State Rep. Dennis Baxley (Pic by Mark Foley, via myfloridahouse.gov)

The Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times is reporting that a judge has ruled that four legislators who have been fighting against testifying in a legal challenge to the state’s controversial elections law no longer have to.

Elections law sponsors Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla and Rep. Dennis Baxley — as well as Sen. Paula Dockery and Rep. Seth McKeel — decided last week that they do not want to talk about the controversial elections law passed last year and their role in its passage. Dockery, R-Lakeland, was among two GOP senators who voted against the controversial bill last year.

Five state senators and five state House members were issued subpoenas by a law firm representing the League of Women Voters and the National Council of La Raza last November. Both groups have intervened in the case of State of Florida vs. United States of America and Eric H. Holder Jr. Holder is the U.S. attorney general.

According to the Herald/Times: 

After two hours of legal arguments, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle rendered a quick decision — that legislators have long had a common-law privilege that shields them from being forced to testify about why they make decisions.

“People recognize without even thinking about it that there is this privilege,” Hinkle said. “The balance here favors the legislators and the members of their staffs.”

The state is currently awaiting for a D.C. court to approve four of the most controversial parts of the state’s new elections law. The three-judge panel is looking at whether new restrictions on third-party voter registration drives, a shortened “shelf life” for signatures collected for ballot initiatives, obstacles for voters looking to change their registered addresses on election day and a reduction in the number of early voting days will make it harder for minorities to vote.

Since the state’s elections law was implemented in over 60 counties in the state, groups have sued the state and the U.S. Senate held a field hearing in Tampa into the law.

Pic by My Florida House, via Facebook

The Florida House today passed congressional, state House and state Senate maps that lay out how it wants voting districts to be drawn for the next decade.

The maps were the reason for an early start to the 2012 session. The maps will be reviewed in state and federal courts.

Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, said the maps were historic for not favoring incumbents or political parties in a state that has been heavily gerrymandered in the past. Cannon expressed “more than a little disappointment” in members whom he said failed to acknowledge the nonpartisan process.

The drawing of the maps has been given close attention not just for its once-a-decade rarity, but because of the “Fair Districts” amendments approved by Florida voters in November 2010. Amendments 5 and 6 require districts to be compact, using geographic boundaries and protecting racial and language minorities. They must also adhere to standards set forth by the federal Voting Rights Act.

On the second day the bill was on the floor, representatives were lashing back at those who suggested there was partisan intent or racial packing in the maps.

This is the final stop for the Senate map, but the state Senate will have to approve the congressional and House maps.

Each bill received 80 yeas and 37 nays, along party lines.

The report adds that “job growth was widespread in the private sector, with large employment gains in professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, and manufacturing. Government employment changed little over the month.”

The Bureau reports that unemployment rates (seasonally adjusted) for

• adult men was 7.7 percent
• blacks declined in January to 13.6 percent
• adult women was 7.7 percent
• teenagers was 23.2 percent
• whites was 7.4 percent
• Hispanics changed little and stood at 10.5 percent
• Asians was 6.7 percent

The employment report adds that the number of long-term unemployed, that is, those who have been out of work for 27 weeks or more, “was little changed at 5.5 million and accounted for 42.9 percent of the unemployed.”

The employment report also indicates that in January, employment in leisure and hospitality, an industry very important to Florida’s economy, “increased by 44,000, primarily in food services and drinking places,” which added 33,000 jobs, and that “since a recent low in February 2010, food services has added 487,000 jobs.”

The National Employment Law Project writes today that with the January 2012 employment report, “job growth has averaged over 183,400 per month for the last five months and there have now been 23 straight months of employment growth.” It adds that the unemployment rate fell in January to the the lowest since February 2009.

The Employment Law Project adds that despite “sustained growth and the decline in the unemployment rate” still “nearly 24 million workers are either unemployed or underemployed, which means the ‘real’ unemployment rate is still over 15%. Nearly 43% of the unemployed have been out of work for six months or longer, and the average duration of unemployment is 40.1 weeks, or over nine months.”

