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Governor Rick Scott’s popularity is plummeting. A Quinnipiac Poll released today shows the governor’s job approval rating at 39 percent. As Whitney Ray tells us, the drop comes as the man hired to make Scott more likable prepares to leave.

In May of last year just 29 percent of Florida voters approved of the job Governor Rick Scott was doing. So Scott hired a new chief of staff, invited reporters over for donuts, ditched his executive suits and changed his official photo to a more causal picture.

Under the watchful eye of his new chief advisor Scott’s approval rating rose to 41 percent. But now it’s falling again.

A Quinnipiac Poll released Wednesday shows Scott’s rating dropping to 39 percent. Pollster Peter Brown says the governor needs more support from his own party.

“One of the reasons he’s having so many problems, is his Republican numbers are low,” said Brown.

Scott received a 71 percent job approval rating among Republican voters, but experts say a sitting governor should be able to get 80 or even 90 percent support within his own party. I caught up with Scott after the poll was released. He told me there is only one number he was concerned about.

“The only number I look at every month is our unemployment rate and as you know we are bucking the national trend. We’ve come down 2.5 percent in the last 17 months,” said Scott.

And if Florida’s unemployment rate improves Scott’s job approval will likely rise with it.

The man who helped bring Scott’s popularity to its highest point is stepping down amid questions about how he handled state contracts. Steve MacNamara’s last day as the governor’s chief of staff is July first.

Former US Senator George LeMieux has given up his fight for another term in Washington. LeMieux dropped out of the race this morning, sending this video message to his supporters and giving a lukewarm endorsement to his Republican Rival Connie Mack.

“In order to have the best chance to beat Bill Nelson and put the senate in Republican hands, today we will end our campaign. To continue would only hurt our chances in the fall and that is not something I will risk. Connie Mack will be our nominee. He has my support,” said LeMieux.

A Quinnipiac Poll on the race will be released tomorrow. The last poll showed LeMieux more than 30 points behind Mack.

“Obviously LeMieux wasn’t doing well. I can’t talk about tomorrow’s poll, but let’s talk about the last poll. LeMieux couldn’t get out of single digits in a Republican Primary. He was running badly behind Nelson in a matchup,” said Brown.

LeMieux trailed from the beginning and with Mack refusing to debate him, his campaign quickly ran out of ways to raise money and gain voter support. Governor Rick Scott was asked about LeMieux leaving the race. Scott wished the former senator well and gave some advice to the remaining candidates.

“I wish Sen. LeMieux success. I’m hopeful the individuals who are still in the race focus on jobs because it’s the biggest issue that we have,” said Scott.

Mack is expected to glide to victory in the Republican Primary in August and face a tough general election against sitting Democratic Senator Bill Nelson.

Six out of 10 Floridians support Governor Rick Scott’s effort to prevent illegally registered voters from casting ballots.

A new Quinnipiac Poll asked Florida voters if they agreed with the governor’s campaign to purge the voter rolls. Scott says he’s surprised support isn’t even higher.

“I’ve not meet one person in the state who thinks that non-US Citizens should be voting in our elections. Nobody does. It’s my job to make sure that I do every thing I can to make sure only US Citizens vote in our races,” said Scott.

According to the poll 35 percent oppose Scott’s efforts. He’s also being sued by the federal government, the ACLU and a group of minority voters to stop the purge.

By Thursday Florida college students will know how much their tuition will increase. Most of Florida’s public universities are asking for a 15 percent tuition hike, the max. But as Whitney Ray tells us, Governor Rick Scott is hoping for a different outcome.

A battle born before the beginning of the 2012 legislative session is coming to a head. Governor Rick Scott told lawmakers to fund education and leave tuition alone.

“With level funding of the universities, they shouldn’t be increasing tuition,” said Scott when he unveiled his budget on December 7th, 2011.

Scott got most of what he wanted. Lawmakers passed a budget with no tuition increases, but at the same time, cut university spending by 300 million dollars, asking schools to use reserves to make up the different.

But what happened here was just round one. Scott signed the budget with no tuition increase, then vetoed a bill to allow UF and FSU to raise rates as much as they want.

Now, it’s the University System’s Board of Governors turn to decide whether or not to raise rates. Most schools are asking for the max allowed by state law, 15 percent. Chancellor Frank Brogan says good luck.

