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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.

Weeks of hard work and protests by immigrants and their supporters seem to be paying off. One by one, state lawmakers in Tallahassee are starting to back away from immigration reform legislation. As Whitney Ray tells us, the main hold out is the Senate President and today protestors and their kids paid him a visit.

A group of farmers, construction workers and gardeners packed the halls of the state capitol Tuesday, trying desperately to talk to lawmakers. The group carried American flags and wore stickers opposing immigration reform. After three fruitless trips to legislative offices, the group of 70 split into three, to make up more ground.

“At some point I know we are going to be able to meet with them. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but it’s got to be before they give a final decision,” said Brendy Gutierrez.

For seven weeks immigrants and their supporters have been protesting the legislation that would make being undocumented a crime and allow local law enforcement to check the immigration status of people under investigation.

Their tireless lobbying efforts are starting to be pay off. Republican lawmakers one by one seem to be backing away from the issue.

Most Hispanic Republicans now oppose the bill. Majority leader Carlos Lopez Cantera has spoken out against the legislation in the Spanish media, but is avoiding our cameras.

The protestors have made Senate President Mike Haridopolos their main target. They brought kids and coloring books to his office. We asked Haridopolos if he would stop the bill.

“We are going to look at that on Thursday in the budget committee and we are still debating exactly what will be in it,” said Haridopolos.

The protestors plan to stay through the week. They’ve raise more than 12-thousand dollar to rent buses and hotel rooms and have taken their kids out of school in an attempt persuade lawmakers.

A major issue playing against the protestors is promises made by Republican lawmakers and the governor on the campaign trail. They promised to pass an immigration law similar to Arizona’s. We’ll soon find out if protests are more powerful than campaign promises.

Five anti-abortion bills are being discussed on the House Floor.

The bills would force women to get an ultrasound before they could have an abortion, keep tax dollars from paying for the procedures and shut down clinics not owned by a physicians. The GOP leadership promised to focus on creating jobs. Representative Scott Randolph says these bills would kill jobs.

“These are the type of bills that when companies are thinking about relocating they look at all sort of these type of bills and they say I’m not going to relocate to some type of place that doesn’t respect GBLT rights or doesn’t respect women’s rights or I have to do something special to health care to provide health care to my employees,” said Randolph.

The ultrasound bill was passed by lawmakers last year, but vetoed by former Governor Charlie Crist. If it’s passed this year Governor Rick Scott is willing to sign it.

A group of economists, business leaders and lawmakers are joining forces to tax online sales. The group is backing legislation that would bring Florida’s tax code in line with the codes in 24 other states. Streamlining the state tax code would make it easier for online shops to know what to charge and customers to know what to pay. Right now the burden to pay the tax lies on the customers. Kurt Wenner with Florida TaxWatch says the current system of taxing puts brick and mortar shops at a disadvantage because they have to charge the sales tax.

“When you have a 7.5 percent price advantage that you shouldn’t have, that’s going to drive a lot more people to the internet. That’s going to cost jobs here. But it’s not just about jobs, it’s also about the rule of law,” said Wenner.

State lawmakers says streamlining the tax code would bring in 50 million dollars the first year, and take the state one step closer to forcing online shops to pay the tax, which could bring in two billion dollars annually.

Crime in Florida is at a 40 year low. The 2010 Florida crime statistics were released today. They show a 6.7 percent drop in crime. Law enforcement officers gathered at the Capitol to celebrate the drop. Steve Casey, the Executive Director of the Florida Sheriff’s Association says budget cuts have made it harder to fight crime, but law enforcement officers have risen to the occasion.

“It is impressive that Florida has seen a reduction in crime of six percent in both 2009 and 2010. It’s even more impressive when you consider these reductions occurred at a time when law enforcement community has had to absorb major reductions in staffing and funding,” said Casey.

The statistics show a three percent drop in murder, three percent drop in rape and a 15 percent drop in robberies.

Fears of a special session to balance the budget and bickering over spending difference were put to rest today. Senate President Mike Haridopolos joined Speaker Dean Cannon on the House Floor to tell lawmakers they’ve reached a budget deal and are ready to move forward in conference. They also promised to end on time. Haridopolos says his friendship with the House speaker helped the two come to an agreement.

“We listened a lot to each other and that’s what made the difference in allowing us to get the allocation set, having a balanced budget, not raising taxes or fees like we promised and we are going to do our best to get out of here next Friday,” said Haridopolos.

Compromises are being made to merge the spending plan. It’s unclear at this point exactly what the Senate will get, but it looks like the House will get its bill to split the Supreme Court in two.

A key Senate committee today approved legislation shortening early voting from 15 to just five days over the objection of the state’s elections supervisors. But pressure from voters may be leading to a compromise.

Early voting was created after the 2000 election debacle to make sure votes were being counted. By 2008, more people voted by absentee or early than on election day. But now, a massive elections bill moving through he legislature would shorten early voting from two weeks to just 5 days. GOP sponsor Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portillia of Miami

says the legislation is an effort to cut costs.

“Number one, overall throughout the years, it (early voting) hasn’t increased overall turnout.”

