Welcome to

This was supposed to be the year fair districts resulted in a competitive election for the Florida legislature, but almost one-third of the House and Senate were elected before the first vote was ever cast. That’s because 50 House and Senate members have no or only token opposition. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, mistakes were made.

Two Republicans will square off in Senate District 22 in south Pinellas County. Obama won the district in 2008, yet Democrats failed to even field a candidate. Strategists say a mistake was made.

“Should the Democrats have had a candidate in that seat? Absolutely,” Democratic consultant Screven Watson said.

Democrats also abandoned House district 83 on the east coast despite Obama winning the district as well.

What Democrats lack is a central, coordinated effort between the House, the Senate, and the party; and because of that, operatives on both sides of the aisle, say that Democrats are missing opportunities.

Republican Lawyer-Lobbyist Pete Dunbar counts eight races where Democrats missed the boat.

“What helps a party win is good candidate recruitment, and to drop the ball and not be engaged in recruitment in areas where you know demographically you have a chance to win, to me is a pretty big failure,” Dunbar said.

Democrats say they have less cash than Republicans, and they argue they are spending their money wisely, trying to chip away at a Republican supermajority before trying to build their own.

“It was really hard to encourage folks to expend time and money on a district that they were unsure of until late, and ultimately, unsure if it will even be the district the next time they run,” Democratic Party Chairman Rod Smith said.

In the end, 28 House members face no opposition, and ten Senators go unchallenged or face only token opponents.

Ironically, while Democrats left some winnable seats unchallenged, they did file challengers in some districts with powerful incumbents and a sizable majority of voters, all in an effort to get the incumbent to spend a lot of money.

As the high profile sex abuse trial of a long-time Penn State football coach makes national headlines this week, Mike Vasilinda tells us state lawmakers are trying to make sure Florida universities don’t sweep abuses under the rug by imposing large fines for schools that don’t report abuses.

The Penn State scandal brought down a legendary coach, the University president, and more.

There’s no indication whatsoever that any big-time athletic program here in Florida has ignored abuses like those that occurred at Penn State. But state lawmakers aren’t taking any chances.

House Bill 1355 signed by the Governor imposes a one million dollar fine on schools that look the other way. The legislation was pushed by a father-daughter duo.

“That sends a message that we’re not going to let a Penn State, a Syracuse, a Citadel circumstance happen here,” Ron Book said.

Daughter Lauren Book was abused for years by her Nanny. She’s turned that experience into a crusade–criss-crossing the state for children.”

“My hope is that when somebody suspects an abuse, that they make a report; that they make a report and that children are kept safe; and that once that report is made, it triggers an investigation so that children are not left in peril,” Lauren Book said.

The legislation is expected to increase the number of calls to the child abuse hot line by 40 thousand a year. The increase is due to an expansion of who is required to report.

Previously, the hot line only took calls about care givers who were suspected of hurting their charges. Now it will take calls about anyone.

The new requirements and penalties take effect October First. The Department and Children and Families was given money to hire forty additional call specialists to handle the increased number of reports.

There’s a lawsuit free-for-all forming in Florida over the state’s effort to keep illegal voters from casting ballots. At the center of the controversy is a Department of Homeland Security database. As Whitney Ray tells us, the state is suing for access, while the feds are preparing a suit to stop Florida from removing illegal voters.

A campaign to prevent illegally registered voters from casting ballots in Florida is pitting the state against the feds. The state is suing for access to the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration database known as SAVE. Secretary of State Ken Detzner says the database would help clean up Florida’s voting rolls quickly.

“This is the one single database in Washington that can help us absolutely validate non-citizenship,” said Detzner.

Detzner says DHS is required by law to allow the state to access the database for voter registration purposes.

He references a 2011 assessment conducted by DHS which says SAVE is for “…any legal purpose such as background investigations and voter registration.”

The state began negotiating for use of the database last year, but with no luck. Finally it tired of waiting and in May, launched its voter purge efforts using a list of names from the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles.

But that list was flawed and dozens of natural born citizens, some of them war heroes, were caught in the fray. Rob Smith, the Chairman of the Florida Democrats, says the governor’s efforts are politically motivated.

