Two Tampa Bay area lawmakers announced Friday that they have filed legislation to reform the state Public Service Commission following a series of controversial decisions by regulators.
Sen. John Legg, R-Trinity, and newly elected Rep. Chris Sprowls, R-Palm Harbor, said ratepayers have lost confidence in the PSC and they want to take steps to restore the public trust.
The proposed reforms include:
• Limiting commissioners to two consecutive terms;
• Creating five districts for commissioners that align with the District Courts of Appeal;
• Requiring commissioners to live in the district from which they are appointed;
• Prohibiting elected officials from being appointed to the PSC for two years after leaving office.
From: Chairman Ceasar
Election 2014 is concluded and it was not a pleasant experience in Florida or nationally. However you should all be proud of your work during this cycle. You where magnificent. You volunteered for phone banks, knocked on doors, worked early voting and distributed Palm Cards.
The Crist Campaign had informed me that they needed a Broward margin of approximately 175 thousand votes. Broward delivered 176 thousand. With a turnout of almost 46 percent. This is a substantial increase over 2010. That was accomplished even through many of our senior super voters have been lost over the last four years. We spent advertising dollars in the minority community. This was about boosting turnout and “doing the right thing”.
We picked up numerous municipal seats by beating Republicans. In fact, the Coral Springs City Commission is now a Democratic majority. Additionally our north end folks ensured a return of Congresswomen Lois Frankel and State Senator Maria Sachs.
You performed all of these good works despite a National Republican wave. I so much appreciate your endless days of hard work. Thank you for being so awesome.
The American people have a chance to vote out Republican governors who fail to raise the minimum wage and create jobs across red states. Ed Schultz, Ruth Conniff, Mitch Caesar and Mike Papantonio discuss.
In Trenders, George Bush Sr. wants out of Democratic ads, while a horse ditches work for a wild ride in New York City. Ed Schultz and Mitch Caesar discuss Rick Scott hypocritical take on Florida’s early voting.
Miami Herald | Julie Brown and Marc Caputo | Friday, Sep. 26, 2014
Gov. Rick Scott’s office came to the defense of his chief inspector general Friday saying that the reason she couldn’t investigate claims of a suspicious inmate death brought to her by an anonymous letter nearly two years ago was because the case was under an open investigation.
But, according to a detailed timeline released by the media office in response to a Miami Herald report, there was no investigation pending in the gassing death of Randall Jordan-Aparo when Melinda Miguel received the letter.
The 27-year-old inmate died in September 2010 after being doused with chemical agents three times in 13 minutes while in a confinement cell. Florida prison officials and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement had closed the case in July 2012, concluding there was no relationship between the gassing and the inmate’s death.
Tampa Bay Times Editorial Board | Friday, September 26, 2014 3:52pm
As he campaigns for re-election, Gov. Rick Scott portrays himself as a champion of public education who has increased spending, befriended teachers and ensured Florida’s schoolchildren will be better prepared for to enter college or the job market. His record is at odds with his rhetoric. In 16 years since Republicans took over the Governor’s Mansion and began pushing major education policy changes, no governor has been so coldly calculating and cynical about what happens to Florida’s traditional public schools.
From his first year backing steep budget cuts and nonsensical teacher assessments to his repeated favoring of private interests, Scott has all but ignored the state’s constitutional duty to provide uniform, high-quality and free public schools. The state has its fourth education commissioner in four years. The governor’s Board of Education has pandered to the tea party’s misinformation campaign on the Common Core State Standards, and it has set the stage for a potentially disastrous standardized testing change this spring. This is not the work of a governor engaged in enhancing the state’s investment in children but of a former CEO who treats education like an expense line to be managed and squeezed.
In four years, Scott has done far more to undermine public education than to support it.