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Governor Rick Scott delivered his eighth and final State of the State speech today to open the annual legislative session. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, he is pushing for the largest budget in state history.

“Let the Governor be received.” Chimed the Senate President.

For Rick Scott, his final State of the State address was bittersweet…evoking rare bit of humor from the Governor.

“I know how disappointed you all must be that you won’t get to hear another great speech like this” Scott said to laughter.

The Governor shared credit for creating a million and a half jobs since taking office.

“The results speak for themselves.”

Scott is also proposing the smallest tax cuts in his 8 years. Just 180 million. He wants a a three week sales tax holiday for hurricane and back to school supplies.

“After the storms we experienced last year, we need to have a longer sales tax holiday so people have time to buy the supplies they need.”

He’s also proposing a cut in the cost to renew a drivers license. From 48 to 20 dollars.

“My dad was a truck driver and if he had  extra money back in his pocket, in my family that wold have been a big deal.”

The Governor is also calling for more protection for sexual harassment victims It comes as two married State Senators admitted to an affair captured on video.

“It’s very important that we all stand together and send a very strong message. Florida stands with victims.”

One of the first fights lawmakers are likely to face is over school funding.

Scott is pushing a nearly 3 percent increase in school funding. He finances it with the case from higher property tax values, but House Speaker Richard Corcoran is drawing a line in the sand.

“The Florida House will never support raising taxes.”

The school funding has the potential to be the most divisive issue of the coming 60 days.

Budget tensions are especially high this session after Hurricane Irma depleted most of the extra tax revenue the state was expecting this year. Economists will make a new estimate in mid February which will determine the final budget numbers.

State of the State Package Script:

Florida lawmakers begin their annual 60 day legislative session tomorrow complicated by a sexual harassment scandal that resulted in resignations, and as Mike Vasilinda

tells us, the political aspirations of some key players.

Governor Rick delivered his first State of the State in 2011. He called for massive budget and tax cuts.

“Government can not afford what some have come to expect” Scott told lawmakers in 2011.

Fast forward 7 years and Scott is seeking a three billion dollar increase…He’s not likely to get all he wants, in part because the state must deal with millions in Hurricane Irma expenses.

“It was a real, a real catastrophic event” says Rep. Ben Albritton. He chairs the House Ag and Natural Resources Budget Subcommittee.

Here’s how he describes the coming budget battle: “We’re gonna have bumps, we’re gonna have bruises. We also going to have some smiles. We’re going to have some encouraging moments and we’re gong to have some tough moments. That’s the way it works.”

While Tuesday is a festive day, it will be complicated by recent allegations of sexual harassment.

State Senator Jack Latvala resigned in December after a damaging Special Masters report.

“This one’s different for a whole host of reasons” Lobbyist Ron Book says of the coming session. This will be his 44th session as a lobbyist.

“Statewide elections cycle, um, divisiveness from a partisan perspective, and then you have the sexual harassment stuff.”

But Senator  Jeff Brandes says the past is the past.
“I think we expect we’re going to get to work on the big issues now. The distractions are behind us” Brandes told us.

Add to the mix the Governor’s likely run for the U-S Senate, the House Speakers chase for the Governor’s mansion, and dozens of lawmakers jockeying for higher office. It adds up to the likelihood that  issues requiring heavy political lift remain on the sideline.

The 87 billion dollar budget proposal by Governor Rick Scott is 18 billion dollars higher than his first budget in 2011, due mostly to an improved economy. He is also seeking the fewest tax cuts of his 7 years as Governor.

When Florida lawmakers return to the Capitol tomorrow, one of the items on the agenda  of House leaders is continued preemption of local government’s ability to regulate things such as vacation rentals or local tree trimming requirements. Scott Dudley, Chief Lobbyist for The Florida League of Cities is lamenting the effort, saying local governments know what’s best for their local communities.

