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Under a new bill sent to the Governor by state lawmakers, Floridians battling mental illness will be banned from purchasing a gun.

Supporters say it will save lives, while medical professionals say it will wrongfully take away second amendment rights for a large group of Floridians.

A loophole in Florida law has allowed people diagnosed with mental illnesses to continue purchasing firearms, until lawmakers closed the loophole with just one dissenting vote. “If it’s just one and they save one life, it’s a significant bill,” said Representative Barbara Watson (D) Miami.

The bill gained support by Democrats, Republicans and the NRA. “Keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people with mental illness saves lives,” said NRA past President Marion Hammer.

The legislation requires people who voluntarily commit themselves to give up their gun rights. “This only keeps mentally ill people who are determined to be dangerous from being able to buy guns,” she said.

But thousands have called or emailed the governor seeking a veto of the bill. “I hope the governor vetoes it,” said counselor Robert Carton. Health officials worry the legislation will keep people from seeking treatment. “It’s likely to create the opposite effect of what legislators are intending,” he said. “Not everybody with a mental illness is homicidal, not everybody with a mental illness is suicidal.”

90-thousand mentally ill Floridians are already prohibited from buying guns. If the governor signs the bill that number is expected to drastically increase. If signed into law, the mentally ill would be prohibited from buying a gun after July 1st.

After the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in December, State leaders promised that “everything” was on the table when it came to guns and school safety.

Efforts to put a guidance counselor in every school to spot trouble, require schools to hold more frequent lockdown exercises…or a bill to arm teachers all died when lawmakers went home.

Representative Dennis Baxley chairs a committee that heard some gun bills. We asked why more gun bills, pro or con, didn’t pass. “Definitely a sense of not over reacting to some of the spectacular things that happened like Sandy Hook” says Baxley.

The NRA’s lobbyist was in the gallery when the only gun bill..out of 15 introduced…passed.

The bill clamps down on the ability of the mentally ill to buy a gun. Sponsor Audrey Gibson says it passed because the NRA supported it. “At lease we are at the table talking about it..and we should continue to talk about other ways to make sure we stop gun violence” says the Jacksonville State Senator. After a law enforcement memorial for fallen police officers, Fraternal Order of Police President James Preston says they would have liked some clarification to the controversial Stand Your Ground. “If there is an opportunity to recede or back away from the violence, that would be our preference, but if you have to protect yourself, then by all means, the public needs to be able to do that” says the FOP President.

The bill that would have done that never got a hearing. “We never even had the discussion about stand your ground” said State Senator Chris Smith, the sponsor of legislation to prohibit someone from pursuing someone and then claiming Stand Your Ground.

But the NRA says lawmaker looked and decided nothing was broken that needed fixing.Last year a task force held seven public hearings on Stand Your Ground and made minor recommendations to tweak the legislation, but even that bill was not heard by lawmakers.

Governor Rick Scott has been championing a twenty-five hundred dollar a year pay raise for every teacher in Florida since February.

Today is the fifty-second day of the annual sixty day legislative session, and lawmakers have yet to agree to the raises. They would prefer merit based pay hikes, but Scott says teachers have done their job and deserve an across the board hike. ”We’ve had a dramatic turnaround in this state. We can brag about our education system; number six in the country. But we constantly have to work on how to do we improve it. Right now one way to improve it, in my opinion,  is the classroom, the payroll increases” says Scott.

Scott’s second priority, a sales tax break on manufacturing equipment is also in limbo. He has been using veiled threats of vetoing priority projects of legislative leaders if he doesn’t get his way.

Air Traffic Jam

Governor Rick Scott has been complaining about air traffic control furloughs every chance he gets, including on national talk shows. He says reducing air traffic controllers by ten percent each day could be disastrous for Florida Tourism. ”I don’t want our hotels to be impacted; our restaurants to be impacted. Our businesses in the state to be impacted, and I clearly don’t want anything from the safety standpoint to happen. So, I am hopeful that the White House will do the right thing” says the Governor

Scott says 142 million people travel to Florida by air each year and tourism supports one million jobs. He wants the Obama administration to change the furlough policy quickly.

Legislation named the “Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act” was signed into law today. The measure requires law enforcement agencies to get a search warrant before flying over your home or property with an unmanned drone. Supporters say it’s better to have rules in place before most law enforcement agencies are flying over your house.

By signing legislation requiring police to get a search warrant if they want to fly an unmanned drone over your property, the Governor says he and lawmakers are protecting  fourth amendment rights. “We want our own privacy. We believe in a fourth amendment. Now, there are exceptions”says Governor Scott.

