Weekly Roundup: Getting ready for the season

By BRANDON LARRABEE
THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, January 13, 2017..........On Monday night in Tampa, the Clemson Tigers dethroned the Alabama Crimson Tide in college football's national championship game. The next few days in Tallahassee proved that there's still a long way to go before we know who will come out on top in a different kind of season: the 2017 legislative session.

But the jockeying for position, which had died down a little bit over the holidays, returned to the spotlight.

The battle over business incentives seems no closer to being resolved than it did weeks ago. House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O' Lakes, and his allies are still against them. Gov. Rick Scott and many of his supporters are still for them. Into that fight stepped Ken Lawson, a Tallahassee insider and now the newly appointed head of the state's tourism booster.

Leaders also laid out their ideas on higher education. Scott's focus was on holding down fees in addition to an expansion of Bright Futures. Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, wants more resources for universities and a slate of other changes in addition to the Bright Futures measure.

Thrown on top of all of that: gambling, gun bills, testing, ride-sharing and all manner of issues sure to draw plenty of lobbying and media attention until the final night of the legislative session. They won't give out any trophies then, but just like a college football team's fate can be decided early in the season, whoever emerges as a winner probably took some steps in that direction this week.

A JOB, IF YOU CAN KEEP IT

It's safe to say there are few elected or appointed officials in state government who owe their position to Miami rapper Pitbull. Lawson, who was installed as the new head of Visit Florida this week, is one of them.

Lawson was tapped for the position by the Visit Florida board after the previous president and CEO, Will Seccombe, was ousted in the aftermath of a controversial, although expired, tourism-marketing contract with Pitbull. The board also agreed to pay $73,000 to the departing Seccombe.

Lawson, who was the secretary of the Department of Business and Professional Regulation before the appointment, will make $175,000 to lead his new agency.

The first task, according to Lawson, will be meeting Scott's recommendations to make the agency more transparent. But even he understood there was another looming objective on the horizon.

"Also I'm going to make sure the Legislature understands the value of Visit Florida, and that we understand their role in overseeing us, so there are no questions in the future," Lawson said after Tuesday's board meeting.

Easier said than done. Lawmakers like Corcoran are showing increasing resistance to Scott's expected budget request of $76 million for the spending year that begins July 1. Even before reports about the $1 million contract with Pitbull, whose real name is Armando Christian Perez, Corcoran was spearheading a push against state spending to boost industries, whether through Visit Florida or incentives offered by public-private Enterprise Florida.

Corcoran has even hinted at questions about whether Visit Florida should exist. One part of Lawson's job will be to convince lawmakers that he should have one.

Scott got support from the Florida Chamber of Commerce in another part of the incentives battle this week, when the organization threw its weight behind the governor's bid to set aside $85 million for incentives through Enterprise Florida.

During a news conference Thursday to release legislative priorities for the upcoming session, Florida Chamber President and CEO Mark Wilson said the business group "fully" supports Scott's proposal. Wilson said more than 90 percent of jobs are created in Florida without the use of incentives but that limited use of such money is needed to compete for "high-wage, high-skill jobs."

"When we helped create Enterprise Florida in the mid-'90s, 20 years ago, the intent then and the intent now is that incentives and marketing dollars are incredibly important and incentives should rarely be used," said Wilson, a member of the Enterprise Florida board. "But, when they are appropriate, they are the difference maker."

Those pushing against incentives also found a new foothold: settlement money from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. The head of the new House Select Committee on Triumph Gulf Coast said the panel will look to spend the money on things other than directly attracting tourism or business.

"We are not going to be focused on direct economic incentives. That's not what we think is the best use of the dollars," Chairman Jay Trumbull, R-Panama City, said after the committee's first meeting Thursday. "But we do believe that there are many opportunities to spend the money in ways that don't have to be direct incentives."

GOVERNMENT U

Since he was first designated as president for the current legislative term, Negron has signaled that he would launch a major push to strengthen the state's higher education system. He spoke at his designation ceremony of spending another $1 billion on universities over the next two years, and went on a listening tour of the 12 university campuses last spring.

This week, lawmakers, lobbyists and higher education officials got the clearest look yet at what Negron has in mind, when the Senate released two bills (SB 2 and SB 4) outlining proposed changes.

The measures are part of a wide-ranging plan to reshape higher education that includes an expansion of Bright Futures scholarships, block tuition for universities, stronger requirements for students to graduate on time and a program to attract high-quality faculty.