“He is trying to gin up his base again, get the Tea Party excited. He’s taking on the federal government. It’s a state’s rights issue,” said Smith.

While Democrats and Republicans and the state and feds battle over what to do next, the purge has been put on hold, because Florida’s Supervisors of Elections refuse to ask anymore voters if they’re legally registered.

A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security says DHS doesn’t comment on pending litigation, but though email, DHS has told the state it wants more information about the voters in question. The Chairman of the Florida Democrats says, the state isn’t being giving access to the database because of security concerns.

Big changes may be in the future for Florida’s 12 public universities. The Florida’s Blue Ribbon Task Force on Higher Education Reform, held its first in-person meeting today in Tallahassee. The task force was formed by the governor to lower the cost of college and push more students in to high tech and science related programs. Board of Governor’s Chancellor Frank Brogan says there’s a lot of interest in improving the system.

“Right now the issue of higher education in Florida is the hottest topic in town and I think that goes well not only for the state university system eventually but also the state of Florida,” said Brogan.

The board of governor’s will meet next week to discuss tuition increases. Florida universities can requests increases up to 15 percent a year. UF has requested a nine percent tuition increase. Brogan doesn’t expect any schools to increase the maximum 15 percent.

“I can tell you that if universities are walking in to next week’s meeting in Orlando simply expecting to get a 15 percent differential increase, they need to think again.” said Brogan.

The task force studying the state’s controversial Stand Your Ground Law meets for the second time on Tuesday. It will meet in Seminole County outside Orlando, the same county in which a neighborhood watch volunteer is charged with shooting an unarmed black teenager. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, thousands of people are letting the state know what they think.

The 17-member Stand Your Ground Task Force is going to Ground Zero. It will meet Tuesday in Longwood, 12 miles from the gated subdivision where Trayvon Martin died. Lt. governor Jennifer Carrol says the location is not a coincidence.

“The situation with Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman occurred there,” Lt. Gov. Carroll said. “It’s a matter of healing too, because I don’t believe that the citizens have had an opportunity to really voice their opinion.”

Since the task force’s initial meeting on May 1st, a web site has received more than 1700 emails. Most are pro gun.

A Pensacola man assets that Stand your ground is a “god given right.” Lois Nichols of Port St. Lucie says no change is needed, while a Jacksonville man says the legislation is stopping thugs from vicious attacks.

Of the 25 messages available online Friday, only one, from a Manatee County woman, suggested the law needed fixing and that the concealed carry law needed to be eliminated.

The Lieutenant Governor is one of four task force members who voted for the initial legislation. She says the final task force recommendation will be based on hard data, now being collected by the College of Law at the University of Florida.

“So we’ll be able to get statistical data back to the task force to show whether we have fairness,” Carroll said.

The Task Force’s recommendation isn’t expected until early next year.,

The task force’s official name is the Task Force on Citizen Safety and Protection. You can access their web site at this link, where you can find out about future meetings and send your own opinion if you so choose. http://www.flgov.com/citizensafety/

Three Florida Supreme Court Justices are under investigation for using court staff to notarize political paperwork. As Whitney Ray tells us, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation could end with the justices in the defendants seats.

In danger of missing a deadline to have their names on the 2012 ballot, these three Florida Supreme Court justices took a bold step. They placed their hearing on-hold, and over the next hour finished their qualifying paperwork using court staff to help complete and notarize the documents. They beat the noon deadline, but in the process raised concerns over how they did it.

Days later Representative Scott Plakon wrote this letter to Governor Rick Scott calling for an investigation. Thursday the Florida Department of Law Enforcement decided to pursue the case.

“After review the allegations, FDLE made the decision to open an investigation,” said FDLE Spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger.

In a phone interview with Plakon Friday, he told me, he just wants the justices to follow the same rules as everyone else.

“Someone should take a look at it because I think most Floridians would agree that no one should be above the law, even if you are a Supreme Court Justice,” said Plakon.