But state elections records show turnout is up five percent, from 70 to 75 percent  since the 2000 election.

Attempts to restore early voting to two weeks were shouted down in a key Senate committee.

But Senators are feeling pressure, with Sen. Don Gaetz of Niceville offering to come back with the same number of hours but fewer days of early voting.

“So to get the same number of hours, but you do it in a fewer number of days, would actually expand the number of hours per day and make it much more convenient for working families”.

Elections supervisors met with Senators after the vote, telling them they would like to keep the early voting just as it’s always been. Escambia Supervisor David Stafford says the is working the way it is.  “We’re trying to get as much opportunity, particularly in the general election cycle for people to early vote as possible,” says Stafford.

While some key Senators say they;’re willing to make changes later, There’s no guarantee they’ll happen. The next stop for the Voting bill is the Senate Floor.

The bill also would keep 50 thousand college students who changed their address at the polls in 2010 from voting in their college town. Student leaders were not given a chance to express their feelings to the committee before the vote was taken.

Lauren Book was sexually abused for six years as a child by her nanny.

The now 20 something has turned her pain into a walk of healing. Book walked a thousand miles. from Key West to the Capitol in Tallahassee to promote Sexual Abuse Awareness month. She is also pushing lawmakers to pass a “walk in my shoes Act to protect victims of Sexual abuse. She told a crowd of several hundred at the Capitol that abuse could happen to any of our children.

“One in three young girls will be sexually assaulted before they’re 18 years old. And one in five young boys will be sexually assaulted before they are 18 years old. One in five children will be solicited for sex on the internet, regardless of their gender. That’s why I am so proud that we have mandatory internet safety classes.”

This was Lauren Books second year of walking to promote sexual violence awareness.

State lawmakers have agreed to a broad outline for a deal on the state budget. It includes allowing a vote on increasing the size of the Supreme Court while stripping the court of some of its authority. The deal also assures that the Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority, Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority, and the Mid-Bay Bridge Authority will remain independent of the Florida Turnpike. Senate Budget Chairman JD Alexander says not yet spent is a three hundred million dollar pot of money that might be used to lower auto tag fees.

“There is still some dollars we have held in reserve to be able to do something like the tag fees, potentially. I don’t know. Those decisions aren’t made. they’ll be made as we move into conference to try and find the right set of answers,” says Alexander.

Final agreement between the House and Senate must be complete by next Tuesday at midnight for lawmakers to go home on time.

Governor Rick Scott continues to push for corporate tax breaks as lawmakers struggle to fund schools, the medically needy, prisons and everything else. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, the tax breaks are on life support, as lawmakers failed to hear legislation today that could have moved the tax cuts through a committee.

Schools are facing a seven percent cut. The medically needy are out of the Senate budget, and Medicaid patients could see a one billion dollar cut. With this backdrop, Governor Rick Scott continues to say in his weekly radio address, “I will not compromise,” when it comes to corporate tax breaks. The Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy says those breaks would do little to create jobs.

“So, there’s a very small percentage of corporations in this state that are for-profit corporations that are actually paying any income tax at all because of the loopholes,” Karen Woodall, with the Center, said.

Former U.S. Senator and two-term Governor Bob Graham says the four billion a year tax breaks for the wealthy over the last decade have hurt schools and produced few, if any, jobs.

A version of the governor’s corporate tax cutting plan was up before a Senate committee Monday morning. The committee temporarily passed it without taking any action.

But the tax cuts can be revived with a two-thirds vote to waive the rules.

Scott supporter Representative Rich Glorioso says a plan under discussion could lead to compromise.

“I would hope that we would have something to give the governor, that we can show a framework of how we can do these tax cuts as the economy gets better,” Glorioso said.

And passing a plan for future tax cuts could let the Governor save face and claim victory, all without hurting schools or anyone else more than they are already being hurt this year.

Scott’s plan to eliminate the corporate income tax comes in two waves.  Scott wants to get rid of close to half of the 5.5 percent tax this year, and the rest next year.

If Governor Rick Scott has his way, the 1.3 million customers of Citizens property insurance will be looking for new coverage before he starts a second term. Reports over the weekend claim Scott wants to dismantle the state run property insurance company. As Whitney Ray tells us, there’s legislation to scale back Citizens but lawmakers say their plan isn’t as aggressive as the governors.

After Hurricane Andrew rocked Homestead in 1992, destroying thousands of homes, many private insurance companies stopped writing insurance altogether, others in just in high risk areas.

The state responded with Citizens property insurance. Lawmakers then called it the insurer of last resort. Today some call it Socialism.

“It’s nothing more than Socialism and we need to stamp out Socialism in this country as soon as we can,” said Hays.

State Senator Alan Hays is sponsoring legislation that would force citizens to drop million dollar properties in 2012 and properties over half a million by 2016.

Hays says his legislation would return Citizens to its insurer of last resort status, but Governor Rick Scott may have other plans.

Over the weekend reports began to circulate of the governor’s plan to kill citizens in four years. Senator Mike Fasano says ending Citizens would force some people out of their homes.

