Broward family seeks to have well drilling on its property on the edge of the Everglades

via @jenstaletovich

A South Florida family that made its fortune in real estate asked the state this week to drill an exploratory oil well in marshes just west of Broward County suburbs, marking the first time the search for Everglades crude has extended so far east.

“As second generation Floridians and owners of this property for over 50 years, we are excited about the opportunities this land and these resources will provide for Florida,” John Kanter of the Kanter Family Foundation said in a statement. He declined a request for an interview.

The request for a drilling permit, the first step in what would likely be a lengthy review process, came as a surprise to environmentalists. While there has been a renewed surge of interest in exploring and drilling in existing oil fields in Southwest Florida, that had cooled with falling oil prices. And no company has previously targeted anything near the proposed location, along a major drainage canal about a half-dozen miles west of U.S. 27 and Miramar.

“I’m just kind of shaking my head,” said Matthew Schwartz, executive director of the South Florida Wildlands Association, which opposes expanded drilling. “I guess it was just a matter of time, but it’s interesting with oil prices plummeting that they decided to start drilling .... I would imagine the reaction from the community to drilling that close to the urban area would be intense.”

The well would be a traditional vertical well that could go nearly 12,000 feet deep, a Kanter spokeswoman said, and is intended to tap into the vast Sunniland trend, an oil formation that the U.S. Geological Survey said extends across all of South Florida and west into the Gulf of Mexico. The application from the Kanter Corp. of Florida, based in Miami, is the first step in a “long-term plan” that the company says also would include rock mining, another major concern for environmentalists.

If approved, the well would be the first so far east of the small drilling operations in the Big Cypress Preserve, which have hummed along for decades. Only one well has ever been dug in Broward County, said Florida Department of Environmental Protection communications director Lauren Engel. In 1985, a Texas company drilled just inside western Broward County line near Collier County. The well was plugged and abandoned the same year.

More here.

Legislators remain silent about redistricting plans and face limited options

Uncertainty continued to reign in Florida’s political world Friday, a day after the state Supreme Court declared Florida’s congressional map invalid and ordered up a remedy by Oct. 17.

Legislative leaders remained silent about what’s next, saying they were absorbing the implications of the ruling that blew up the state’s congressional map.

But legal scholars and redistricting experts say legislators have limited options and, with the Supreme Court giving them only 100 days and employing the unusual move of retaining jurisdiction over the case to ensure that the process moves quickly, legislators are under the gun to make some decisions fast.

“Whatever procedure the state Legislature is going to adopt, they need to do it right now,” said Michael McDonald, an associate professor of political science at the University of Florida who has been a redistricting consultant in 14 states.

“They have to justify how the map was formed, and it has to be very transparent. One hundred days is a very tight deadline to do all of that and get a new map.”

While Republican legislative leaders may be under some pressure to try to fight the ruling — in an attempt to retain the existing districts for another cycle and help congressional Republicans hold onto the U.S. House — the prospects for litigation also are limited. T

hey could petition the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case, said Justin Levitt, a Loyola School of Law professor and an expert on redistricting law.

More here.

Slow fundraising month for Florida Legislature seats

@JeremySWallace

A moratorium on fundraising while the Florida Legislature met in June during a special session meant little time to fundraise for most incumbents as they prepare for re-election next year, new state finance records show.

In fact, no incumbent state legislator in either the House or Senate raised even $15,000 for their main re-election accounts in June, campaign finance reports made public Friday show.

The top fundraiser for the month for either a House or Senate seat in Florida in June was David Silvers, a Boca Raton Democrat, who is hoping to replace Rep. David Kerner, a Democrat who is not seeking re-election in District 87. He raised $115,251 for his campaign.

The top Republican fundraiser seeking a Florida Legislature seat in 2016 was Sarasota Republican Joe Gruters, who is seeking to replace State Rep. Greg Steube, a Sarasota Republican expected to run for the Florida Senate in 2016. Gruters, the Republican Party of Florida’s vice chairman, raised $88,644 for his campaign.

Through the first six month of 2015, here are the top fundraisers in the Florida House and Florida Senate.

Are 25 percent of federal inmates noncitizens?

Crime by immigrants was brought front and center after a man who had been deported five times was charged with killing a young woman in San Francisco on July 1. The debate reached a fever pitch on the Fox News show Real Story with Gretchen Carlson.

Carlson paired former Clinton campaign adviser Simon Rozenberg with conservative talker and IJReview.com editor Larry O’Connor. In the span of two minutes, the two talked over each other about so-called sanctuary cities, border control and the Obama administration track record on deportations.

In the middle of this verbal melee -- Carlson interjected with "Let me take control of this" -- O’Connor said "25 percent of federal inmates are noncitizens."

Rozenberg insisted O’Connor’s facts were wrong. O’Connor insisted otherwise. We thought we’d see what the data say.

See what Jon Greenberg of PunditFact found.

Are more businesses dying than starting? Let the claims begin in Florida's Senate race

An Orlando businessman vying for Marco Rubio’s soon-to-be-vacated Senate seat announced his candidacy by saying fresh blood is needed to change the worst economic climate the country’s ever faced.

"It's time to restore America's prominence both here at home and abroad," Todd Wilcox, a former Green Beret and CIA veteran, said in a statement announcing his candidacy on July 8, 2015.  "The economy is growing at a dismal rate. More businesses are closing than are opening for the first time in our nation's history."