“It would be a mistake to let this strong employment report distract the nation from the need to respond more aggressively to the continuing crisis of long-term unemployment,” the Employment Law Project adds.

The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity reported in January that the state’s “seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in December 2011 was 9.9 percent.”

The Healthy Start logo (Pic via healthystartflorida.com)

The Healthy Start Coalitions of Florida, so far, are not poised to suffer budget cuts this year. Last year, the group saw millions taken from its budget.

The Florida House appropriations bill for this year maintained the group’s funding at $23,641,947 — the same amount of money Healthy Start was awarded last year. Overall, however, the health care appropriations budget saw a decrease of $54 million.

Healthy Start Coalitions are community-based prenatal care centers for at-risk mothers and babies. They provide education and home visiting programs for at-risk first-time mothers, among other services. In last year’s budget the group saw $5 million cut from its state funding. Healthy Start was among a slew of health services that suffered budget cuts last year due to the state’s budget shortfall. The GOP-led Legislature and Gov. Rick Scott had prioritized lowering taxes for businesses last year, forcing lawmakers to seek high and low for services to reduce.

The state is facing yet another budget shortfall this year and organizations have been warned by officials to prepare for another year of decreases.

This past August, several weeks after Healthy Start saw a 15 percent decrease in its budget and the loss of possible grant money, the organization began the feel the effects.

Judi Vitucci, the president of the Florida Association of Healthy Start Coalitions, told The Florida Independent back in August that two-thirds of the coalitions were already reporting that they had to cut important services and “approximately 100 positions.”

“About 7,183 clients will not receive Healthy Start services because of the loss of funding,” she said.

The group had hoped to recoup some of the money lost in the state’s budget cuts by receiving federal grants. The state had been awarded a grant through the Affordable Care Act that would have gone to Healthy Start and others. However, because the Legislature is challenging the federal law allocating the funds, legislators are still opposed to accepting a $3.4 million grant from the federal government. The state did, however, accept funds from the Affordable Care Act for abstinence-only education.

Even though the state has turned down the federal grant, a spokesperson for the Florida House says that the state is still funding the services these groups provide.

“There are state programs that provide similar services,” Ryan Duffy, a spokesperson for the Florida House public information office explains, “which are funded through the House budget.”

Besides not cutting funds for Healthy Start this year, the House budget also allocates $2 million for the Healthy Families program,   $6.9 million for children’s substance abuse services and $3.6 million for children’s mental health services in the state.

The Associated Industries of Florida logo (Pic via saintpetersblog.com)

State Rep. Erik Fresen’s request at a House subcommittee meeting in Tallahassee today to temporarily postpone his bill to allow Las Vegas-style casinos in South Florida essentially killed the bill for the 2012 legislative session.

After 90 minutes of debate, Fresen said, “To the extent that I have been around this process long enough” and “having the ability to read the tea leaves and recognize where this bill is headed in this committee … I would in a very friendly manner ask through chair Holder to temporarily postpone this bill as we continue to workshop it.”

State Rep. Doug Holder, R-Sarasota, responded, “Before we make that decision Rep. Fresen I want to be really clear this is the last time that this subcommittee will meet” during the 2012 session, adding,”in other words, there will be no opportunity to hear this bill before the 2013 session convenes.”

Fresen explained early in the meeting that his bill would fix antiquated loopholes for statutory gambling in Florida, that gaming has expanded in the state without any strategic direction and that the Legislature must address the gaming industry holistically and not in a piecemeal fashion.

Fresen added that his bill would protect and expand state revenue from the gaming industry and reroute gaming control, and that “destination resorts,” as the proposed casinos have been called, would be approved by voter referendum.

Supporters of the bill, as well as Fresen, once again defended the measure, arguing it would create thousands of much-needed jobs in South Florida.

