are so small in relation to Amazon's multibillion-dollar business that analysts don't even bother studying their affect on expansion.

"They are a spec on the radar," said Matt Nemer, a retail analyst for Wells Fargo Securities in San Francisco. "They're just not big enough to make a difference."

Here's the rationale for why Amazon gets the incentives, at considerable public expense, anyway.

Scott signs bill to streamline death penalty review, allowing him to execute at record pace

Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill into law Friday aimed at accelerating the pace of the death penalty process in Florida that could make the governor the most active executioner in modern state history.

The measure, dubbed “the Timely Justice Act” by its proponents, requires governors to sign death warrants 30 days after the Florida Supreme Court certifies that an inmate has exhausted his legal appeals. Once a death warrant is signed, the new law requires the state to execute the defendant within six months.

The bill, which passed the House 84-34 and was approved by the Senate 28-10, allows the governor to control the execution schedule slightly because it requires him to sign a death warrant after the required clemency review is completed and only the governor may order the clemency investigation. Scott’s office told lawmakers that because at least 13 of the 404 inmates on Death Row have exhausted their appeals, his office has already started the clock on the clemency review.

If Scott were to sign death warrants for the 13 eligible inmates, and their executions were to continue as planned, he will be on schedule to put to death 21 murderers since he took office in January 2011. The only other recent governor who executed that many people was former Gov. Jeb Bush, who ordered the execution of 21 convicted killers but did it over an eight-year period.

The only governor to commute a death sentence since the state passed its current capital punishment law in 1973 was former Gov. Bob Graham who reduced the sentences of seven men between 1979 and 1983 for various reasons, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Story here.

 

Scott's veto of mental health bill

Gov. Rick Scott's veto of a mental health bill this week not only surprised the Florida Legislature, which passed it unanimously, it contradicted the efforts of his own agency, the Department of Children and Families.

The bill, which would have shortened from five years to three years the time frame in which a judge would have to decide whether a person was mentally competent to stand trial, among other provisions, was rejected by Scott because reducing the time frame “could pose a serious public safety risk.”

What the veto letter didn't say was that Scott had been urged to veto the bill (SB 1420) by a lobbyist for the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association,  Buddy Jacobs, who argued that an amendment to the measure made it unacceptable to prosecutors because of the reduced time frame.

Now that the bill (SB 1420) has been vetoed, DCF’s spokesman Alexis Lambert said the department was "concurring with the governor” that shortening the time frame “could pose a public safety risk.” She wouldn’t comment on the lack of DCF opposition to the bill during the legislative process and assertions by the bill’s sponsors and a Broward County Judge that the department was involved “since its inception.”

Norquist touts taxless income in tweet to Tallahassee

Washington anti-tax lobbyist Grover Norquist has gained fame for holding conservative elected officials to a no-new-taxes pledge. He's so powerful that his stamp of approval is a coup for any conservative wanting to prove himself to a wider national audience.

So on Friday afternoon, it was paydirt for Florida House Republicans when, seemingly unprompted, Norquist touted Florida's low taxes in a tweet to his 49,694 followers.

"How much bigger would your paycheck be if you lived and paid taxes in Florida?" Norquist tweeted Friday, including a link to a graphic. It showed the income taxes those earning $40,000 would pay in states with Democratic-controlled Legislatures (New York, California, Illinois) vs. the zero dollars someone living in "Republican controlled" Florida pays for income taxes.

"Any questions?" the graphic says at the bottom. "Brought to you by the Florida House Republicans."

One month after session, still little hope of Medicaid deal

Two House Republicans unwittingly revived hopes this month that lawmakers could compromise on a proposal to expand Medicaid.

"Lawmakers say Medicaid expansion not dead," read the headline in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, highlighting comments from Manatee County Reps. Greg Steube and Jim Boyd.

But the reality is no different today than it was when the legislative session ended:

Medicaid expansion, or some alternative, remains a long shot.

"All I was simply trying to say was, we all agree it's an important issue," Boyd told the Times/Herald  about his remarks at a June 6 luncheon. "We thought we had a pretty good plan."

Read more here.

Five candidates get free pass for mistakes in disclosing finances

The Florida Commission on Ethics issued separate orders Wednesday finding that five current and former state lawmakers -- including former State Senator Ronda Storms -- filed incomplete financial disclosures last year.

But because the candidates filed amended disclosure forms that investigators determined were complete, the Commission decided to take no further action.

Storms, a former Hillsborough County Commissioner who served in the state senate from 2006 to 2012, was flagged when she filed a disclosure form on her 2011 income when she ran for Hillsborough County Property Appraiser last year.

