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Yesterday, the Florida House passed a bill to put an end to all red light cameras in Florida knowing the Senate would not take the bill up. Today the House amended a Senate bill to prohibit people who make a right turn on red from being ticketed because of a red light camera. Sponsor Richard Corcoran of Port Richey says it was a strategic move to try and get something from the Senate.

“Well, what I think a lot of people raised about, what they don’t like at all about red light cameras, even if they support red light cameras, is ticketing people if they turn right on red.” Corcoran said. “That wasn’t what they believed the bill was for. So all we’ve said is that from now on you can’t ticket right on reds.”

The legislation also says that no city or county can install a red light without first having a study of the intersection to determine whether the camera will make the intersection safer or not.

America’s Public Enemy Number One is dead and Florida’s leaders are celebrating. But they’re also reflecting on the security changes brought on by the September 11th attacks. As Whitney Ray tells us, even though Osama bin Laden is dead the changes brought on after September 11th, 2001 are here to stay.

Hours after two planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers in New York City, Florida’s state capitol was shut down. The president’s brother Jeb Bush was Florida’s governor at the time. There were concerns about his safety.

“Clearly if there was a target in the state it would be the capitol,” said Bush on that day.

Florida’s current governor Rick Scott was on a business trip in New York that day.

“I heard some crash, but I didn’t know anything was going on,” said Scott.

10 years after the worst terrorist attack in US history, Scott and millions more are celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden, the man who took credit for the 9/11 attacks.

“People I worked with had friends that died. Friends of my kids has parents who died,” said Scott.

US Senator Bill Nelson shares Scott’s sentiment.

“It’s been incredible, the intelligents operation gathering information,” said Nelson.

President Barack Obama was praised on the Senate floor Monday, for bringing down bin Laden.

“I also want to applaud our Commander in Chief Barack Obama. Job well done,” said Senate President Mike Haridopolos.

Obama picked up where former President George Bush left off, fueling the war on terror and searching for bin Laden. The Patriot Act is still in effect and security screening at airports have been intensified.

But the attacks not only changed national security, they changed state security as well. These barriers were paid for by the Department of Homeland Security to keep terrorists from driving up to the capitol and inside metal detectors and police officers have been added.

But even in death, bin Laden continues to spread fear. The US is on alert from the state department to watch out for terrorists mourning their lost leader. Governor Rick Scott says local and state law enforcement officers are on heightened alert just in case bin Laden’s death motivates terrorism.

One House Democrat says the pension plan goes too far because it collects more money than needed and gives the excess back to taxpayers in the form of property tax cuts. Representative Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda held a news conference today to call on budget negotiators to nix plans to have state employees contributing to their retirement plans. She was joined by firefighters, state workers and economists. Karen Woodall, the director of the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy, says the legislature’s pension plan will hurt millions of Floridians.

“We are asking teachers, firefighters, police, state employees, we are asking the medically needy, we are asking children through the tax cuts in education over and over again to share the pain,” said Woodall.

Rehwinkel Vasilinda and the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy are asking state lawmakers to close corporate tax loopholes to fill the gap. They say if just some of the loopholes were closed, money could be raised to keep state workers from contributing to their pensions.

2010 was a deadly year for police officers and 2011 is shaping up to be even worse. Despite the lowest crime rate in 40 years, six officers have already been killed since January 1st. Nine were killed in 2010. They were honored today at the state capitol by the Governor and Attorney General Pam Bondi. Bondi says the state needs to do more to keep police officers safe.

“Florida is leading the number of law enforcement deaths in the country this year and we are going to stop that. You know the governor and I were in office only a couple of months and we attended six funerals of law enforcement officers,” said Bondi.

Families of the fallen officers were given plaques in memory of their lost loved ones. They were also given hugs and condolences by Governor Rick Scott and his wife. This is the 29th year for the Law Enforcement Officers’ Memorial service.

An executive order in 2008 created Florida’s Silver Alert program and now law enforcement officers and senior advocates are asking the state legislature to make the program law. Because of the Silver Alert Program when a person suffering from mental illness or dementia is lost, highway signs and radio broadcasts issues alerts. Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Gerald Bailey says the program has helped find dozens of missing seniors.