"These bills are key components of a comprehensive higher education agenda that will boost the strength and competitiveness of our state's higher education system as our primary economic engine to drive vibrant, sustainable economic development and growth in high-paying jobs," Negron said in a statement.

The legislation would increase the top-level award for the merit-based Bright Futures scholarships to cover all tuition and fees and provide a $300 per semester stipend for books, and allow top-level Bright Futures recipients to use their scholarships for summer classes. The Senate's Bright Futures changes would cost an estimated $151 million.

The plan would also allow out-of-state students to qualify for scholarships for National Merit Scholars, boost spending on need-based financial aid and institute block tuition, which would charge students for 15 credit hours each semester, rather than having them pay per hour. That would ideally incentivize students to take more hours and graduate earlier.

The bills followed Scott's opening bid on higher education: capping student fees and eliminating sales taxes on textbook purchases in addition to extending the Bright Futures scholarships to summer classes for all recipients.

That's in line with how Scott has often addressed the costs of higher education --- by ratcheting down the ways that colleges and universities charge students to fund their education, sometimes over the objections of administrators who say the moves make it difficult to provide high-quality services.

"Florida students should have every opportunity to earn a degree in four years without graduating with mountains of debt," Scott said in a statement. "While we have fought to make higher education more affordable by holding the line on undergraduate tuition, there is much more that can be done to help students."

THE SIFTING BEGINS

The first few weeks of committee meetings in Tallahassee are often where the issues that will dominate the legislative session are separated from those that will fade in importance once March rolls around. Right now, there's still some sorting to be done.

Meetings around the Capitol offered an almost cacophonous array of proposals that included limits or loosened restrictions on guns; term limits for appellate judges; a measure that would prevent local governments from regulating app-based transportation services such as Uber and Lyft; and a push for fewer standardized tests in Florida schools.

One of the marquee proposals to emerge, though, came without a related committee hearing, when Sen. Bill Galvano released a sweeping, 112-page gambling bill (SB 8). The title of the bill --- essentially a summary of what it would do --- ran 11.5 pages on its own.

Galvano, R-Brandenton, is scheduled to be a future Senate president and was instrumental in the passage of the Legislature's last major gambling bill when he was in the House.

His newest pitch would allow slot machines in eight counties where voters have approved them, let South Florida pari-mutuels run blackjack games, and give tracks permission to do away with greyhound racing while keeping lucrative cardrooms and slots.

Galvano called his blueprint a starting point as lawmakers gear up to deal with a potential gambling agreement being negotiated by the Seminole Tribe, Scott's staff and legislative leaders.

"To effectively address an issue like gaming that involves an almost century-old industry and a sovereign within our own borders, it has to be rolled out procedurally correct. The bill that has been filed is comprehensive on the industry side," Galvano told The News Service of Florida. "It really includes most everything that has been discussed of late."

Negotiations with the Seminoles are underway after a portion of a 20-year deal, called a compact, expired in 2015. That portion gave the tribe the exclusive rights to operate "banked" card games such as blackjack.

But a federal judge in November ruled that the Seminoles could continue to offer blackjack because the state had breached the agreement by permitting controversial "designated player" games at pari-mutuel cardrooms. U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle ruled that the designated player games violate a state law prohibiting games in which players bet against the house.

Galvano's soup-to-nuts proposal would make legal the designated player games.

His plan would also allow slots in eight counties where voters have approved them --- a shift away from what lawmakers previously have been willing to authorize and something the Seminoles have opposed. The current compact, signed in 2010, gives the tribe "exclusive" rights to operate slot machines outside of Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

Galvano said he expects the Senate Regulated Industries Committee to take up the measure at its next meeting Jan. 25, as lawmakers prepare for the March 7 start of the annual session. As in previous years, passage of any gambling proposal remains "a heavy lift," Galvano said.

"But here it is, second committee week. We've got a bill out. I'm going to make an effort to see if we can get there," he said.

STORY OF THE WEEK: Visit Florida got a new leader as the agency braces for a heated fight over incentives and marketing money in the 2017 legislative session.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "Citrus is part of the character, agriculture is part of the character of the state. It's more than just economics, it's part of the character of who we are. I want to make sure that agriculture has what it needs to survive, but at the same time I'm cognizant that we're spending other people's money."--- House Agriculture & Natural Resources Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, on funding for efforts to fight citrus greening.