At the heart of the investigation is whether or not the justices broke the law when they used court staff, paid with your taxpayer money, to carryout their personal, political business. It’s not without precedent. All the justices on the 2010 ballot used court employees to notarize their merit retention paperwork.

If FDLE does find wrong doing, the justices will likely face misdemeanor charges. A spokesperson for one of the justices says court employees are used regularly to notarize important documents. She looks for the FDLE investigation to be wrapped up quickly and the justices to prevail.

Florida A & M Universities Board of Trustee’s, by an eight to four vote, said they have no confidence in the School’s President. But, as Mike Vasilinda tells us, the vote is a message to the President that he could be fired soon if problems aren’t solved quickly.

100 non students on a state paid band trip, false audits, “sexual assaults of minors at the FAMU developmental research school,” and a drum major who died from hazing, all looked to trustees like a university without leadership.

“I am deeply troubled by what appears to be a serious lack of oversight and serious gaps in communication,” FAMU Trustee Belinda Reed Shannon said.

“Not knowing is, in fact, an indication of poor management,” Trustee Narayan Persaud said.

The vote was two to one against the President

“Eight yes votes, and 4 no votes.”

The vote means that the president gets to keep his job, but he’s been told, this is your last chance.

“I hear you loudly and clearly,” University president Dr. James Ammons said. “I understand that there are some measures that I have to take as president of this University to fix things, and I’m going to fix them.”

Reaction afterwards was mixed.

“I think if Dr. Ammons cannot make significant changes in the way that he leads this university, I think it will lead to his removal,” Trustee William Jennings said.

Trustees have their next face-to-face meeting in September. Any action before then is unlikely, unless new problems are discovered.

It’s a category where you don’t want to finish first, but tonight a watchdog group is ranking Florida number one in government corruption. As Whitney Ray tells us, Integrity Florida says laws need to be changed to keep the state’s politicians honest.

They were elected to office, given power by the people and trusted not abuse their authority, but in the past decade more than 780 Florida politicians have been convicted on federal corruption charges.

Tuesday, Integrity Florida released a report ranking the state first in the nation for public corruption, blaming weak laws for the rampant abuse of power.

“It’s essentially like having speeding limits but no officers on the beat to catch speeders when they break the law,” said Dan Krassner, President of Integrity Florida

The report comes as the Florida Commission on Ethics prepares to draft its 2013 legislative agenda. Integrity Florida hopes to play a major role in their plans.

The nonprofit government watchdog is offering several suggestions. Including a hotline where callers can remain anonymous and giving the ethics commission the authority to launch its own investigations.

The ideas have been suggested before, but the group hopes the report brings a renewed sense of urgency to the state legislature.

“I think the time is right for some real political leadership,” said Ben Wilcox Research Director with Integrity Florida.

The report suggests corruption knows no bounds, black, white, male or female, all have been caught ripping of Florida taxpayers.

Reporter: is the corruption you found more pervasive in either of the major political parties?
Dan: corruption is a nonpartisan issue.

Another fix for Florida’s corruption problem is more transparency. Integrity Florida wants elected officials to disclose all their finances online for public viewing. Integrity Florida also wants the maximum civil penalty for ethics laws violations increased from 10-thousand dollars to 25-thousand.

The Florida League of Woman Voters is preparing to re-launch its voter registration efforts. The league stopped signing up new voters last year after Florida new election laws put a 48 hour deadline in place for third party registration groups to turn in voter applications. Marion Wills with the Florida League of Woman Voters says the deadline was too tight for their volunteers.

“When you are working with somebody you are paying to do this, you can enforce that. When you are working with volunteers it’s a whole different story,” said Wills.

Last week a federal judge through out the 48 hour provision. Now third party registration groups have 10 days to turn in voter applications. The League of Woman Voters will be signing up volunteers over the next few days and will begin registration drives next week.

Florida A & M University trustees meet in a day-long workshop tomorrow and officially on Thursday to consider new anti-hazing measures being proposed by President James Ammons. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, the draft proposal would fix many of the problems discovered during the investigation of a drum majors death by hazing.

A tough new anti-hazing plan will be in place before the fall semester, if the Florida A&M University Trustees agree. Dr. James Ammons disclosed a broad outline of the plan in an exclusive interview last week.