“Some of those we can say were directly tied to being Silver Alerts, there maybe other, but we knew 43 the sheriff’s and chiefs reported back we knew they were spotted because of a highway sign and a citizen called and said they had seen the particular vehicle,” said Bailey.

The Silver Alert program is still operating but without being written into the Florida Statutes it could be ended or changed any day.

A massive 155-page elections bill pending before the state Senate in Tallahassee would reverse many of the changes made after the 2000 election debacle that kept the election in doubt for 37 days. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, Democrats came out in force today to talk about Democracy.

Early voting would shrink to 8 days but last 12 hours a day. The 50 thousand people who changed their address on election day 2010 would be out of luck and likely out of having their vote counted. They could only vote by provisional ballot. And people who register voters would have just 48 hours to turn in those registrations or face a fine.

Seegar Swanson came to the capitol from Santa Rosa County, where Democrats are outnumbered 60-40, to protest the changes. Seegar says he’ll stop registering voters if the legislation takes effect.

“If you’re registering voters at the county fair or something, you’ve only got 48 hours, that means everyday you have to run to the supervisor of elections office and turn in the ones you got the day before,” Seegar Swanson said.

Seegar isn’t alone in his concerns. Top-ranking democrats, including U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, who is a GOP target in 2012, called the bill un-American.

“This a personal attack on the people of Florida,” Nelson said.

Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that the bill’s author is the former Chairman of the Republican Party of Florida.

Reporter: Is there a perception here that, if nothing else, you’re trying to set this up for 2012?

“If there’s a perception that’s in the eyes of the beholder. I’m not trying to set anything up,” Sen. John Thrasher (R-Jacksonville) said. “I’m just trying to encourage people to get out and vote in 2012.”

Governor Rick Scott has said only that all people should vote. But he is expected to sign whatever he is sent.

But even with Scott’s expected signature, lawsuits challenging the changes are expected.

More than 85 hundred letters and emails have been sent to lawmakers protesting the elections legislation. Lawmakers had initially tried to cut early voting in half, but protests caused them to shorten the number of days but keep the number of early voting hours the same

The Florida Senate has delayed a vote on a controversial Arizona-style immigration bill after protestors filled capitol hallways for the six consecutive business days. At least one protest has been held for seven weeks in a row. Today, farm workers from the Dade City Farmworkers Self Help group made up the majority of protestors. The immigration bill was listed on the Senate calendar, but late this afternoon, Senators decided to skip over it until tomorrow, prompting activists to ask who is in favor of the legislation.

“Everyday, another police chief, another church, another body comes out against this bill,” immigration activist Subhasm Kateel said. “Everyday another institution comes out against this bill. At this point, we’re sort of looking around saying, well who is for this bill?”

Today, the mayors of Miami and Miami Beach expressed concern about the legislation.  Both say the legislation could hamper international tourism the area depends upon.

Florida House Speaker Dean Cannon is one of the three most powerful people in state government, so when he announced a plan in March to split Florida’s Supreme Court, people took notice. Cannon has been upset with the court since it removed three legislative amendments from last years ballot. Now, as Mike Vasilinda tells us, the court battle has resulted in some real political hardball being played at the Capitol.

Death penalty delays and the foreclosure crisis were sited as reasons to add judges to the Supreme Court, but as former Justice Raul Cantero, a Jeb Bush appointee, told Senators as he walked the Capitol, neither problems are the courts fault.

“What it needs are more trial judges to handle the foreclosure cases,” Cantero said.

Cantero’s push back is paying off. When the time came for the State Senate to take up the court bill…It was skipped.

Moderate Republicans not happy with the court-packing plan were summoned to meeting rooms in the back of the Senate.

“They were trying to see if we couldn’t enhance some of our projects, but our projects are doing as well as we could expect in a budget like this,” Sen. Dennis Jones (R-Seminole) said. “It would be nice to have a little more money but not at that expense.”

Senator Ellyn Bogdanoff has been pushing the court plan for the House Speaker. Without 24 votes in the Senate, supporters are scrambling.