“Fifteen percent is going to be a though ask this year because of the ongoing 15 percent increases, but also knowing the recession is taking its toll on everyone and that includes students,” said Brogan.

“I know a lot of students that took semesters off, because they didn’t have money to pay for school and things like that,” said FSU Senior Jeremy Shaw.

Reporter: You’re afraid they will price students out of a college education?

Jodeci: Pretty much yes. That’s what it’s looking like. As long as we keep on this upward expediential trend people aren’t going to be able to go.

Even if schools raise tuition the max amount it will only make up for about a third of the state funding cut.

Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, will discuss results of a poll of Florida voters, asking their opinions about Gov. Rick Scott, his efforts to purge non-citizens from voter rolls and the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law, Wednesday, 10 am, Florida Press Center, 336 East College Avenue, Tallahassee.

A Circuit Court judge in Tallahassee spent an hour this morning listening to arguments over Barack Obama’s birth certificate. Plaintiff and registered Democrat Michael Voeltz is asking that the President’s name be taken off the ballot because, as Mike Vasilinda tells us, he believes Barack Obama is not a US citizen.

Michael Voeltz was a registered voter with no party affiliation until last fall. Now he is a Democrat suing to keep Barrack Obama off Florida’s ballot.

Judge Terry Lewis listened skeptically to an hour’s worth of arguments Monday morning.

“What if it was artificial insemination and you don’t know who the father was?” Judge Lewis asked.

“Then you’re out of luck to be President,” the Plantiff’s lawyer replied.

The Obama Campaign and Florida’s Secretary of State are on the same side in the suit.

“We ask that Your Honor grant the motion to dismiss for failure to state a cause of action.”

They want it dismissed because they say Obama is simply a candidate yet to be nominated by his party.

“There has been no nomination to office, there has been no election to office, as a result of the presidential preference primary of January 31,” Obama Campaign attorney Mark Herron said.

But Attorney Larry Klayman calls that argument nothing more than a delaying tactic.

“What the defendants are doing is basically trying to push the issue down the road and create a fait accompli,” Klayman said. “It’s a shell game.”

The judge gave both sides a week to submit a proposed order. Voeltz says the suit is important to the future of the country.

“He was imprinted very early with anti-American attitudes, that were imprinted on him by, you know, a Communist mother, a Communist father, who was never a citizen of the United States,” Voeltz said.

Michael Voletz wouldn’t tell us what he does for a living, but he does say he isn’t wealthy. And when asked how he was paying for the lawsuit, told us “I don’t really think that’s any of your business.”

The Attorney seeking to disqualify the President from the Florida Ballot also told the judge today that he did not believe US Senator Marco Rubio should be allowed to run for President because Rubio’s parents were born in Cuba.

Almost since the moment he took office, Governor Rick Scott has been caught up in litigation. His most recent suit is over efforts to prevent illegal voters from casting ballots. As Whitney Ray tells us, the governor has lost more lawsuits than he’s won, but many of those decisions are being appealed.

Shortly after taking office Governor Rick Scott derailed the train. Scott singlehandedly turned away 2.4 billion federal dollars for high speed rail. State lawmakers sued, but the Florida Supreme Court sided with Scott.

Scott’s win record stops there. Since beating the train, Scott’s lost a lawsuit over drug testing state workers, and a separate suit over drug testing welfare recipients.

When he tried to privatize state prisons, the Florida Police Benevolent Association sued and won. They also beat Scott in a court battle over state workers pension contributions.

“We certainly don’t want to continue to sue in order to prevent the governor and the legislature from committing ills against the taxpayers and you know that’s something the taxpayers ought to ask,” said Matt Puckett with the Florida Police Benevolent Association.

Making controversial decisions has made Scott a magnet for lawsuits, and so far he’s not fairing well in court. By our count Scott has one win, four losses and a tie.

The tie came over Florida’s new elections law. A federal judge upheld most of the new provisions, like shortening early voting, but a deadline requiring voter registration forms to be turned in 48 hours after they’re signed was recently thrown out.

But not all is lost yet. To the chagrin of the PBA Scott is appealing the pension and prison privatization decisions. And only time will tell what will happen with the governor’s voter purge lawsuits. Scott’s suing for access to a federal immigration database, and the feds are suing Scott to stop the purge.