Supporters included the Florida Carpenters Regional Council, the South Florida Tea Party, Associated Builders and Contractors and Associated Industries of Florida. They added that the bill would bring at least $2 billion of private funds to Florida.

Bill Herrle of the National Federation of Independent Business said the casino bill would allow for the creation of 5,000 to 6,000 construction jobs per casino over 2.5 years. (See update below)

The coalition dedicated to defeating the measure, No Casinos, includes the Florida Chamber of Commerce, the Florida Attractions Association, the Florida Retail Federation, the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association and the Florida Sheriffs Association.

Grace Solaris, a Miami resident who spoke on behalf of neighborhood associations to oppose the Fresen bill, told subcommittee members, “Do your duty. Stop it now.”

The Miami Herald reports that “after working for weeks to muster the votes on the 15-member committee, Rep. Erik Fresen, R-Miami, couldn’t get a majority. He asked the committee to postpone a vote, leaving open a chance that the bill could be revived as an amendment but signaling that the effort is all-but dead this legislative session under House rules.”

The Herald adds: “In the end, [Fresen] couldn’t overcome the opposition headed up by a coalition of business groups, led by Disney World. The coalition included the Florida Chamber of Commerce, the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, religious groups, and was assisted by the powerful lobby of the state’s existing pari-mutuel industry and the Seminole Tribe.”

Update: We apologize for the incorrect information.

Richard Watson of the Associated Builders and Contractors said the casino bill would allow for the creation of 5,000 to 6,000 construction jobs per casino over 2.5 years.

The National Federation of Independent Business does not support the bill, but instead is neutral.

The agreement comes as the Florida Legislature is considering a GOP-sponsored bill that would ban local anti-wage theft ordinances like Miami-Dade County’s.

The Department of Labor newsletter reports today that “the Wage and Hour Division’s Tampa and Jacksonville District Offices have signed an agreement with the Mexican Consulate in Orlando, Fla., to collaborate on providing information, guidance and access to education and training resources to help Mexican nationals understand their rights while working in the U.S.”

The newsletter adds:

“By stopping the exploitation of foreign workers, we protect the rights of American citizens to good jobs. This agreement is another step in the Labor Department’s commitment to fair compensation and safe working conditions for everyone employed in the U.S.,” said Oliver Peebles III, the division’s regional administrator.”

According to the agreement (.pdf), the participants intend to provide Mexican citizens working in Florida the education and training resources to help them exercise their workplace rights in order to reduce “minimum wage, overtime, record keeping, child labor [and] safe housing” violations and to help workers understand the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and the Migrant Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act.

A report released last week by the Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy at Florida International University found that wage theft “occurs in different forms including unpaid overtime, not being paid at least the minimum wage, working during meal breaks, misclassification of employees as independent contractors, forcing employees to work off the clock, altering time cards or pay stubs, illegally deducting money from employees’ pay checks, paying employees late, or simply not paying employees at all.”

A Free Press report — “Citizens Inundated” (.pdf) — released this week states that television ads offer a formula for success: Candidates who spent more on a “campaign for a congressional seat in 2008 won the race more than nine out of 10 times” and “spending on negative ads is particularly effective.”

This certainly seems to have been Mitt Romney’s strategy in Florida’s recent GOP primary, where, according to The New York Times, “negative ads were so prevalent … that they accounted for 92 percent of all campaign commercials that ran.”

“Broadcast television is our most influential communications medium,” the “Citizens Inundated” report adds. “According to a Pew Research Center survey, 78 percent of American viewers report getting their news from local TV on a typical day — more than the number that rely on newspapers, radio or the Internet.”

“Citizens Inundated” adds that by January 2012 the Federal Elections Commission “identified nearly 300 ‘Super PACs’ that have risen in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision,” and by November 2012 “these groups will have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into slick commercials intended to influence — and frequently misinform — the American public.”

The report adds that during the 2012 election season, “candidates, political parties and independent groups will spend up to $3.3 billion to buy TV,” from commercial broadcast media companies.

