Sayfie Review Roundup - April 18, 2015
Florida's top headlines that attracted the most
readers on Sayfie Review this week
Eli Stokols - Politico - April 21, 2015
...With one well-received January speech in Iowa, Scott Walker shot to the top of the polls. After a successful campaign launch, Marco Rubio is slowly gaining ground with donors and with conservatives who see a candidate with an inspiring biography and exceptional skills as a communicator.
Yet it's Jeb Bush who's frequently described as the front-runner in a crowded field of more than a dozen Republican candidates. The reality is that he's not - at this stage in the nominating contest, no one is.
"The Republican nomination is wide open," said Ana Navarro, a Miami-based strategist who is close to Bush. "We'll try many flavors of the month before we settle on one."
Steve Bousquet - Tampa Bay Times - April 20, 2015
...In the eighth week of the nine-week legislative session, the Florida Senate has not yet confirmed more than a dozen of Gov. Rick Scott's agency heads. All 13 remain bottled up in the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee, which is not set to meet again before the scheduled end of the session May 1.
Holding up confirmation of the governor's appointees to state agencies, boards and commissions is a time-honored way for senators to express their displeasure with the executive branch, and the Senate GOP's inner circle is displeased with Scott's public opposition to its plan for a modified form of Medicaid expansion.
Mary Ellen Klas - Miami Herald - April 22, 2015
...As a confrontation over the state budget escalated, Gov. Rick Scott on Wednesday privately called several Republican senators into his office individually, threatening to veto their priorities if they failed to cooperate with his plan to lower taxes and spend more money on schools.
Scott reminded senators he wants $673 million in tax cuts and attempted to tie that to the impasse over health care policy and the state budget debate, which is sending the Legislature into overtime.
Scott showed senators a list of their local hospitals, which are expecting to draw down state and federal money to offset care for the working poor. He claims they are making unreasonable profits.
The message, according to several senators who spoke with Scott: Why aren't we cutting taxes if we are willing to send taxpayer money to profitable hospitals?