The Florida Commission on Ethics is trying to collect more than $100,000.00 dollars in fines issued more than four years ago. City Council Members, Mayors and even a State Representative are on the list. Commissioners are asking state lawmakers from the authority to collect the money owed. Integrity Florida plans to push the issue during the 2013 legislative session.

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Florida’s unemployment rate dropped one tenth of a percent in May, marking the lowest it has been since December 2008. The downtick in the joblessness is having a positive effect on state tax collections, and real estate transactions are leading the way.

Peter and Mary Ribaudo spent the last four years trying to sell their Bradenton home. They’d just about given up when out of the blue they got an offer.

” We were surprised when along came a buyer. Um, It seemed to come out of nowhere and we thought this is the time we might sell” says Peter.

Now the couple has made an offer on a home in Tallahassee. It wasn’t their first choice, but Mary says other homes they were considering were snapped up before they could make an offer.

“These houses are moving quickly, and and you’ve got more than one person, sometimes, on a house.”

The taxes from the sale of real estate is one of the brightest pictures in Florida. It’s seventeen million dollars over estimate in just May alone. One reason for the uptick is that banks are lending again. Since the beginning of the year, financial institutions have created 57 hundred new jobs. That accounts for one of every ten new jobs created in Florida since the first of the year.

John Sebree of the Florida Realators says the horizon looks promising. “And the fact that pending sales are up thirty five percent shows that people are back in the market, they’re ready” says Sebree.

And realtors like Steve Hourigas are counting on the trend continuing. “They are out there ready to buy…if they take too long, they may not be buying what they thought they were buying”.

One of every four homes being sold is being purchased by a foreign national.

While home sales are increasing, new construction remains one of the hardest hit areas in the state’s economy\, losing twenty two thousand jobs over the last year.

Elected officials in Florida owe more than 100-thousand dollars in ethics violation fines and they have no intention of paying them. The Florida Commission on Ethics has no way to collect the money, but as Whitney Ray tells us, they’re asking the legislature to give them more authority to police ethics violators.

They’ve been compared to a paper tiger, fierce looking, but no teeth. At best the Florida Commission on Ethics can force elected officials to hire a lawyer and do the walk of shame past TV cameras.

But when it comes to penalties they have no authority to actually make violators pay.

“So we have a law. We just don’t have an enforcement mechanism in the law,” said Commissioner Matthew Carlucci.

Right now Florida politicians owe more than 100-thousand dollars in ethics fines. The commissioners tried to collect the money using private collection agencies, but if a fine isn’t paid within four years, it’s no longer valid.

“I can’t believe that a sitting house member hasn’t paid his fine,” said Commissioner Morgan Bentley.

To make violators pay, commissioners put fine collection authority at the top of their 2013 legislative wish list.

Dan Krassner, the director of Integrity Florida supports the change along with a dozen more to give the commission teeth.

“Integrity Florida would like to see an elevation of the issue of self-initiation of investigation of putting state ethics law enforcement officers on the beat,” said Krassner.

But getting the agenda approved is just the first step. Getting the changes passed the legislature is a whole nother battle. Lawmakers haven’t approve any changes to the ethics commission in more than a decade.

One hold back to giving the commission more power is many lawmakers have faced ethics violations and given the choice between a paper tiger and the real thing, most choose paper.

Included in the list of proposed changes are increasing the maximum fine from 10-thousand to 25-thousand dollars and allowing the commission to launch its own investigations. Right now the commission can only investigate a claim if a complaint is filed.

Things aren’t looking too bright for the Sunshine State when it comes to solar energy. A new report ranks Florida 14th in the nation in new solar production, at a time when, as Whitney Ray tells us, the solar industry nationwide is booming.

Welcome to the Sunshine State, but don’t let the name fool you. There is a lot of sun, but when it comes to solar power, the state is lagging.

A new report shows the US solar industry grew by 85 percent during the first quarter of 2012. New Jersey is leading production with Florida down the list at number 14. Kim Ross with Rethink Energy Florida says the ranking is unacceptable.

“There’s really no better place to have solar than here in the State of Florida. The reason we don’t have it is because our current politicians are hooked in the old paradigm,” said Ross.

Supporters of alternative forms of energy say the state was headed in the right direction five years ago when if offered massive rebates to people who installed solar panels on their homes. The program was so popular the state couldn’t afford to pay the rebates so the program had to be nixed.

