A Venezuelan-born Miami lawyer becomes one of the U.S.’s youngest lifetime judges

@alextdaugherty

The U.S. Senate confirmed a Venezuelan-born Miami lawyer on Thursday to the federal bench in South Florida, the first judicial nominee confirmed after Senate Republicans changed the rules to lessen the power of the minority party during the confirmation process.

Roy Altman, a lawyer at Miami firm Podhurst Orseck, was approved by the Senate to be a U.S. district judge in a 66-33 vote on Thursday, with 14 Democrats joining Republicans to confirm him. Republican Sen. Rand Paul joined 30 Democrats and two independents to vote against Altman’s nomination.

Altman’s private work was centered on aviation law, and he represented victims of high-profile airline crashes like the Malaysia Airlines flight that disappeared over the Indian Ocean in 2014. He also worked as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida.

“Today’s vote is an important step in ensuring Florida’s federal judiciary continues functioning at a high level. I am confident that Roy Altman will serve Florida’s Southern District with honor and integrity,” Sen. Marco Rubio said in a statement.

Altman, 36, will be one of the youngest judges ever confirmed for a lifetime post. Washington lawyer Allison Rushing, also 36 but two months younger than Altman, was confirmed as a federal appeals court judge in March. Altman was first nominated for a federal judgeship by President Donald Trump last year, but his nomination expired at the end of 2018.

More here.

Floridians in Congress urge quick passage of Puerto Rico aid as Trump threatens cuts

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Donald Trump wants to stop sending disaster aid to Puerto Rico. Senate Democrats are threatening to vote down a $13.5 billion disaster aid bill unless Puerto Rico gets more money.

But Democrats and Republicans from Florida want the bill — which includes $600 million for Puerto Rico’s bankrupt nutrition assistance program — to pass as is immediately.

“We’re talking about hungry kids here,” said Rep. Darren Soto, a Puerto Rican Democrat from Central Florida who represents the state’s largest Puerto Rican community. “I realize that in an ideal world we would have more, but I realize there’s going to be interplay between the House and the Senate. There’s going to have to be some compromise about this stuff.”

The latest Puerto Rico fight, over 18 months after Hurricane Maria made landfall and left tens of thousands without power for months, comes after the president told Republican senators during a private lunch that the U.S. territory was receiving too much disaster aid from the federal government.

Trump claimed Thursday that he’s “taken better care of Puerto Rico than any man ever.”

Senate Democrats are pushing for more money for Puerto Rico and, after Trump’s comments, have threatened to vote against a disaster relief bill that could make it to the floor next week. Ten Republicans voted against the bill during an earlier procedural vote and more of them could be spurred to vote against the proposal if they think that’s what Trump would prefer.

“I’d love to have some additional money in the bill, but we don’t have the support for it, the president won’t sign it,” said Sen. Marco Rubio. “So we can least get the [nutrition] money taken care of.”

More here.

Marco Rubio and Rick Scott follow Trump and McConnell’s lead on shutdown negotiations

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Amid the longest-ever federal shutdown, Rick Scott called a solo press conference on Thursday to address “Washington dysfunction,” an unusual move in the U.S. Senate, where rank-and-file lawmakers typically pair up or gather in groups in front of the cameras.

The former governor, who campaigned on a slogan to “Make Washington Work,” is unable to force action as the most junior Republican in the Senate. As governor he passed the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Act against the wishes of the National Rifle Association and liberal Democrats weeks after the Parkland school shooting. In Washington, Scott is following Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s lead.

Florida’s Republican leaders in Washington don’t have the power to end a government shutdown on their own, but Scott and Sen. Marco Rubio aren’t publicly offering any ideas to resolve the current impasse between President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over border-wall funding.

Thousands of federal employees aren’t getting paid while negotiations between the president and House and Senate leaders are largely at a standstill.

During his 10-minute press conference, Scott’s only substantive contribution to alleviate part of the shutdown’s effects was signing onto a relatively uncontroversial bill backed by Democrats and Republicans that would make sure Florida’s 5,000 Coast Guard members get paid during the shutdown, a proposal also backed by Rubio. Scott’s other ideas, such as suspending congressional pay and demanding that lawmakers stay in Washington over Martin Luther King Day, do nothing to resolve differences.

“It’s frustrating to me to watch how our government’s shut down,” Scott said. “The Coast Guard’s not getting paid. Other people are not getting paid and we’re not going down the path to secure our border.”