Eugene Benson, an 82-year-old Vero Beach resident, filed that complaint against Storms, alleging four violations: 18 cents she reported as income was “contrived”, that she didn’t list all the properties she owned, she didn’t specifically describe her assets, and she didn’t list secondary income derived from a landscaping business.

Investigators found only that Storms didn’t specify her assets. She affixed a value of  $10,248 to “cash checking savings” and a value of $18,840 to “prepaid college.”

Storms told investigators that she should have described the savings as deposited with Suncoast Schools Federal Credit Union and the other asset as “Florida prepaid college fund.” She filed an amended disclosure, but the Commission stated that the initial omission “deprived” the public of information it was entitled to.

On Wednesday, Storms said knew about the complaint, but not about the order issued by the Commission that no further action would be taken.

Ethics commission finds Sachs left off condo from disclosure form but drops complaint

The Florida Commission on Ethics has found probable cause to conclude that Sen. Maria Sachs failed to properly disclose a Tallahassee condominium on her annual financial disclosure forms for three years but, because Sachs amended her forms to correct the omission, the commission chose not to pursue any further action. 

The complaint alleging  alleging that Sachs violated state financial disclosure law by failing to include her Tallahassee condominium on her annual report for three years was filed by Palm Beach County Republican Party chairman Sid Dinerstein on Oct. 15.

Sachs, a Democrat, was embroiled in a hotly contested race against former state Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale at the time, which she won. They were forced to run against each other because of redistricting.

Glitch in new law to abolish CCEs sets up a summer dead zone for fundraisers

Florida’s attempt to outlaw political slush funds has created a fundraising snafu that could inadvertently put political committees out of business for three months this summer – and potentially complicate fundraising for Miami’s mayoral race.

The new law, which took effect May 1 (HB 569), prohibits Committees of Continuous Existence from accepting contributions after July 31, allows unlimited amounts of money in the defunct CCE to be transferred to a political committee, but it doesn’t allow political committees to accept contributions of more than $500 from any contributor until Nov. 1.

It’s the law of unintended consequences and it is giving political activists heartburn.

“Most of what happens between Aug. 1 and November is going to be dead time,’’ said John French, a Tallahassee lawyer and expert on elections law. “There’s a very Zen-like nature to this bill. It’s really unfortunate.”

But what may be dead time for most elected officials is heavy duty campaign season for the Nov. 5 election for the City of Miami mayor and commission seats.

GOP wins big in Northwest Florida House district in first vote since rejecting Medicaid expansion

Florida Democrats hoping the fight over Medicaid expansion and the sequester would win them support with those who depend on federal funding won’t find much encouragement in Tuesday’s special election for House District 2.

In the first referendum since House Republicans bypassed more than $50 billion in federal aid for health care, Mike Hill, a 55-year-old tea party Republican insurance agent, won 57.9 percent of the vote in a Northwest Florida district that has an economy dominated by hospitals as well as the military -- which is weathering a sequester deal rife with budget cuts forced by congressional Republicans.

Hill’s Democratic opponent, Jeremy Lau, mustered 42.1 percent of the vote in a special election held after Rep. Clay Ford died in March. Lau, a 40-year-old aircraft mechanic for L-3 Com Vertex Aerospace, a military contractor at Pensacola Naval Station, had made Medicaid expansion his No. 1 issue.

“The failure of the Legislature to expand Medicaid has cost our district jobs,” Lau said. “It’s a huge issue here.”

A University of Florida study concluded that expansion of Medicaid would create an average of 1,619 full-time and part-time jobs in Escambia County annually over the next 10 years and help provide coverage for county’s residents, 20 percent of whom don’t have health insurance.

But Lau couldn’t overcome the district’s conservative demographics (Mitt Romney won 59 percent of the vote here in 2012) and Hill’s overwhelming financial advantage. The district, which covers parts of Escambia and Santa Rosa counties, leans so hard right that no Democrat ran in either 2010 or 2012 against Ford. Hill raised $200,000 compared to Lau’s $29,500, getting plenty of help from the GOP, which chipped in $51,000. Democrats could manage only $1,090 for Lau.

Hill also made the Medicaid expansion a key issue, but as a way to spruce up his conservative credentials.

“I’m so proud of Speaker (Will Weatherford) and the House for turning that down,” Hill said. “We can’t afford that in Florida.”

Hill, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, becomes the first black Republican in the Florida House since Jennifer Carroll served there between 2003 and 2010. He’s also the first black legislator from Northwest Florida since Reconstruction.

“I know the historical significance,” Hill said. “But it doesn’t matter to me if I’m the first black this or that. I don’t want to be chosen based on my skin color. I want to be chosen based on my character and my value system.”