A Wesleyan Media Project report issued this week indicates that “the overall number of GOP presidential ads on the airwaves in this election year is comparable with 2008, but who is paying for them so far has changed significantly.”

The Wesleyan report shows that in the 2008 GOP presidential primaries, about 2.6 percent of political ads were paid for by interest groups, while in 2012, out of the 69,000-plus ads aired so far, almost 44 percent have been paid for by interest groups — to the tune of at least $15 million.

The report shows that from January 2011 through January 2012 Romney’s campaign aired almost 13,000 TV ads and Newt Gingrich aired 210 in Florida. Over half of Romnney’s ads and 196 of Gingrich’s ads were financed by interest groups.

The report highlights that in South Carolina, where Gingrich won the GOP primary, “Romney and interest-group allies” paid to air about 8,000 TV ads while the Gingrich paid to air about 4,500.

“Restore Our Future, Inc., a pro-Romney group that has spent an estimated $8 million to air over 13,500 spots on his behalf in media markets in Iowa, South Carolina, Florida, Arizona and Michigan,” is the most active group in the 2012 GOP nomination race, according to the report.

President Obama’s reelection campaign has aired over the same period at least 5,000 ads “at an estimated cost of $1.4M, targeting residents of 25 markets in Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin.”

The Obama reelection campaign is not alone:

• The conservative group Americans for Prosperity has aired over 5,000 spots in battleground state markets.
• The conservative Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies has aired over 4,200 spots in similar markets.
• The American Petroleum Institute also aired around 1,500 spots.

According to the “Citizens Inundated” report, very little political coverage (in 2010, an average of 30 seconds in a 30-minute broadcast of local TV news was dedicated to government issues) and the lack of sustained efforts by the FCC, “tasked with defending the interests of viewers,” threaten “Americans’ most important act in a democracy: voting.”

Kantar Media points out that “political analysts usually discuss advertising’s impact on a presidential race in terms of states and dollars,” but “this is an incorrect framework”:

First, the battlefields are media markets — not states. Markets do not adhere to state lines. Florida voters, for example, live in 10 different markets. Pricing of commercial time differs from one to the next.

“Citizens Inundated” adds that while TV viewers will see up to 12 negative political ads an hour in the 2012 election season, “what you’re much less likely to see is news coverage that explains who these ads’ sponsors really are, what interests they represent and whether they are telling the truth.”

State Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey (Pic via Facebook)

State Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, has filed an amendment to a Senate committee’s energy bill in an effort to repeal a statute that allows energy companies to charge their customers for nuclear power plants that may never be built.

The filing was spurred by a settlement agreement reached last month between Progress Energy and state regulators over a nuclear power plant in Levy County. The agreement specifically addresses outstanding issues with the company’s nuclear plant at Crystal River, which was closed for repairs in 2009 and hasn’t opened since. Progress Energy’s customers will ultimately foot the $1.1 billion bill for the development of the Levy plant, and have so far already paid for half — but the company recently received the right to cancel construction on that proposed plant, meaning customers might be paying for something that is never built.

According to a law passed by the state Legislature in 2006, utilities may collect money from customers for future construction of nuclear power plants, even if those plants never really get built. Fasano wants to change that.

Though Fasano has already filed a bill to repeal that law, his aide says the new amendment is likely to be more effective.

“[Fasano] realizes [that the bill] will probably never be placed on the committee’s agenda, as evidenced by the lack of action in past years and during the present session,” says Greg Giordano, Fasano’s chief legislative aide. “So, he decided to file an amendment to get the issue on the table.”

Fasano believes that Progress Energy may have had the plant closure in mind when it entered into the new settlement agreement.

“Why would the global settlement agreement allow Progress Energy to cancel its contract if it was not contemplating doing just that?” says Giordano. “Why should customers continue to pay for something that probably won’t get built?”

The most important thing, he says, is that the amendment be considered by the committee.