There are three exceptions to the ban on drone use: The first is if police are stalking a suspected terrorist. Drones can be used if evidence has been presented to a judge and a search warrant issued. The third is swift action is needed to save a life or prevent serious property damage.

Only two law enforcement agencies in Florida are known to now have drones. Sponsor Joe Negron, says having rules in place before more own them is important. “There is an industry that wants to sell hundreds and thousands of these drones all over the country and before they’re up in the sky, hovering around, monitoring people in their cars and their backyards, I think it was a good idea to say, here’s the rules we’re going to have in Florida on that.”, says Sen. Negron, R-Stuart.

Most law enforcement agencies initially opposed the limitations on drone use until they saw how much legislative horsepower was behind it.

House Sponsor Rich Workman (R-Brevard County), likens to use of drones to the early days of wiretaps. “It was pretty well willy-nilly used. It seemed like a good way to find the bad guys. But it also invaded people’s privacy that weren’t guilty.”

One of the biggest fears has been that police would use drones to monitor neighborhoods, and farm lands looking for crimes being committed. The ban takes effect July first.

House and Senate negotiators have said no to the Governor’s across the board pay hike for teachers, opting instead for merit based increases. Both plans cost 480 million dollars. The Governor says the across the board raises are one of only two priorities he has and believes the legislature will come through. “We need to do an across the board twenty five hundred dollar pay raise for each and every one of our classroom teachers. Our k-12 school system is doing an outstanding job” says Scott.

Scott got a boost from Orange County School Superintendent Barbara Jenkins, who says implementing merit pay a year earlier than scheduled for 2014 would be difficult. “We are convinced that it is a time to reward our teachers for their hard work and for our great outcomes. It’s also a great mechanism for us to retain our talent and to recruit new talent as Florida lags behind the nation on average teacher pay” says Barbara Jenkins.

Two weeks remain in the legislative session. What’s uncertain is if the differences in pay plans are philosophical, or if lawmakers want something from the Governor in return.

Increased health care for up to a million Floridians remains up in the air tonight as legislators in Tallahassee push drastically different plans. The end result could be no additional coverage for anyone.

Under a plan being pushed by the state House, 113,000 low income Floridians would pay a 25 dollar monthly co-pay for private insurance. A plan favored by the Governor and State Senate, would cover ten times more people. It’s funded completely by the federal government for the first three years. But it is that federal funding where House Republicans are drawing the line.

Rep. Charles McBurney R-Jacksonville, told the panel “What the government giveth, the government taketh away.”  Rep. Steve Precourt, R-Orlando, called the Feds record into question “Furthermore the federal government does have a demonstrated check record of being an unreliable funding partner.”

In pushing for the larger coverage, Democrats made a reference to Boston, where first responders rushed to a crisis. Rep. Darryl Rouson of St. Petersburg says Florida should be rushing to solve a health care crisis. “We lend a helping hand. That’s what America is all about” said Rouson.

Despite the plea the committee shut down the federal money plan on a party line vote.

Rep. Mia Jones,  D-Jacksonville, says the GOP is still angry they lost the election “It’s really not about providing coverage under those plans, it’s simply about saying no to the Affordable Care Act.”The decision not to take federal money sets up a very real possibility the lawmakers could leave the State Capitol in two weeks and do absolutely nothing to expand health care.

Doing nothing says House Speaker Will Weatherford, would be profitable to taking federal money. “If it’s taking federal money that we can’t count on going home, I think we would prefer to go home” Weatherford said in an exclusive interview.

The plan being pushed by the House Speaker, gives eligible enrollees two thousand dollars to buy coverage of their choice. The House plan does not cover single, childless adults, which is one of the major differences from the Medicaid expansion favored by the Governor.  His plan also saves the state an estimated 430 million dollars on money it now spends on the medically needy program.

The 2014 Governor’s race is now officially underway.  Governor Rick Scott released his first campaign ad on Facebook this week.  The video shows Scott speaking to a group of factory workers… talking about how much the economy has improved since he’s been in office.

“There’s a stunning contrast between the economy I inherited and the economy today.  As you know the four years before I became governor the state had lost 832-thousand jobs.  Unemployment had tripled from 3.5 to 11.1 percent” says Scott, who met with reporters after attending a jobs announcement in Jacksonville.

