- Associated Press - Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Recent editorials from Florida newspapers:

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March 7

The SunSentinel on Gov. Rick Scott’s State of the State address:

During his State of the State address on Tuesday, Gov. Rick Scott spoke of a Florida that only he can see.

In the governor’s Florida, there is no drug crisis killing 10 people a day statewide. Climate change is not a threat. There are no health care issues. There are no problems with high property insurance premiums or affordable housing. Scott mentioned none of these topics and barely mentioned education and the environment.

Rick Scott’s Florida depends on the agencies that recruit businesses and advertise for tourists. Scott devoted more than half of his address to Enterprise Florida and Visit Florida, about which most Floridians know little and care less. The money involved amounts to roughly two-tenths of one percent of the proposed $83.5 billion state budget.

For these agencies, Scott is waging war with House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Lutz.

Scott wants $23 million for Enterprise Florida’s operating budget and $85 million for economic incentives. Corcoran wants to abolish Enterprise Florida, calling the incentives “corporate welfare.”

Scott also wants to keep Visit Florida’s budget at $78 million. Corcoran wants to cap it at $25 million with new limits on spending and greater transparency.

In a functioning Tallahassee, Scott and Corcoran would have worked out their differences in person. It would have been tough. Corcoran may run for governor as a fiscal conservative who battles special interests. “Drain the swamp,” if you will. Scott, meanwhile, is expected to run for the U.S. Senate against Bill Nelson, positioning himself as the greatest jobs governor ever.

Each is fighting for their principles and their legacy. But their intraparty feud has all the hallmarks of all-out war, one that could keep the Legislature from addressing Florida’s many pressing challenges in the two-month legislative session that opened Tuesday.

Indeed, Scott has been touring the state, attacking Corcoran as a “career politician” and pressuring House Republicans to go against their leader. Scott failed. The House may pass that bill eliminating Enterprise Florida by Friday.

On Tuesday, Scott continued his campaign against Corcoran. Ending job recruitment, the governor said, would be a “big mistake for our state and our families.” He suggested that those who disagree on Enterprise Florida may not understand the importance of a job to families whose car gets repossessed - families like the one in which the now-wealthy governor grew up.

Actually, both men have a point. The governor is correct that Visit Florida deserves continued support. He noted that despite record tourism, “You don’t stop advertising when times are good.” Corcoran is correct that both agencies lacked oversight and transparency, and that Enterprise Florida’s record is mixed. Scott’s case suffered further with Monday’s news that Enterprise Florida’s new CEO abruptly resigned last week, the second chief executive to resign in nine months.

Corcoran has shown that he will deal, even on principles he considers important. Last week, he and Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, negotiated a compromise on how the Legislature will write the budget. The compromise avoided what could have been a paralyzing legal fight and made changes to increase transparency.

Corcoran secured his demand that individual projects will only be considered during House-Senate negotiations if they were in a budget the House or Senate passed. Names of legislators and lobbyists pushing a project will be posted online. New projects must be financed with one-time-only money. Negron got his demand that every project not require a separate bill.

A Scott-Corcoran compromise could have removed Enterprise Florida and Visit Florida as potential distractions. Corcoran first wanted to abolish Visit Florida, too. But the governor is detached even from members of his own party and focused on his own future.

Indeed, Tuesday’s address sounded more like a campaign speech for 2018 than a discussion of Florida in 2017. Scott praised a first responder to the Pulse nightclub shooting to highlight his request for $6 million in counterterrorism spending. He called for yet more tax cuts - on business leases.

Yet Scott pads his resume on taxes and contradicts himself. He can cite “55” tax cuts because the Legislature renews sales tax holidays every year, rather than making them permanent. He would have homeowners pay higher property taxes for the “historic” spending he proposes on education. Corcoran is right to oppose that. The Senate has another good idea to help everyday citizens: Cut taxes on cell phones and cable bills, and make up the lost revenue by ending a special-interest tax break for insurance companies.

Scott has his own political action committee and his own narrow agenda. The House and Senate should concentrate on the Florida that everyone but the governor can see.

Online:

https://www.sun-sentinel.com

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March 8

The Orlando Sentinel on a bill that would strip leaders of local business regulation:

Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran vowed to “shake up the system” this week in a rousing speech to kick off the 2017 legislative session. That’s an understatement in at least one critical context, where the speaker is backing legislation that would break up the system.

Under House Bill 17, sponsored by Palm Bay Republican Randy Fine, leaders elected locally would be stripped of their longstanding and fundamental authority to regulate businesses operating within their boundaries, unless granted the right to do so in specific cases by legislators. Existing local regulations would expire in mid-2020, unless local leaders acted first to reduce or repeal them.

Passage of the bill would roll back the clock in Florida 50 years, before the state constitution was amended in 1968 to establish home rule for local governments. The amendment granted them “broad authority to legislate on any matter that is not inconsistent with federal or state law,” according to legislative analysts.