“Sen. Fasano is asking for an up or down vote on the issue,” says Giordano. “The customers deserve that.”

According to Roy Beck, founder and CEO of Numbers USA, the election “offered a stark choice on the illegal immigration issue” and “Florida Latino Republicans … broke nearly 2-1 for the candidate with the firmest opposition to amnesty and the strongest support for enforcement.”

Beck writes that “Florida Republicans went strongly for [Mitt] Romney (46% to 32%), but the Latinos among them went for the anti-amnesty, pro-self-deportation candidate by an even greater margin.”

Romney has said he supports a “self-deportation” strategy, another name for “attrition throuh enforcement,” an immigration model that, as Beck writes, means “handling the illegal alien population with something between mass legalization and mass deportation. Simply put, you take away the things that drew illegal aliens here and let most of them self-deport. Most especially, you take away the jobs magnet.”

The Immigration Policy Center points out that ”there is little evidence that ‘attrition through enforcement’ is causing unauthorized immigrants to leave. In fact, a July 2011 study from the RAND Corporation found that, despite improved economic conditions in Mexico and worsened conditions in the United States, fewer Mexican immigrants returned to Mexico in 2008 and 2009 than in the two years before the recession.”

Numbers USA is one of the top groups buying TV ads to influence the GOP 2012 presidential contest, according to a Wesleyan Media Project report issued this week. Numbers USA has spent over $55,ooo on 275 broadcast television and national cable spots from January 2011 through January 2012.

In an ad that ran during the South Carolina GOP primary, Numbers USA stated that “not one candidate is talking about why the government is ready to bring in another 1 million legal immigrants this year to take American jobs. Legal doesn’t make it right”:

Romney said last week in Miami during a Hispanic Leadership Network event that if elected president he would protect and expand legal immigration that conforms to the needs of the business community.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos (Pic by World Economic Forum, via Flickr)

The murder of  four Colombian union leaders in January prompted Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, to urge President Obama to postpone indefinitely the implementation of the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, approved by the U.S Congress in October.

The letter states that through January, one union member was killed by Colombian troops, a second was shot to death along with his wife, a third worker was “brutally murdered” and a fourth union member employed by the National Industry of Sodas (Coca-Cola) was “murdered by gunfire.”

Over 2,900 union members have been murdered in Colombia over the last 25 years, a number that makes the South American nation the most dangerous in the world for union members.

Sens. Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio both voted in favor of the trade agreement. Florida Democrats in the House of Representatives were split, with Corrine Brown, Alcee Hastings and Ted Deutch against the agreement and Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Kathy Castor voting to support the agreements. Florida GOP House members all voted to approve the trade agreement.

The Miami Herald reported in Ocotber that ”the Florida Chamber of Commerce says the agreements will create more than 20,000 new jobs and generate more than $1.5 billion in international trade opportunities.”

According to a February 2011 Enterprise Florida report (.pdf), “the United States-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement is expected to yield significant benefits for Florida’s economy; its ratification by the US Congress is a top priority for Florida.” Enterprise Florida is a private-public partnership that “helps to improve Florida’s business climate, ensuring the state’s global competitiveness.”

The approval of the trade agreement was delayed several years due to the murder of union members, but was sent by the Obama administration to Congress for final approval after a Labor Action Plan was put in place to deal with anti-union violence.

In a letter to members of Congress issued last week, Colombian labor leaders wrote:

We applaud the creation of the April 7, 2011, U.S.-Colombia Labor Action Plan that intends to take important steps in addressing endemic labor issues in Colombia. However, the Plan continues to face serious challenges in its implementation. Union leaders and labor activists continue to be assassinated, threatened, and intimidated, and the perpetrators enjoy almost complete impunity.

Wednesday’s letter from the AFL-CIO to Obama adds that a Humans Rights Watch report ”concludes that the U.S. State Department is not enforcing the human rights conditions imposed upon U.S. aid to Colombia.”