“It changes on a daily basis,” Bogdanoff said.

But the legislation is the top priority of the powerful House Speaker. He could bring the legislative process to a screeching halt over the court changes if he wants. That threat isn’t sitting well with opponents,

“The one thing that should never have happened was to take something that the Speaker is pushing as far as a policy issue, and play that against the entire budget. That’s wrong,” Sen. Mike Fasano (R-New Port Richey) said.

With the Senate unwilling to split the court, the question now is what will the Speaker insist on. That means we won’t know what the court will look like until lawmakers have gone home.

Part of the court-packing plan would allow Governor Rick Scott to appoint three new justices. It would also give lawmakers a say in the confirmation.

Right now just 14-hundred students receive money from the state to leave a failing school for a better school in their district. But the Florida Legislature hopes to expand the school voucher program. As Whitney Ray tells us, a bill to expand the definition of a failing school is at the heart of their plan to grow the voucher program.

Twenty-four schools in Florida are considered failing. Students from those schools can receive a state voucher to attend a better school in their district. Just 14-hundred students are using the vouchers.

Governor Rick Scott and the state legislature want to expand the school choice program. Representative Brad Drake says options will improve education.

“Anytime you give a child an opportunity to learn in a different environment, something more suitable, more comfortable to the parents, I say all for it,” said Representative Brad Drake.

A bill to allow a student from a failing schools to not just leave the school, but leave the district is moving in the legislature. House Democrat Geraldine Thompson says simply leaving a failing school doesn’t ensure academic success.

“The data show that students that leave a “failing” school and go to another school do no better at the second school than they did at the school where they were,” said Representative Geraldine Thompson.

The definition of a failing is broadened under the legislation. Right now state law defines a failing school as a school that’s received two Fs in a four year period. The bill redefines failing to include Ds.

The change would add dozens of schools to the failure roles making thousands of students eligible to leave their schools.

“Children learn differently and not everybody learns the same way so it’s important that while empowering the parent you’re also empowering the child,” said Representative Will Weatherford.

The vouchers can only be used to transfer to traditional public schools or charter schools, but a constitutional amendment is in the works that would pave the way for the vouchers to be used at private religious schools.

The Religious Freedom Act would overturn a 125 year old state constitutional amendment that banned public money from funding religious institutions. If that happens opponents of the school choice legislation think the vouchers could then be used at religious schools.

Only three percent of Florida foster kids graduate from college and legislation being discussed in Tallahassee could lower the success rate even more.

Right now kids who age out of the foster care system can receive money to go to college until they are 23. A bill filed by Representative Matt Hudson would lower the age to 21. Christina Spudeas, the Executive Director of Florida’s Children First says the change would leave the kids who are trying to improve their situation with no where to turn.

“There’s really only a handful in the whole system that qualify for this. They have to be in college fulltime. They have to be doing really well. And so to take that away will be effectively telling them quite school, drop out, don’t become productive citizens, it’s a horrible bill,” said Spudeas.

Florida Children First is supporting two other bills that would allow foster youth who change schools midyear to continue to participate in extra curricular activates. The bills would also give every foster kid an education advocate.

The House voted today to ban synthetic cocaine and PCP, also known as bath salts.

The drugs were legal sold in head shops and convenient stores until earlier this year when Florida’s Attorney General issued an emergency order banning them. From there Representative Jimmy Patronis filed legislation to permanently ban bath salts. Minutes after the bill passed the House unanimously Patronis told us banning the drugs will save lives.

“It is going to create a predictable in law enforcement’s ability to do their job. And knowing this is one less option for somebody to put in their system and chemically imbalance themselves and do harm to anybody and themselves,” said Patronis.

Now the bill heads to the state senate where it’s expected to receive unanimous support.

Lawmakers, Lobbyists and state workers brought their kids to the capitol today to celebrate take your sons and daughters to work day. They met the governor and as Whitney Ray tells us, they’re hoping his jobs plan works so they can find jobs once they graduate.

Eight year old Mary Taylor got a first hand lesson on road design, but
When it comes to a career she would rather be in the spotlight than designing traffic lights. Her mom brought her to the state capitol Thursday as part of “Take your kids to work day. Governor Rick Scott encouraged Mary and the rest of the kids to think about their careers.