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Rick Scott joins a Congress that can’t clean up after itself

@alextdaugherty

Rick Scott comes to Washington after eight years governing the nation’s third-largest state and a perfect three-for-three record in expensive campaigns. He even gets a special swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell allowed him to finish his term as governor by appointing dozens of supporters to various boards and commissions.

But Scott isn’t the highest-profile incoming senator. That distinction belongs to Utah senator and former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who sealed the deal with an op-ed denouncing Donald Trump a day before taking office.

Instead, Scott comes to a city where the trash is overflowing on the National Mall because Trump decided to shut down the government to fight for wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. He’s the most junior senator in a body that regularly keeps the government running with hours or minutes to spare and his extra week in office as governor cost him three spots on the seniority list, a move that could affect committee assignments down the road.

“I don’t get why the government’s shut down, I didn’t do it,” Scott said during an interview inside a makeshift basement office. “I got my stuff done. Everyone wants to blame one person but it’s everyone’s responsibility; it’s House members... and the president. It’s all their responsibility to get this done.”

Scott expressed support for Trump’s border-wall push, arguing that a wall helps to fulfill every American’s desire to feel safe. He also hinted that the bomb-throwing tactics of past first-year senators like Ted Cruz, who led an effort to shut the government down in 2013 to try to repeal Obamacare, won’t be part of his game plan in Washington.

“If you look at my career I’ve gotten my stuff done by talking to other people and surrounding myself with smart people, by finding where there’s agreement and working on that, but also trying to be an incrementalist where I say, ‘What can you get done today?’”

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Marco Rubio wants air conditioning in Miami’s public housing

@joeflech

As the 116th Congress opens this week, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio has filed a bill that aims to encourage the federal government to require air conditioning in public housing, which could impact South Florida as average temperatures continue to rise each year.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) does not mandate air conditioning in federally subsidized housing, a fact highlighted in August by the Miami Herald after the city of Miami gave Miami-Dade’s public housing department $15,000 to purchase and install 51 through-the-wall units for residents in Liberty Square, the country’s oldest public housing complex. Though the county has required all new and redeveloped units to have air conditioning since 2001, older units are not a part of this requirement.

Miami-Dade’s director of public housing, Michael Liu, told the Herald last year that the government doesn’t provide enough funding for the county’s overall cost to maintain its public housing stock, including the price of providing air conditioning. 

Rubio, R-FL, is proposing the “Safe Temperature Act,” a measure that would give HUD Secretary Ben Carson the ability to use federal dollars to install air conditioning in public housing and privately-owned units funded with federal assistance. The law would allow Carson to ensure temperatures in public housing stays between 71 degrees and 81 degrees Fahrenheit.

But the bill does not mandate air conditioning, nor does it provide additional funding to pay for it. Without teeth in the law, Rubio would have to push HUD to implement the rule in places like Miami, and the senator could advocate to steer more dollars to HUD through his position on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Because air conditioning has never been a requirement under federal law, there is no accounting for how many units don't have cooling systems. Miami-Dade has begun redevelopment or rebuilt more than 2,500 units over the past five years, increasing the number of units with air conditioning.

The Safe Temperature Act is one of two bills Rubio has filed that could impact Liberty City. The senior senator from Florida also plans to reintroduce the Liberty City Rising Act, a public safety package that would beef up security measures for public housing. Rubio first introduced the bill last year after visiting Liberty Square following a series of shootings that rocked the community, spurred a high school student protest against gun violence and attracted much media attention. The law would require dead-bolt locks on entry doors, covers on security camera boxes and covered security camera wires and smoke detectors in common areas.

In a statement this week, Rubio recalled speaking to the Liberty City community last year as he pledged to get the two laws passed.

“I will work to pass the Liberty City Rising Act and the Safe Temperature Act as a means to ensure that communities, like Liberty Square, are held to higher safety standards so that these families can raise their children in safe and sanitary living conditions.”

Experts have warned that one of the consequences of climate change is a public health crisis stemming from a lack of reprieve for people who live in increasingly hot places. The U.S. government has warned that soaring temperatures associated with climate change will exacerbate underlying health issues — and poor, urban communities are among the most at risk. Disadvantaged communities are more likely to have a harder time escaping the heat.