The ad could be a direct shot at former Governor Charlie Crist, who is expected to enter the race as a Democrat. Scott was asked about the race on CNN Wedesday morning and said it wasn’t about 2014,, but about reminding Floridians how far the state has come. He repeated his mantra that he wants every family “to have a job”.

http://www.itsworkingflorida.com

A tuition hike is in the works at the state capitol.  After months of what looked like a tuition neutral legislative session, the Florida House is breaking ranks with the Governor and the Senate and pursuing a six percent increase.  The suggested tuition hike is furthering the divide between the Florida House and the Governor.

Before the 2013 legislative session began, Presidents of Florida’s public universities gathered in Tallahassee and promised not to raise tuition.

The schools are seeking an extra 118 million dollars.  If the legislature gives them the money, they promise not to increase tuition for a year.   They may not have a choice, says House Speaker Will Weatherford. “We may see a smaller tuition increase.  It’s not going to be a double digit increase or anything like that,” says Weatherford.

In a one-on-one interview with Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford Monday, Weatherford says it’s hard to find the cash the schools are seeking

“Unfortunately we don’t have 418 million dollars, but we’ve got about 360.  So to bridge the gap and to get them to the ask that they had, there’s a six percent tuition increase, but not a 15.  We think a 15 is too high” says the House Speaker, whose word is gospel for his majority party.

Governor Rick Scott has long opposed tuition increases.  He is holding his ground.  “I’m against tuition increases.  This is a tax.  It’s a tax on students.  It’s a tax on families.  We can’t be raising the cost to get higher education in this state” says the Governor.

This is the second time this session the House has openly opposed the governor.

The first was over the Medicaid Expansion.   Scott changed his stance on accepting the money to expand the entitlement last month, but couldn’t convince enough House members to change position.

The following statement was released by Rick Oppenheim, APR, CPRC
RB Oppenheim Associates on behalf of former Lt. Governor Jennifer Carroll

A STATEMENT FROM FORMER LT. GOVERNOR JENNIFER CARROLL

On Monday, March 18, 2013, the group Integrity Florida conducted a news conference on proposed ethics legislation, led by the organization’s executive director, Dan Krassner. Mr. Krassner stated that Integrity Florida’s mission is to “promote integrity in government and expose public corruption.” The news conference then advocated for legislation intended to strengthen Florida’s ethics laws.

I support the legislation for which Integrity Florida is advocating. I agree that public officials should take financial disclosure very seriously, take greater care in completing financial disclosure forms, suffer penalties for errors, omissions and inaccuracies and that the Ethics Commission should be given greater enforcement powers.

I admit that I should have taken greater care with filling out my own financial disclosure forms from the past five-to-10 years and apologize for any confusion or concern caused by alleged inconsistencies.

However, I also want to emphasize that I moved quickly to clear up errors on those forms. Yes, I made mistakes, including putting a comma in the wrong place, not explaining (which was not a requirement of the Commission on Ethics) that a jump in net worth from one year to the next was the result of an inheritance following the death of my parents and included jointly owned assets and mortgages (which were owned by my husband and his assets were not subject to reporting – though they were added to an amended form). In 2010, the Governor’s campaign lawyer, Trevor Potter, even reviewed my financials, noted all line items and expressed no concerns with my forms which detailed how things were accounted for.

Yes, I agree with Mr. Krassner that some of my financial disclosure forms were “sloppy at best,” but it is incredible that he indicts me by using the term “potentially inaccurate.” Potentially? Mr. Krassner said that we need to strengthen the Ethics Commission so they can “ask questions long before we have resignations or corruption probes.” Corruption probes?

Mr. Krassner uses leading questions and suggestive language to hint at ethical lapses and corrupt intent. That is patently absurd.

I find it offensive, degrading and objectionable that Mr. Krassner suggests that, because of how I filled out these forms five-to-10 years ago, I should now be considered the “poster child” for ethics reform and corruption. My resignation last week as lieutenant governor had absolutely no connection to that.

Yes, I am guilty of being “sloppy” with those forms and making errors (that I quickly corrected). But, I am most certainly NOT guilty of ethics violations or corruption. No charges have ever been filed against me, and no one has even alleged anything to that effect – until Mr. Krassner’s outlandish, irresponsible and sensational remarks yesterday. Why hasn’t Mr. Krassner looked at Members new worth forms that indicate zero net worth?  Now, in my opinion, that would be grounds for ethics violation.

On other points made during his press conference, he should be applauded and supported. But, on the matter of citing me as an example of what is wrong in Florida with regard to ethics and corruption, Mr. Krassner should be ashamed of himself.