“We have ordinances that say you can’t cut down certain size trees unless you get a permit from the city and have basically, a public input process to it. Cities lose that. They lose their own unique personality and their own look.”

Last year, lawmakers took away local governments authority to regulate new, 5G wireless towers. The Cities are expecting an onslaught of attempts to preempt many local regulations to the state this year.

If the 2018 elections are to be a referendum on President Donald Trump, as many say, Mike Vasilinda tells us the latest entry into the race to be Florida’s next Governor thinks Trump’s support makes him a winner.

Ron DeSantis has represented Florida’s mid east coast in Congress for five years. He announced his gubernatorial bid on FOX news.

“And with the support of the President, I’m in a position where I can exercise the leadership to build on the great work Governor Rick Scott has done to advance economic opportunity, reform education, and drain the swamp in Tallahassee, which needs to be drained, just like Washington” DeSantis told viewers.

Days before Christmas, DeSantis got a ringing endorsement from Donald Trump, who tweeted he would be a great Governor.

“I think it pretty much upsets the whole applecart” says GOP political consultant Mac Stipanovich.

Stipanovich has helped elect GOP governors in Florida before. He believes DeSantis will force more mainstream Republican Adam Putnam to the right.

“DeSantis will be a right…crazy run over a dog in terms of right wing populism. He will pull Adam to his right, as Adam tries to compete for that Trump vote” says DeSantis.

In a statement, Putnam’s campaign criticized DeSantis for making his announcement in a tv studio.

And if the GOP primary does take a hard turn to the right, the likely beneficiary: the Democratic nominee”.

Democrat Gwen Graham quickly called DeSantis “out of touch and too extreme for  Florida.

But the race is still 11 months away. The question is whether support for Trump is enough to drive Democrats to the polls.  Typically Democrat turnout drops y more than a million voters in non presidential elections.

DeSantis and Putnam are the two key contenders for the GOP nomination. House Speaker Richard Corcoran is also expected to enter the race when Florida lawmakers go home in March. Embattled former state senator Jack Latvala remains in the GOP race despite resigning in over sexual harassment charges in December. $ Democrats are serious candidates for their party’s nomination.

Trials for two defendants accused in the murder for hire of an FSU Law Professor were supposed to start this month, but have now peen pushed back until later this year. The crime has been linked the ex wife’s family in court documents, but as Mike Vasilinda tells us, arrests are not on the horizon.

Renowned FSU Law professor Dan Markel was gunned down in his driveway in July 2014. Almost two years late, police arrested two Miami men and accused them of murdering Markel for money.

One of the two. Luis Rivera, cut a deal and implicated co defendant Sigfredo Garcia and his girlfriend, Katie Magbanua.

“You are going to cooperate and testify truthfully” asked Judge James Hankinson during the plea hearing. “Do you understand that?”

“Yes Sir” said Rivera.

Magbanua was arrested in October 2016, accused of brokering the hit for Markel’s ex wife’s family. On Wednesday, her trial was set for this October. Her attorney, Tara Kawass says she hasn’t seen her two children since being taken to jail.

“No, she hasn’t seen her kids, and you can image what it must be like to be incarnated for this long” says Kawass.

Prosecutor georgia Cappleman had hoped that after Rivera confessed and with Magbanua facing life without her two children, she would flip, and testify to prosecutors theory the hit money came from ex wife family.

“is it still your hope that she perhaps becomes ante witness?”

“That would be lovely, but I have little hope of that” Cappleman said after the hearing.

“Really”?

“un hun”

Asked is more arrests are likely, prosecutors said no comment.

An attorney for the family of the slain professor says in a statement

“With this latest delay, the Markels remain in agony.  Dan, their only son, was stolen from them more than three years ago.  …Throughout this horror, the Markels remain hopeful that they will one day see their grandsons again and that justice will be achieved.

The state wants to try both the hitman and his girlfriend together. It plans to appeal today’s action setting separate dates.