Rubio's bill does not mention climate change. The senator has acknowledged that climate change has been measured by scientists and is at least in part caused by human activity, but he has said he wouldn't "destroy the economy" over it and favors mitigation, water management and hardening infrastructure over changes to energy policy.

‘I’m just a country boy who loves serving my state:’ Bill Nelson says farewell

@alextdaugherty

Bill Nelson got something Wednesday that doesn’t happen very often these days in the U.S. Senate.

An audience.

Most Senate speeches are delivered to a largely empty chamber, but a few dozen colleagues turned up to hear and applaud Nelson’s final address, in which the outgoing senior senator from Florida reflected on many different aspects of his life and career in elected office that began in 1972.

“When it comes down to it I’m just a country boy who loves serving my state and my country for all of my life,” Nelson said at the end of his speech. “It’s been an incredible honor.”

With that, the chamber erupted in applause.

Nelson began his remarks by sharing a story about his first floor speech in 2001. He waited a few months after being sworn in to formally speak, out of deference to his more senior colleagues, and spoke in front of an empty chamber. By the time he finished, West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd, the longest-serving senator in history, heard Nelson was in the midst of making his maiden speech and made his way to the chamber. He followed Nelson with a 30-minute oration about the history of first speeches in Congress’ upper chamber.

“You can imagine, nothing I said was memorable, but it was certainly memorable to this senator that all the sudden I would be treated to the corporate knowledge of one of the lions of the Senate in looking back at the history of this body,” Nelson said.

Nelson then went into a detailed description about how he became an original “Florida boy,” with Florida roots that date back to 1829, 16 years before Florida became a U.S. state. 

More here.

Bill Nelson goes back to court Wednesday, challenging Florida’s election signature match law

 

Sen. Bill Nelson and his attorneys will head back to U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida Wednesday afternoon in a fight for a ruling that would require ballots with “signature mismatches” be counted.

Nelson is suing the Florida Secretary of State and demanding the state count every mail-in and provisional ballot deemed to have a so-called “signature mismatch.” He also requests Saturday's deadline to canvass ballots be extended until the legal matter is resolved.

The threshold for a recount will be determined by the number of ballots reported by the canvassing board by noon Saturday. Those returns are what will determine recounts in not just the Senate race, but potentially the race for governor, agriculture commissioner and a smattering of statehouse seats.

In the complaint, his attorney wrote that by rejecting and discarding ballots with signature mismatches, the local canvassing boards are disenfranchising the voters who cast them. The complaint accused local canvassing boards of engaging “demonstrably standardless, inconsistent, and unreliable” process that has been shown to result in the “disproportionate rejection of [vote-by-mail] and provisional ballots cast by ethnic and racial minorities, as well as young, first-time voters.”

 

Mohammed Jazil, who is representing Secretary Ken Detzner, said in a hearing Friday that by changing the noon deadline, it would cause problems with the counties that have already submitted their unofficial returns.

He said that by 4 p.m. Friday, 52 of the state's 67 counties have already provided their returns to the state. 

"The counties would have to undo the counts they have already submitted and redo the counts," Jazil said."The recount would have to stop and then restart."

Judge Robert Hinkle, who is overseeing the case, said in scheduling hearing Friday that he doesn’t plan on rushing to make a ruling before noon Saturday.

“The subject this endeavor is to get this right,” he said in the hearing. “It’s far less urgent to have a ruling by noon tomorrow. It’s far more important to do this well.”

The state wants to defend the legality of the statute on signature matching, but Nelson’s side "wants a resolution as quickly possible.”

Nelson, who trails Gov. Rick Scott with a slim 0.18 percent margin, believes the final vote total will continue to move in his favor before a recount is called Saturday.

His election lawyer, Marc Elias, said on a conference call Thursday morning that by the end of the month, the senator will be preparing for a fourth term in Washington.

Broward County was still counting early voting and vote-by-mail ballots Friday. Nelson received 68.9 percent of the votes there in the primary. In Palm Beach County, where Nelson received 58.4 percent of the votes, the canvassing board was still counting vote-by-mail ballots.

Rubio bill that penalizes corrupt drug-treatment centers passes Congress

@alextdaugherty

Marco Rubio isn’t a big fan of the U.S. Senate’s often slow-moving ways, but he managed to get a bill passed in less than six months that allows the federal government to crack down on non-reputable drug recovery homes.