The recent recession obviously has been an economic low point, but are the number of new businesses being eclipsed by the number of businesses closing for the first time ever? Well, it’s certainly true for as long as the government has been tracking that statistic. Beyond that is anyone’s guess.

Turn to Joshua Gillin's fact-check from PolitiFact Florida.

In pro-life speech, Marco Rubio returns to anecdote he first used in Florida House

@PatriciaMazzei

Marco Rubio didn't become a compelling public speaker now that he's running for president of the United States. He was already captivating audiences as a young state representative in the Florida House when he was designated Speaker.

A particular theme has remained in many of his remarks since then: The anecdote about a single mother trying to make her way in a difficult world. On Friday, Rubio returned to that example in a speech to the National Right to Life Convention in New Orleans, where he argued that his campaign pitch of "renewing" the American Dream starts with defending his position against abortion.

"You know, I'm reminded today of a speech I gave almost a decade ago, back when I was designated Speaker of the Florida House," Rubio said. "It was an address my colleagues on the job before us. But on that day I wanted to do more than tell them what we would do. I wanted to tell them why we needed to do it. I wanted to explain the stakes of public policy and public service. So I gave the example of a hypothetical young woman. Here's what I said:

The Guardian: Marco Rubio says he'd close U.S. embassy in Cuba as president

From The Guardian:

Barack Obama’s historic policy shift toward Cuba would be short-lived under a Marco Rubio presidency, the Florida senator has told the Guardian, one week after the White House made the final major step in renewing diplomatic ties with the Castro regime.

Rubio, a top contender for the Republican nomination for president, said he would “absolutely” reverse the unilateral steps Obama has taken thus far to normalize relations between the two countries – including closing down the embassies that are slated to open on 20 July – if he is elected to the White House in 2016.

“In fact, I think they’re in violation of the law,” Rubio said during an interview at the tail end of a three-day campaign swing through Iowa. “The statute passed by Congress specifically prohibits many of the things he [Obama]’s now undertaking. It says those things can only happen after certain conditions have been met, none of which have been met. As president, I will follow the law.”

More here.

The political fallout of Florida's redistricting decision

@PatriciaMazzei

For Florida Democrats, the dream 2016 scenario goes like this: A Democrat gets elected to Congress in Tampa. Another one in Orlando. A third in Miami. The party picks up three seats, suddenly holding almost half of the state’s congressional delegation.

But Thursday’s ruling by the Florida Supreme Court ordering that the state’s congressional map be redrawn doesn’t guarantee the Democrats’ wishes will come true.

The court’s 5-2 decision landed as a political bombshell 16 months before an election in the country’s largest swing state. Two of the districts directly affected already have nationally watched competitive races. Yet it’s too early to know exactly how everything will play out, especially considering how the state Democratic Party has struggled to seize past opportunities.

Much will depend on the Republican-controlled Florida House and Senate, which are responsible for creating the new boundaries. The court wants eight of the state’s 27 congressional districts redrawn in 100 days, though more districts will almost certainly be affected.

What gives Democrats hope is that the eight targeted districts are in the state’s most populated — read: most liberal — areas: Three are based in Miami-Dade County and two in Broward and Palm Beach; two lie in the Tampa Bay area, and one stretches from Jacksonville to Orlando.

More here.

Tampa Bay Democrat proposes independent redistricting commission

Is it time to take redistricting out of the hands of the Florida Legislature?

Rep. Dwight Dudley, D-St. Petersburg, thinks so, especially in light of a Thursday ruling by the Florida Supreme Court that will require lawmakers to redraw eight congressional districts before the 2016 election.

In the next state legislative session -- for which committee meetins begin in September -- Dudley will propose that district maps for Congress, as well as the state House and Senate be drawn up by an independent commission.

"Instead of voters choosing their elected officials, it has been the elected officials who have chosen their voters," he said in a statement. "Despite a clarion call from the people to end gerrymandering and restore fairness to the redistricting process, the Florida Legislature has continued to engage in misdirection and skullduggery."

Other states have made similar decisions in an effort to keep politics (and, presumably, skullduggery) out of the process that results in district maps. Notably, Arizona's commission was recently upheld as constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The concern with allowing lawmakers to draw their own districts is that it allows the party in power to make boundaries that will ensure they remain in the majority. There are rules and laws in place to try and prevent that, but there are still parts of the state with districts that the Supreme Court says don't follow constitutional requirements of fairness.

Similar proposals to Dudley's have been announced before. This spring, Rep. Evan Jenne, D-Dania Beach, and Sen. Dwight Bullard, D-Cutler Bay, introduced legislation to create a redistricting commission. It never had a single committee hearing in the House or Senate.

Bill Nelson to undergo surgery for prostate cancer caught 'early'

@PatriciaMazzei

Florida Sen. Bill Nelson will undergo surgery in Washington D.C. on Monday to remove prostate cancer, his office said Thursday.

The disease was caught "early" as part of a routine exam, according to a statement from Ryan Brown, Nelson's press secretary. The 72-year-old Democrat had no symptoms.

"Extensive scans showed no signs of the cancer spreading outside the prostate," Brown said. 

He added that the diagnosis won't affect Nelson's plan to seek re-election in 2018. He was first elected to the Senate in 2001.

"I've been blessed with good health, which has allowed me the great privilege of public service -- and I look forward to continuing serving our country and Florida," Nelson said in the statement.