Now Florida has a new energy policy. The director of the state Office of Energy says Florida is exploring its alterative energy options and solar is just part of the equation.

“We’re not going to pick solar has the number one technology to solve our problems. It’s going to part of an overall diverse sort of menu of options that we want to give Floridians,” said Patrick Sheehan, the director of the state energy office.

Most of the states above Florida on the solar list have a renewable energy standard, but Florida lawmakers have balked at the idea… leaving the state with nothing to shoot for.

The Florida Commissioner of Agriculture oversees the Office of Energy. He’ll hold an energy summit in Orlando this August where solar energy is expected to be a hot topic.

Governor Rick Scott, who is being sued by the Federal Government over his efforts to remove what he believes to be illegal voters from the rolls before this years elections, disclosed today that in 2006 he was told he couldn’t vote because he was deceased. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, Scott believes the mistake is proof that legitimate voters will always be able to have their votes counted.

Governor Rick Scott begins most mornings with a calls to talk radio shows. Thursday, he was defending his efforts to remove potential non citizens from the voter rolls, when he dropped this story about when he went to vote in 2006.

“They said I had passed away,” Scott said. “I said, here’s my drivers license, I’m here, I’m really alive. So they allowed me to vote provisionally, and then they went back and checked and saw actually I was alive.”

It was Florida’s Secretary of State using another agency’s database that told the Supervisor of Elections in Naples that Rick Scott was dead.

The Secretary of State sent information to Collier County that showed Richard E. Scott, born 12/1/1952, had died in January ‘06. But the Governor’s middle initial is ‘L”.

Collier County Deputy Elections Supervisor Tim Durham says it is the only time he has seen such a mistake.

“Very unusual set of circumstances,” Durham said. “The other Rick Scott has a different middle initial, he was also a Florida resident, with the exact same date of birth.”

Scott used the story to illustrate his point that voters who are eligible will indeed be able to cast a vote and have it counted, but the American Civil Liberties Unions says there is another lesson to be learned.

“What happened to him shows what is wrong about using inaccurate data to throw people off the voting rolls,” Howard Simon of the Florida ACLU said.

The Secretary of State’s office says it now no longer relies on the Department of Health database.

Comedians looking for material are finding a boatload in Florida. National comedy programs and late night talk shows are mocking Governor Rick Scott and his policies. As Whitney Ray tells us, the latest came last night when Jon Stewart spent an entire segment of his show cracking jokes about Scott.

He’s been asked to pee in a cup, called Mr. Clean and compared to a villain from a popular kid’s movie

“He probably would be doing better if he wasn’t trying to kill Harry Potter,” said Stephen Colbert on his June 27th, 2011 Show.

Governor Rick Scott’s latest appearance on a national comedy show came Tuesday night, when comedian Jon Stewart began his program with this.

“Every now and again, a politician comes along that is just truly terrible and really deserving of more scorn than even we can dole out,” said Stewart on his June 11th, 2012 show.

Stewart went on to mock Scott’s efforts to remove illegal voters from the rolls.

“So a voter purge weighted against Hispanic voters, closing polls on a day when many African Americans vote. Nice Try Governor,” Stewart continued.

But it’s not just Stewart and Stephen Colbert mocking Scott. Jay Leno took a stab at the governor’s chief of staff last month and on a trip to Spain, Spanish comedians had a field day after Scott embarrassed their king.

The King had recently received bad press for an elephant hunting trip he took while the country’s economy tanked. He had put the scandal to rest until Scott’s visit.

But does the governor deserve the jokes, or are these cheap shots? The Chairman of the Florida Democrats says the attacks on Scott’s policies are valid.

“It’s funny to watch it, but the tragedy is, it’s not at all funny as a matter of policy for the state,” said Chairman Rod Smith.

A spokesman for the governor says Scott’s jobs agenda takes precedence over quote watching liberal-leaning comedy shows. As for jokes about Scott’s efforts to stop illegal voters from casting ballots, the governor’s spokesman Lane Wright said quote,

“So far, from that small sample, about 100 non citizens admitted they shouldn’t be on the rolls and have been removed. Of those 52 have actually voted in a past election. Over the past 10 years, five elections have been decided by less than 50 votes. So my question to anyone who disagrees would be, just how many non-citizen votes are you willing to ignore in our election process? How many illegal votes are you comfortable with,” asked Wright.

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.