In the midst of partisan fighting over Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, Congress passed a sweeping bipartisan opioid package on Wednesday, a massive bill introduced at the beginning of 2017 that eventually included Rubio’s legislation, after he worked with Democratic Palm Beach County state attorney Dave Aronberg, to fight against a drug recovery system that allows unscrupulous treatment homes to collect thousands in private insurance payments from addicts and their families.

“The way this place works, to get from an idea in June to a law in October is not common. I don’t think I’ll be saying this much,” Rubio said. “We were brainstorming what we could do at the federal level and came up with a federal law that goes after the middlemen who make all this money. They’re basically trapping people and they put them back into rehab.”

The opioid package includes dozens of smaller bills like Rubio’s aimed at different parts of the opioid crisis, including preventing opioids from being sent through the U.S. Postal Service from foreign countries and various other aspects of prevention, treatment and recovery. The package passed the House with nearly 400 votes in favor and passed the U.S. Senate on Wednesday in a 98-1 vote. The few no votes came from conservatives who vehemently oppose expanding the size of the federal government.

President Donald Trump is expected to sign the legislation into law.

Many of the bills included in the package were sponsored by lawmakers facing tough reelection fights in the coming months, including Florida Rep. Vern Buchanan, a Longboat Key Republican who sent a press release titled “U.S. Senate Passes Buchanan Opioid Bill” because it included a proposal by Buchanan that creates a national database of medical providers who safely provide pain medication to patients. Rubio isn’t facing reelection until 2022.

Read more here.

Infowars’ Alex Jones insults, touches Marco Rubio outside U.S. Senate hearing

@alextdaugherty

As Marco Rubio was attempting to answer questions outside a U.S. Senate hearing with social media executives about Russian interference, someone interrupted him.

It wasn’t an impatient reporter or a liberal protester. It was Alex Jones, the far-right talk show host and conspiracy theorist. He tried to question Rubio about far-right conservative trolls who have been banned from social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube.

“What about the Democrats purging conservatives?” Jones said as Rubio was trying to answer a question from another reporter. “Republicans act like it isn’t happening. Thank God Trump is.”

 

“That’s weird, man,” Rubio replied with a smile on his face.

For the next three minutes, the one-time presidential candidate was inches away from Jones as Jones shouted insults and interrupted Rubio as he tried to answer questions.

“I just don’t know who you are, man,” Rubio said when Jones kept interrupting him.

Jones started bragging about his website, noting the millions of views his talk show receives on platforms like YouTube and Facebook, which have now banned the far-right host for peddling numerous conspiracy theories, misinformation and harassment of public officials across the political spectrum, including Rubio.

“Infowars.com, you know what it is full well,” Jones said. “That’s why you didn’t get elected, because you’re snake-like.”

Rubio then turned and laughed, and Jones began to mimic his response in a baby-like voice, calling Rubio a “little frat boy.”

“All right man, who are you? Who is this guy? I swear to God I don’t know who you are,” Rubio said.

Jones again bragged about his website’s millions of views, and patted Rubio on the shoulder.

“Don’t touch me again, man. I’m asking you not to touch me,” Rubio said. “I’m not going to arrest you, man, I’ll take care of you myself.”

Read more here.

Brett Kavanaugh declines to shake Parkland parent’s hand at confirmation hearing

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Brett Kavanaugh stood up for a lunch break, began to button up his jacket and turned around to find the outstretched hand of Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was killed in the Parkland mass shooting on Valentine’s Day.

Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court pick, declined to shake it.

“Just walked up to Judge Kavanaugh as the morning session ended,” Guttenberg tweeted. “Put out my hand to introduce myself as Jaime Guttenberg’s dad. He pulled his hand back, turned his back to me and walked away. I guess he did not want to deal with the reality of gun violence.”

The three-second exchange instantly went viral, as Democrats are trying to muster attacks on Kavanaugh even though they likely don’t have the votes to stop his eventual confirmation. The first leg of Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing on Tuesday was frequently interrupted by protesters in the room, with encouragement from Democrats.

The White House said Guttenberg, a vocal advocate for increased gun-control measures who has traveled to Capitol Hill frequently over the last six months to push for changes in legislation, was “an unidentified individual” and that security intervened before Kavanaugh could shake his hand.

“As Judge Kavanaugh left for his lunch break, an unidentified individual approached him,” White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah tweeted. “Before the Judge was able to shake his hand, security had intervened.”

Guttenberg called Shah's version of events "incorrect." 

Read more here.