The logic behind the amendment remains sound: With few exceptions, local leaders are in the best position to set local policy. They live and work in the communities where those policies apply. They interact face-to-face and day-to-day with the people and businesses that are affected. They have a personal stake in the success or failure of those policies. They are the most accessible - and most directly accountable - level of government.

Before home rule was enshrined in the Florida Constitution, it was not unusual for the Legislature to consider thousands of bills a year dealing with local issues. The annual total of those local bills has declined to a few dozen, and that’s a good thing. It makes much more sense for legislators to devote their limited time during their regular session each year - normally just 60 days - to statewide issues, instead of micromanaging municipalities.

Yet HB 17 would transfer significant power from local to state leaders. Citizens or businesses seeking changes in regulatory policy would have to join the parade of supplicants in Tallahassee, instead of taking up the issue with their local leaders in city hall or the county courthouse. This would be especially hard on small businesses that lack the resources, time and know-how to navigate the corridors of power in the state capital.

Obviously, the benefit of any local business regulation needs to be carefully balanced by local leaders against the burden it would impose. Specific mandates on wages or benefits might be ill-advised.

But HB 17 could preclude a wide range of local initiatives dealing with public health, safety, rights and quality of life. While local leaders are still pondering the ramifications of the legislative language, ordinances they consider at risk include anti-discrimination rules for LGBT citizens, local noise controls, environmental protections, limits on locations for medical marijuana dispensaries and adult entertainment restrictions.

In recent years, the Legislature has pre-empted local regulations in some specific areas, such as for ordinances dealing with guns. Last year lawmakers tried, but failed, to block any local controls on fracking. These are unwelcome, but they’re targeted strikes on home rule. Fine’s bill is a carpet bombing.

A top-down, one-size-fits-all approach to regulation is especially ill-suited for Florida, one of the nation’s most geographically and culturally diverse states. Why operate under the assumption that a policy that’s a good fit for rural North Florida should apply in downtown Miami? Legislators hate it when they get big-footed on issues by Washington, D.C. Why would they think it’s OK to turn around and do the same thing to local governments?

Online:

https://www.orlandosentinel.com

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March 8

The Ocala Star Banner on medical marijuana legislation:

The Legislature opened its 2017 session Tuesday, and before they wrap up this year, lawmakers must cement the will of 71 percent of the voters who last November wanted medical marijuana written into the state Constitution in the belief that it would help some of their sickest neighbors.

But lawmakers must also respect the wishes of a still-significant minority that worries about the amendment’s effects on public safety and community aesthetics - concerns shared by locally elected leaders in cities and counties throughout Florida, including in Marion, that have adopted moratoriums on medical pot.

Yet whether you support or oppose medical pot, here is the best part of this debate: Florida’s duly elected lawmakers are hammering out a policy that affects Florida residents after it was debated by Florida voters through two election cycles before being approved.

We should not underestimate the implications of this process.

We, as just one voice, appreciate that this policy is being developed in Tallahassee and not, say, in Washington, where people who have no connection to Florida could be drafting medical-pot policy for us.

Which makes a bill recently filed in Congress all the more intriguing.

U.S. Rep. Thomas Garrett, a freshman Republican from Virginia, has proposed a bill that would remove marijuana from the federal government’s list of most dangerous drugs, as found in the Controlled Substances Act.

Garrett’s bill, if enacted, would allow the states to craft their own individual pot laws, although it would remain a federal crime to transport marijuana into states that outlaw it.

Garrett’s bill is important for two reasons.

First, it is a common sense compromise in the ongoing debate over the increasing legalization of marijuana, whether for medicinal or recreational purposes.

More importantly, though, the measure respects and triggers the federalist system the Founding Fathers created for us by placing a controversial issue into the hands of policy-makers who are closest to the people of each state.

Garrett summed it up well, saying in a statement, “Virginia is more than capable of handling its own marijuana policy, as are states such as Colorado or California.” Or Florida.

Marijuana, specifically, cries out for a return to the original balance of power between Washington and the states, as pot policy across America is a jumbled mess.

The federal government initially outlawed marijuana for use and sale by the general public in 1937. When Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act in 1970, marijuana was included among the most addictive, most dangerous narcotics along with LSD and heroin. The feds also consider drugs in that category to have no recognizable medical use. The federal government classifies pot as more of a public health threat than cocaine, morphine or sleeping pills like Xanax or Valium, whose death rate, according to researchers, is quadruple what it was 20 years ago.

But as we’ve seen, the thinking on marijuana has changed. Dramatically.

Florida and 27 other states and the District of Columbia have approved pot for medical usage. Meanwhile, eight states and the District have green-lighted small amounts of marijuana for recreational use. Another 17 states have bills pending that would legalize marijuana for adults.

This conflict over some form of legalized pot between more than half the country and the nation’s capital is goofy, confusing and in need of resolution.

Congressman Garrett’s bill will provide a much-needed fix by allowing each state to pass and enforce its own marijuana laws, and thus it should be enacted.

Online:

https://www.ocala.com

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