“We think its necessary for us to have NCAA-type regulations in place,” Dr. Ammons said.

Trustees will meet a total of 18 hours over two days. About three hours of that time will be spent on the band and hazing.

The draft agenda shows an anti-hazing officer reporting directly to the president. A compliance officer in the Music department will enforce new requirements for band members. Those requirements include:

• Maintaining a 2.5 Grade Point Average

• Band practice will be limited to 20 hours per week.

• There can be no off campus meetings

• Eligibility for band travel will have to be approved by three people, starting with the band director

• Band members will also be limited to four years of performing on the field

• And all band members must be full time or near full time students.

Senior Paige Turner believes the changes may have limited affect.

Reporter: You don’t think it will stop it?

“No,” Turner said.

Reporter: Why not?

“Because, I mean, even if you have a good GPA, you can still take part in stuff like that, or even if you have a bad GPA,” she said. “Good people do bad things sometimes.”

The draft plan also calls for all faculty, staff and students to sign a new anti hazing agreement.

The band lost three faculty members as a result of the hazing scandal. They will be replaced by visiting professors while the school searches for permanent replacements.

The final round of FCAT scores have been released, foreshadowing more failing schools in Florida. FCAT scores are used to help figure a schools overall grade and as Whitney Ray tells us, the new, higher standards will mean more Ds and Fs for Florida schools.

The final round of FCAT scores were better than predicted, still, four out of 10 elementary and middle-schoolers failed math and reading. Half failed science.

In a conference call with reporters, the Commissioner of Education, explained new standards make it hard to tell if Florida students are gaining or losing ground.

“We need to have two years of data comparing apples to apples to be able to set an achievement standard,” said Commissioner Gerard Robinson.

But that doesn’t mean schools won’t be held accountable for lower scores.

FCAT scores account for half of a schools overall grade, which means the state will see more D and F scores when the Department of Education releases grades this summer.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Education says there are safeguards in place to keep school from falling too far.

“No school can drop more than one grade level this year,” said Spokeswoman Jane Fletcher.

Teachers unions fear the grade will open the doors for a charter school expansion.

“The state would like to see more for-profit entities take over for schools,” said FEA Spokesman Mark Pudlow.

On a trip through the panhandle this week Governor Rick Scott explained why he believes the new standards will work to improve education over time.

“What ever you measure gets improved, so we’ve got come up with measurement systems to constantly improve everything we want to do,” said Scott.

And the bar will only get higher as the state transitions out of FCAT and in to a tougher test by the 2014-2015.

The scores will also be used to determine which teachers receive merit pay. After the score were released, House Minority Leader Ron Saunders released this statement:

“While the FCAT may be helpful as a diagnostic tool, it is being misused as a measuring stick for how we assess student progress and how much we pay our school teachers. Florida House Democratic Caucus members continue to stand in strong support of our students and teachers and in opposition to the current use of the FCAT.”

The State of Florida wants to keep checking the voter database for non citizens, even though the US Department of Justice has said the process is illegal this close to an election. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, the state is expected to argue the purge is just normal maintenance, which is allowed, when it responds later this week.

Candidates lined up Monday to get their name of the ballot this year. Others mailed their paperwork, detailing the area they want to represent. The unanswered question, though, is who’ll be able to vote for them. The U.S. Department of Justice has shut down state efforts to examine voter rolls within 90 days of the August election. We asked Governor Rick Scott why he ordered the effort now.

“There’s no perfect time to do any of these things,” Scott said. “We just want fair elections. That’s what all of us want.”

The State says it has been trying to get Federal approval for the purge and the use of a federal database since last September. A trail of emails show that conference calls to were cancelled by both sides.

As early as a month after first asking to use the database, the state was told it would need an alien database registration number for the computer to make the match. The Catch-22 is that the state doesn’t collect that number because it doesn’t register non-citizens.

What is clear is that the state is not giving up.

Reporter: The 90-day requirement doesn’t apply here, is that right?

“We’ll be addressing that in our letter to DOJ,” Secretary of State Spokesman Chris Cate said.