But with an 11 percent unemployment rate there are concerns over what jobs will be available once the kids are old enough to work. Scott is promising a better economy by the time these kids graduate.

“What I’m committed to doing is making sure our state is the state that’s most conducive to job growth,” said Scott.

Mary’s mom is hopeful.

“I hope that in the future the employment rate will get better,” said Annette Taylor.

She’s introducing Mary to jobs in science and engineering.

Cynthia Lorenzo the Director of the Agency for Workforce Innovation says those jobs will still be in high demand by the time the third grader enters the workforce.

“Science Technology Engineering and Math, those are very stable careers of the future and very worth looking into,” said Lorenzo.

But for now Mary is focused on her singing career. And if Nashville isn’t calling be the time Mary graduates… the good news is Florida’s unemployment rate is expected to be cut in half.

By 2018, the top paying jobs in Florida are expected to be computer software engineers, sales representatives and Network Systems Analysts. The career with the highest demand will remain nursing.

Immigrants and their supporters continue their marathon effort to convince the state legislature to stop immigration reform.

The legislation would make it a state crime to be undocumented and make it easier for local law enforcement officers to receive the authority to act as immigration officers. Today the group released a report claiming the bill would cost the state 45 billion dollars to implement the law, defend it in court and other economic impacts like the loss of cheap labor. The group hopes the message gets to Senate President Mike Haridopolos. Felipe Matos, an undocumented college student from Brazil says it’s time Haridopolos made his position on the legislation clear.

“He is not taking responsibility, and even though it is obvious he is against us, he keeps saying that he is unsure. So what we want is for him to take a clear position so we can tell the Latino community not to vote for him in 2012,” said Matos.

The group has been successful in keeping the legislation at bay, but it could still be brought up and voted on before session ends May 6th.

A group of community leaders, voter rights groups and consumer activists who were kept for testifying about sweeping changes to the state’s elections law… spoke out today.

The League of Women Voters, Florida PIRG, and the Ion Sancho the Leon County supervisor of elections told reporters the changes will keep people from voting. The legislation would limit early voting to one week instead of two, although the polls would be open late during the one week of early voting. Sancho say the changes will make overtime skyrocket.

“The 14 counties that have so far reported indicate that working a 12 hour day would be a 1.8 million dollar budget impact on local government because it is the counties that pay for early voting,” said Sancho.

The bill would also create a 50 dollar fee for any volunteer participating in a voter registration drive if the forms weren’t turned in to the supervisor of elections office with in 48 hours.

The Florida Senate spent most of the morning arguing over whether insurance companies should be required to offer sink hole coverage. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, the debate is far from over, but if the majority of the Senate gets its way, thousands of homeowners could be forced into the insurer of last resort.

If your house falls into a sinkhole, it is considered catastrophic ground cover collapse under insurance legislation steaming through the state Senate, and it would be covered. But insurance companies would not have to offer coverage from cracks that develop because of shifting ground. State Senator Mike Fasano spent most of Wednesday morning trying to convince the Senate to require coverage of both cracks and collapse.

“You will have people who want to buy a home in this state, that will not be able to get sinkhole coverage,” Fasano said. “Therefore, they will not be able to get sinkhole coverage.”

Sinkhole losses have sky rocketed in recent years. Sponsor Garrett Richter says many of the claims are fraudulent.

“Policyholders are receiving checks, large checks for small cracks,” Richter said. “They’re taking these checks, they’re not repairing the property. They’re taking these checks, they’re paying their mortgage off, they’re buying a boat.”

Fasano lost the fight, for now.

Right now, the House still wants to require sinkhole coverage, so let the negotiations begin.

Richter believes insurance companies will offer the sink hole coverage, even if it is not required. We asked what would happen if he was wrong.

“If I’m wrong? Then there is an insurer of last resort, as designed,” Richter said.

If the Senate wins out and only catastrophic collapse ends up being required, thousands of homeowners could be forced into state run Citizens, or non-regulated out-of-state companies as early as June.