Backroom Briefing: Bondi backs down

By JIM TURNER
THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, June 30, 2015…… Attorney General Pam Bondi is dropping her opposition to Gov. Rick Scott's desired leader of the Department of Environmental Protection.
 
Bondi's office announced Thursday that she will support Interim DEP Secretary Jon Steverson at the Aug. 5 Cabinet meeting.

"After further extensive review of the applications submitted for the position of secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the attorney general has decided not to bring forward any additional applicants for the public interview process and is now prepared to move forward with the public interview of Jon Steverson," Bondi's spokesman Whitney Ray said in an email.

Ray added that Bondi didn't ask anyone to apply who hadn't put their name into the mix already.

At the June 23 Cabinet meeting Bondi halted a vote that would have made Steverson the only interviewee for the job, saying she may have an alternative. 

After the meeting Bondi she declined to say whom she was considering.

DEMOCRATS CRITIZE BUSH'S 'WINNING ARGUMENT' ON MEDICARE

Billionaire Donald Trump may be roasting in the media attention while he dominates the GOP's presidential playground, but Democrats are skewering former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

South Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, hosted a media call on Thursday to attack Bush for telling a New Hampshire crowd that Medicare needs to be replaced.
 
"Millions of my own constituents, people who Jeb Bush should know best but seems to not care about, would absolutely be in harm's way in terms of their health without the benefit of Medicare," Wasserman Schultz declared.
 
In a videotaped appearance at an Americans for Prosperity's “Road to Reform" event in Concord, New Hampshire, on Wednesday, Bush said that "the left needs to join the conversation, but they haven't" regarding the future of Medicare.
 
“I think we need to be vigilant about this and persuade people that our, when your volunteers go door to door, and they talk to people, people understand this," Bush continued. "They know, and I think a lot of people recognize that we need to make sure we fulfill the commitment to people that have already received the benefits, that are receiving the benefits. But that we need to figure out a way to phase out this program for others and move to a new system that allows them to have something --- because they're not going to have anything.  And that argument I think is going to be a winning argument if we take it directly to people.”
 
On Monday, Bush teased a partisan crowd in Tallahassee that he was working on a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, while unveiling a list of civil-service and congressional reforms.
 
On Wednesday, the annual Social Security and Medicare Trustees' report indicated that the trust fund for Medicare is solvent until 2030, with coverage falling without Congressional action to about 80 percent through 2050.

TWEET OF THE WEEK: "If the new congressional map includes my home, I intend on running to serve the people again." --- Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (@CharlieCrist), in the wake of a Florida Supreme Court decision ordering the Legislature to redraw several Congressional districts.