Peter Schorsch
The Florida House released its almost $80 billion proposed 2016-17 state budget in the wee hours of Friday morning, along with a list of all the member requests for money for projects back home.
The requests — all 1,067 of them — are also posted on the House website.
Appropriations Committee chair Richard Corcoran, the Land O’ Lakes Republican slated to be House Speaker next year, promised to disclose such requests as part of his drive for greater transparency in the Legislature’s yearly budgeting process.
Below are just a few:
House Republican Leader Dana Young is again going to bat for her hometown’s historic Tampa Theatre, asking for $2 million after last year’s $1 million request was vetoed. The 89-year-old building needs structural rehabilitation; as of last year, parts of its electrical system dated to the 1920s.
State Rep. Brad Drake, a Eucheeanna Republican, asked for $16,000 to replace the roof of the Town of Ponce de Leon Volunteer Fire Department in Holmes County. “The Town has tried over the years to perform maintenance on the roof with inadequate results,” he wrote.
State Rep. Hazel Rogers, a Lauderdale Lakes Democrat, put in for $50,000 to help replace windows in a senior center in nearby Margate. “Funds will be used to replace the existing windows with hurricane-rated storefront commercial units,” she wrote.
State Rep. Shevrin Jones, a West Park Democrat, is asking $2.5 million for a “Neighborhood Traffic Calming Plan” in that city that includes “traffic circles, street humps, chokers, roadway striping, median closures, speed lump/speed cushions, textured pavements, medians, center island narrowing, and other calming elements.”
State Rep. Travis Cummings, an Orange Park Republican, submitted a request for $2 million toward “The Florida EPIC (Entrepreneurism, Policy, Innovation, and Commerce) Program” at Jacksonville University. It’s a STEM program (science, technology, engineering, mathematics), a favorite of Gov. Rick Scott.
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The Florida Senate released its budget Friday afternoon. The $80.9 billion spending plan is significantly larger than the $79.2 billion spending plan Gov. Rick Scott proposed earlier this year.
The Senate plan increases funding for public school education by 3.3 percent to more than $20.3 billion, or $7,249 per student. That’s slightly more than the state House plan, which looks to spend $7,231 per student.
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One Senate budget item worth noting is how it slashes direct funding for youth mentoring programs, like the Boys and Girls Club, and instead creates a $30 million competitive grant program.
Organizations would need to apply for the grant, and money would be awarded by a committee of people appointed by Gov. Rick Scott, Senate President Andy Gardiner and House Speaker Steve Crisafulli.
Senate spox Katie Betta says this will create a “fairer process,” but FloridaPolitics.com can’t help but notice that the Boys and Girls Clubs are represented by lobbyist Jack Cory, who is persona non grata to Appropriations Chairman Tom Lee and Education Appropriations Chairman Don Gaetz.
Cory’s offense? He had the gall to back former state Rep. Rachel Burgin in a tough primary against Lee.
“With friends like those Rachel Burgin has, she doesn’t need any enemies,” Gaetz said at the time. “I believe Rachel Burgin is a nice person. I think her handlers in Tallahassee — particularly her Democratic lobbyist handlers — have really messed up her campaign.”
It would appear Lee and Gaetz are finally exacting their revenge.
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Another budget item worth noting is the $5.6 million for the Florida Translational Research Program at the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute in Lake Nona. This was a part of the biomedical research pitch that received the governor’s ax last year.
With the state of Florida looking to expand its life science footprint and also reduce costs to health care, it will be interesting to see if this will get the thumbs up this year.
This program – that has five patents filed – is one-of-a-kind here in Florida, collaborating on important biomedical research projects with essentially every other biomedical research organization and university in the state – research that those very organizations say they couldn’t do at all without Sanford-Burnham. A program that is not only discovering new drug therapies and fighting debilitating diseases but showing a return on investment to the state is a no-brainer.
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Rep. Carlos Trujillo, a plaintiff’s lawyer whose firm — of which he is a named partner — makes hundreds of thousands of dollars by suing businesses, is sponsoring a bill that would essentially increase his own fees.
Although his campaign website promises to “refuse raising taxes, create a healthy business environment, and keep our property insurance market solvent,” he is proposing a significant hike in his and other attorneys’ fees, which are paid by the very businesses and markets he pledges to assist.
The measure (HB 1005) proposes to assess interest on attorneys’ fees, which would start accruing even before those fees are awarded. Obviously, that would drive up the cost of those fees over time.
A better question is: What would be the incentive for a plaintiff’s lawyer like Trujillo, to stop litigating and settle if it were in the best interest of the client? Nothing. That’s because the longer an attorney litigates, the more money he would make.
So much for not pushing legislation that is a conflict of interest.
Although the Civil Justice Committee released a proposed committee substitute that took some of the more offending provisions out of the bill, the word is that Trujillo was successful in continuing to allow plaintiffs to collect interest from the alleged date of loss, even when they delay filing suit. The bill has other gray areas about how certain costs are calculated.
Of course, the larger the damage award, the larger the fees in a contingency fee arrangement, so by driving up awards with prejudgment interest, he still ensures there’s some gravy in it for him.