“Those who have mortgages, there would be a forced insurance policy put on them by their mortgage company and it would windup being a surplus lines company and those individual, those home owners, those condo owners would windup losing their homes because they wouldn’t be able to afford to keep it any longer,” said Fasano.

There are 1.3 million Citizens customers. If a major hurricane destroys a lot of Citizens homes, the state insurer could go belly up. And the burden to pay claims would fall on Florida policy holders in the form of assessments.

There’s an amendment to the Citizens bill that would rename the state insurer, Taxpayer Funded Property Insurance Corporation. The bill’s sponsor called the proposed name change truth in advertising.

Close to three hundred kids gathered at the state capitol today, asking lawmakers to stop immigration reform.

Most of the kids are US citizens but some of their parents aren’t. They fear immigration reform legislation would break up their families. Sixteen year old Cecilia Perez traveled to Tallahassee from Clearwater Florida. She says if the bill passes there’s a bigger chance that her mom would be deported.

“My dad is a citizen and my mom is not. I’m an American citizen. I was born here I was raised here and I don’t want to be separated from my family,” said Perez.

The legislation would make it easier for local law enforcement officers to become immigration agents through the federal 287 (g) program. Once the officers are federalized they could then check the immigration status of people under criminal investigation. Many of the protestors oppose the bill because they fear it would lead to racial profiling.

The Florida Senate moved today to make it harder for girls under 18 to get an abortion.

A bill requiring minors to get written permission from their parents before they could have an abortion passed a senate committee. Bill sponsor Alan Hays says it’s harder for a student to get medication at school than it is for them to get an abortion.

“The state will not allow a school nurse or a school teacher to give that student a Tylenol or an Advil with out parental permission yet they’re willing to let them terminate a pregnancy without parental permission. I just find that completely unacceptable,” said Hays.

In 1999 the Florida legislature passed similar legislation, but the Florida Supreme Court said it violated a minor’s right to privacy.

Mental health advocates and economists say spending cuts in the senate’s budget plan would cost the state more in the long run. The Florida Senate wants to cut 210-million dollars from mental health and substance abuse programs. As Whitney Ray tells us, economists say those cuts would force the state to spend more on prisons, hospitals and emergency services.

140-thousand Floridians suffering from addiction, anxiety and other mental illnesses would lose services under spending cuts in the Senate’s budget. The Senate wants to cut 210-million from mental health and substance abuse programs.

Bob Sharpe, the president of the Florida Council for Community Mental Health, says those cuts will force the state to spend more down the road.

“Spend more for corrections, jail admissions; health care the child welfare system, more people will be homeless,” said Sharpe.

Rob Weissert, the Vice President of Research at Florida TaxWatch, says cutting programs that help former felons beat addiction increases the chances those who are denied treatment will end up back in prison.

“Addressing these issues up front can not only save money, but really can reduce future crimes, so it’s a very positive way that the state can focus resources to actually reduce the overall costs and enhance public safety,” said Weissert.

The state house holds mental health and substance abuse programs harmless in its budget. For the next two weeks they’ll be negotiating with the senate to keep those cuts from going through and if the governor has his way, he’ll side with the house. Governor Rick Scott says funding the programs is a priority.

“We’ve got to make sure we spend the money as wisely as possible, so when we put our budget together, we tried to allocate the dollars because that’s part of your job as governor to try to allocate the dollars to the biggest issues you have,” said Scott.

Monday the House and Senate start the budget negotiations. If the Senate moves to restore the cuts, something else will have to go. Mental health and drug abuse advocates say along with the loss of services, there will be a loss of jobs. They estimate 5-thousand people will be laid off if the Senate gets its way.

During debate a week ago, numerous Florida House members blamed Florida’s Supreme Court for delays carrying out the death penalty as a reason to add judges to the court. But as Mike Vasilinda has been able to uncover since the debate, any delay in justice has little to do with the state’s highest court.

64-year-old Gary Michael Hilton was sentenced to death on Thursday.

“You are hear by committed to the custody of the Department of Corrections,” circuit court Judge James Hankinson said.

But once on death row, Hilton has a better than equal chance of dying of natural causes than lethal injection.  During debate on adding  more judges to Florida’s highest court, more than one House Republican justified adding the justices because of death penalty delays.

“There are people sitting today, waiting for justice to be delivered,” Representative James Grant (R-Tampa) said. “Victims who can continually be delayed because of a backlog inside the court.”

But it’s not true. The Commission on Capital Cases provided a list of 47 inmates who appeals are complete. All 47 are eligible for a death warrant any time Rick Scott chooses to sign one. On Friday he didn’t offer a timetable.

“We’ll be dealing with it this year I’m sure,” Scott said.

But even if Scott signed a black bordered warrant tomorrow, it would be futile.

Controversy over one of the three drugs used in the lethal injection has the Department of Corrections rewriting its procedures. It will be months before those are finished.

Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Harry Lee Anstead calls the effort to add judges political.

“The facts don’t back them up. The reality is that the court is super efficient,” Anstead said.

So while Gary Michael Hilton will die behind bars one way or the other, how he goes will have nothing to do with a Supreme Court that took too much time.

393 people are on Florida’s death row as of today. Because of delays, more died of natural causes last year than by lethal injection.