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As Special Session winds down, lawmakers take off

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As the Special Session for Senate redistricting drew to a close, lawmakers were taking time off. On Wednesday, two senators had excused absences and weren’t on the floor as their colleagues OK’d a conference process to finish redrawing the district map. Sen. Maria Sachs, a Delray Beach Democrat, “had a personal commitment” and Sen. Denise Grimsley, a Sebring Republican, “had a prior commitment in her district,” according to an email from Senate spokeswoman Katie Betta. No senator planned to be out either Thursday or Friday, the…

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Florida taxpayers pay up: June special session cost $651,000

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Florida’s budget stalemate cost taxpayers more than $651,000. That’s how much the Florida Legislature spent to hold a June special session to pass a new budget. Legislators were forced to hold a special session because the House and Senate had a bitter disagreement over health care spending during the regular session held in the spring. The House abruptly adjourned three and a half days early due to the standoff. The June special session is the most expensive special session in…

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Legislative committee week cancelled

Senate President Joe Negron and House Speaker Richard Corcoran have cancelled next week’s legislative committee week because of Hurricane Irma, they

House-Senate healthcare fight nastily playing out on the Twitters

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The intense intra-cameral friction that defined the 2015 legislative session seems not to have dissipated after a few weeks off but rather compounded, culminating in the most antagonistic legislative hearing of the year at Tuesday’s meeting of the Senate Appropriations Committee. There, budget chief Tom Lee led a chorus of indignant senators who excoriated AHCA deputy director Justin Senior for allegedly evading Senate staff and showing favor to the House’s position on the revamped FHIX 2.0 healthcare expansion plan later approved by the committee. Charges of malfeasance,…

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Justin Senior on the hot seat for AHCA’s negative analysis of Senate FHIX plan

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The Senate’s plan to expand access to healthcare access may not pass during the 2015A special session but the Florida Senate isn’t going down without a fight. The Senate Appropriations Committee members on Tuesday grilled Deputy Secretary for Medicaid Justin Senior for more than one hour, making it abundantly clear that the Senate did not appreciate what it considered to be political interference from the Agency for Health Care Administration and its Secretary Liz Dudek, whose boss is Gov. Rick…

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What will Rick Scott do with the base budget he’s developing?

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Gov. Rick Scott sent a memo to his agencies on Thursday asking them to compile a list of services people cannot lose and identifying what would be funded in a pared back budget he’s developing for the upcoming year. Scott has refused to directly answer, though, whether he’ll be submitting the information he compiles with the Florida Legislature for consideration when it goes into a special budget session, now tentatively scheduled for  June 1-20. “The Legislature drafts the budget, but this…

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Rick Scott’s profit-sharing idea not getting love from the Legislature or the hospitals

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Gov. Rick Scott’s idea that Florida hospitals share profits to brace for the loss of Low Income Pool dollars is not being warmly received by the the Legislature, which is in charge of allocating Medicaid dollars. House Speaker Steve Crisafulli said in a statement on Monday that there are “other solutions available that do not include a hospital profit share plan,” when asked about Scott’s proposal. Senate President Andy Gardiner has no comment on the proposal at this time, spokesperson Katie Betta said…

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Rick Scott has no bills in his office to sign or veto

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Just 231 bills passed in the the dysfunctional 2015 session. And the majority of those, legislative reports show, are still in the Legislature. House Speaker Steve Crisafulli and Senate President Andy Gardiner have been slow to release bills to Gov. Rick Scott. The House passed 154 bills, memorials, and local bills that require gubernatorial action. One hundred fifty of them still are in the House. The Senate has passed 75 bills and 68 of them still are residing in the Senate.…

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