It is unclear how Trujillo would seek to change his bill after he gets through the Civil Justice Committee, including whether he’d push for the re-insertion of his attorneys’ fee language.
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A passionate debate over a bill regulating fracking included a brief disagreement between two House Democrats.
Rep. Alan Williams was the second to last speaker in the first 20-minute block of debate time set aside for the Democrats. When the Tallahassee Democrat finished up his remarks, he walked over to Rep. Reggie Fullwood’s desk, as Rep. Larry Lee began to lay out his reasons for why he was voting against the measure (HB 191).
“Growing up as a young black kid in St. Lucie County, one of the counties that voted to ban fracking, I never, and no one in my community, thought much about the environment. But in coming here to Tallahassee, I began to study environmental issues,” said Lee, before a split-second pause.
“Rep. Williams, I would appreciate it if you get quiet,” he said as he pointed at Williams. “I was quiet when you spoke, OK?”
Lee continued his impassioned plea to lawmakers, telling them “if something is bad, vote against it.” Lee was the last Democrat to speak during the 20-minute debate block.
Moments later, as Republicans began their debate, House Speaker Steve Crisafulli told members to “respect those who are speaking.”
“Members, keep in mind we are in debate on the bill,” he said. “I’ll deal with the membership, who’s listening and who’s not. And I do ask you to keep it down and respect those who are speaking.”
The bill passed 73-45.
That drone you got for your birthday last year? Under a proposal moving through the state Senate, it will be considered a “dangerous instrumentality.”
The Senate rules committee on Wednesday voted 12-1 to approve a measure to add liability language to the state law governing drones. The measure (SB 642) declares drones a dangerous instrumentality, and calls on owners and operators to “exercise reasonable care to prevent injury to others.”
“Drones are dangerous,” said Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, the bill sponsor. “There’s been numerous incidents, and those incidents are going up by the day as the number of drones being flown by hobbyists increases.”
The proposal received pushback from the UAS Association of Florida, which said the measure would hamper growth of the emerging technology in Florida.
“This legislation simply shifts liability away from the person who caused the accident to someone who did not. It has Florida in the wrong direction in our emerging markets,” said David Daniel, who is representing the UAS Association of Florida. “We believe this legislation sends a message that while other states are embracing this emerging industry, Florida is not.”
The Senate passed the legislation on Wednesday afternoon. That same day, WPLG reported a drone was spotted in the path of an American Airlines flight as it approached the Miami International Airport.
The bill now heads to the Senate floor.
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If this next section were a separate post, it would be titled, “Why I’m never wrong about Rick Scott’s legislative failures.” Why? Because I spend so much more time talking to lawmakers than him or his staff.
I hate to keep beating a dead horse, but in this case, that horse (pay attention Ben Carson) is a socialist. Thursday, Rep. Matt Hudson and Sen. Rene Garcia put health care dollars on the table, and color me red, white, and blue, but Representative Hudson said Scott’s price fixing caps are out.
“That issue is off the table,” said Hudson, as reported by the Miami Herald.
Well, no sh*t. It was never on the adult table.
It was on the kid’s table Scott called a “hospital commission,” where he force fed his petty payback agenda like raw broccoli to a toddler. Me, you, literally, everyone hates this idea.
This is exactly what I wrote on Halloween in 2015 when I first heard about Scottworld trying to sell socialism to a pretty obviously unwelcome, conservative Florida House.
I’m told his staff has been shopping a hospital price-fixing bill to House Republicans for two weeks, and has yet to find a sponsor, or Bernie Sanders. So, late Friday night, that exact same bill, without a sponsor, showed up on his Hospital Commission website, apparently earlier than directed.
And here is where I suggested Rick Scott pitch this to Sanders.
And here (click it) is where Scott’s bad, horrible, socialist, commie ideas go to die.
We all know who won’t be clicking.
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The Fair Sentencing/Fair Chances campaign, billed as a bipartisan criminal justice reform effort, stopped in Tallahassee on Thursday as part of a national tour. The campaign, among other things, aims to reduce prison populations and help ex-cons rejoin society. Among the speakers at Florida State University’s law school was former Attorney General Bob Butterworth.
Butterworth told an anecdote about meeting with GOP Sen. Greg Evers, chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee. Evers — whom Butterworth half-jokingly described as a “good ol’ boy” — has been consumed with righting the state’s troubled prison system. Butterworth said he asked Evers if he was “liberal” for wanting to reform the Department of Corrections. Butterworth recreated how Evers pounded the desk, sending a loud thud through the hall as he hit the lectern. “No!” Evers told him. “That’s conservative.”
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After blowing away previous first quarter fundraising records in similar campaign starts, Charlie Crist was back in Tallahassee this week, a town he once owned. He was seen working Adams Street, where some of his loyal friends remain, and also hit up a fundraiser at the home of Ashley Cate, oh, and her husband, Kevin Cate.
Loyalists spotted in pictures from the event on Facebook: Taylor Biehl, Rep. Irv Slosburg, future Rep. Ramon Alexander, Sen. Geraldine Thompson, Rick Minor, Lydia Claire Brooks, the FEA’s Ronald Bilbao, and Matthew Isbell.
Staff writers Jenna Buzzacco-Foerster and Jim Rosica contributed to this report.