Reporter: And when will that letter go?

“We’ll send out our letter to DOJ this week,” Cate said.

Initial matches of voters to the state’s suspect list have gone overwhelmingly to the voter who was a citizen and properly registered.

When the clock clicked noon today, the official five day period for state and local candidates to qualify began. A few dozen candidates arrived to deliver their papers in person. Hundreds others opted for mail or courier.

State Representative Clay Ford of Pensacola thinks it is appropriate for the candidate to make the effort to deliver the oath of office and check in person.

“I just think it’s something that’s so important to do,” Ford said. “It kinda makes a statement that I’m interested enough to get here and make sure it’s done right.”

Clay County Clerk James Jett filed his paperwork to run in Congressional District 3. Weeks ago, Jett complained he was offered money and other favors on behalf of incumbent Cliff Stearns to get out of the race. That offer, says Jett, is part of what the campaign is about, as well as leadership in Washington.

“Because I think I can make a difference,” Jett said. “The country’s in trouble. I think that this is the most important election in the history of America, and I believe that there are going to be a lot of James Jett elected throughout this nation, as a result of the problems we’re in.”

Representative Irv Slosberg of Palm Beach personally filed his paperwork to run for re-election. He says the District 91 seat is more compact after new legislative boundaries were drawn, and that compactness, he says, will benefit Palm Beach County and its residents.

“Before I was in two legislative delegations, Broward and Palm Beach County,” Slosberg said. “And now it’s only Palm Beach County if I win.”

Reporter: Is that a better deal, do you think?

“Well, it’s better for everyone that I can stay more focused on Palm Beach County rather than split the focus from Palm Beach County and Broward County,” he said.

Qualifying ends at noon on Friday.

Fifty-Eight thousand ninth graders will have to retake Algebra and pass or they won’t graduate. More than half of Florida ninth graders failed the now mandatory end-of-course math exam. As Whitney Ray tells us, this means summer school for many of the test-flunkers.

Click Here for a county by county and a school by school breakdown:

Forget Disney World, or even the beach. Many Florida ninth graders will spend their summer in school, because they flunked Algebra.

On a conference call Friday morning, the Florida Department of Education told reporters more than 58-thousand ninth graders failed the end-of-course algebra exam. That’s more than half of the students that took the test.

Later the Commissioner of Education, Gerard Robinson, told reporters the good news is there’s time for a do-over.

“We actually have several programs for students who did not pass, to take courses in remediation,” said Robinson.

This is the first time ever ninth graders have had to pass the test in order to graduate. It’s part of the state’s efforts to set higher standards and to phase out the FCAT.

By 2015, students will also have to pass tests in Geometry and Biology to get their degree.

“So we will actually have some of the best educated students in the United States,” said Robinson.

Leon High School students scored better than most, with 8 out of 10 passing campus wide. Still there will be more summer school students, stretching budgets thin.

“We are probably only have to remediate 40 or 50 kids, where other schools throughout the state, we’re talking hundreds and that’s going to be a major problem. You can’t continue to cut, cut, cut and ask more, more, more,” said Leon County Principal Rocky Hanna.

Students who opt out of summer school algebra, can take the course online or wait till next year. But waiting means they risk falling even further behind.

Commissioner Robinson says the test will better prepare students for the PARCC, or the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers test. The test will replace the FCAT beginning in the 2014- 2015 School year.

The feds are telling the Florida Division of Elections to stop efforts to remove illegally registered voters from the voting roles. Today many elections supervisors followed complied, but the Republican Party of Florida has a different plan. They’re asking the feds to help. RPOF has launched this online petition asking the president to make available a federal immigration database. RPOF Chairman Lenny Curry says the database would keep the state from misidentifying legally registered voters as illegal.

“The big question is why won’t the administration work with us with the data in that database? The only thing I can come up with is they want to politicize this,” said Curry.

The feds are giving the Division of Elections until June 6th to respond to their request to stop the purging. The efforts are catching heat because some of the people the state identified as illegally registered turned out to be US Veterans. RPOF says the federal database would prevent those types of mistakes.