Aside from the occasional hurricane, there are few elements of drama in most Tallahassee summers. The Legislature is out of town. Many of the statewide elected officers spend a lot of time elsewhere. The population drops precipitously as university students take their break.
Summer seemed to officially begin this week, as Gov. Rick Scott drained the last drops of suspense from the legislative session and its aftermath. He signed almost 30 bills and vetoed a few. And he named Jimmy Patronis, a former public service commissioner and onetime state representative, as the state's new chief financial officer, filling the spot being vacated by Jeff Atwater.
One bit of controversy that emerged during the spring has yet to be hammered out, as the Florida Supreme Court weighs whether Scott overstepped his bounds by taking death-penalty cases away from a state attorney who said she would not pursue capital punishment. But even there, the questions from justices seemed to leave little doubt about which way the final ruling would go.
Summer has come.
HAIL TO THE CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
Atwater's decision to leave office more than a year early so he could take a position at Florida Atlantic University gave Scott a rare opportunity to fill a seat on the Florida Cabinet, whose approval Scott needs for some of the actions he'd like to take.
And the appointment of Patronis --- a loyal ally with a mix of political and business experience --- was in many ways vintage Scott. The governor had already named Patronis to the Constitution Revision Commission and, before that, to the utility-regulating Public Service Commission --- a job Patronis had to give up to take the CFO post.
Patronis, who served in the House for eight years, was one of the first lawmakers to endorse Scott in 2010. At the time, most GOP legislators were backing then-Attorney General Bill McCollum for the party's gubernatorial nomination.
"He's got a breadth of knowledge about a lot of things," Scott said during an appearance at Patronis' family-owned Capt. Anderson's Restaurant in Panama City.
Unsurprisingly, the Florida Democratic Party was not as taken with the choice. They slammed the elevation of Patronis as "cronyism."
“Floridians are facing rising insurance rates and stagnant wages, but Rick Scott is propping up yet another yes-man rather than prioritizing the needs of working Floridians,” Democratic spokeswoman Johanna Cervone said in a prepared statement. “This governor has stacked nearly every appointment with special interest lackeys rather than the most qualified candidates."
Even some Republicans questioned the pick. Pasco County Tax Collector Mike Fasano, a frequent Scott critic who served in the Legislature with Patronis, tweeted Monday: "Let's not forget Florida's new CFO approved higher utility rates on millions of Duke Energy & Florida Power & Light customers."
Breadth of knowledge or not, Patronis conceded to reporters later in the week that he has some catching up to do.
Personal-injury auto protection, insurance-related assignment of benefits and even the future of those now working for him are all matters Patronis said he hopes to learn about over the next month --- or at least before his first Cabinet meeting on Aug. 16.
"You have to remember I came from the restaurant business, so everybody is a customer," Patrons said Friday morning after being sworn in to the statewide Cabinet post by Chief Justice Jorge Labarga during a brief ceremony in Scott's office. "I look forward to learning as much as I can from other stakeholders in this office. And don't worry, CFO Atwater's phone is programmed in my phone and I will be using it frequently."
VENI VIDI VETO
Outside of using his line-item veto to strike items from the state budget, Scott has often gone easy on deploying his red pen against the Legislature. But this year, he used it on legislation 11 times --- including five times this week, as he wrapped up his work on the bills approved by lawmakers.
In axing one of those measures, he pointed to a high-rise fire in London that killed dozens of residents as a reason to reject easing fire-protection requirements for older condominium buildings in Florida.
The bill (HB 653), which passed the Legislature with only one dissenting vote, dealt with requirements for retrofitting high-rise condominium buildings with fire sprinklers and other types of safety systems. The bill would have pushed back deadlines for the work and provided an avenue for condominium residents to vote to opt out of retrofitting.
Supporters pointed to potentially high costs for condominium residents, but the state fire marshal's office and fire-protection groups asked Scott to veto the measure.
In his veto message, Scott cited the June 14 fire at Grenfell Tower in London that killed dozens of people.
"Decisions regarding safety issues are critically important, as they can be the difference between life and death. Fire sprinklers and enhanced life safety systems are particularly effective in improving the safety of occupants in high-rise buildings and ensure the greatest protection to the emergency responders who bravely conduct firefighting and rescue operations," Scott wrote. "While I am particularly sensitive to regulations that increase the cost of living, the recent London high-rise fire, which tragically took at least 79 lives, illustrates the importance of life safety protections."
Among the other would-be laws that Scott turned away was a bill (HB 937) that would have required the Florida Lottery to post warnings about the addictive nature of lottery games.
“This bill imposes burdensome regulations on the Lottery and its retail partners, and many of the notice provisions are duplicative of current Lottery initiatives,” Scott wrote in his veto message.
But the governor did sign 29 other pieces of legislation Monday, including measures boosting spending on education, tourism marketing and economic development that were approved in a special session in June.
The bills Scott approved included perhaps one of the hardest-fought wins of his time as governor: a measure (HB 1A) that provided $76 million for the tourism-marketing agency Visit Florida; established an $85 million fund to pay for infrastructure improvements and job training to help draw businesses; and set aside $50 million in repairs to the Herbert Hoover Dike along Lake Okeechobee.
"With this legislation, we can promote public infrastructure projects and job training projects to continue to grow jobs for families in every community of our state," Scott said in a statement issued by his office. "We know that for Florida to be competitive in domestic and international markets, we need as many tools as possible to attract growing businesses to our state."
Scott also signed another bill from the special session (HB 3A) boosting per-student spending in the state's main formula for funding public education by $100.
In all, Scott signed 230 of the bills passed during this year's regular session, which ended in June, and all four of those approved in the special session.
BYE BYE AYALA?
Reading the tea leaves of judges' questions is always a tricky practice for courtroom observers. But things certainly looked good for Scott, and grim for 9th Judicial Circuit State Attorney Aramis Ayala after arguments Wednesday at the Florida Supreme Court.
Even the court's more liberal justices --- who might be the most open to Ayala's stand against seeking the death penalty in capital cases --- grilled her lawyer during the arguments.
Scott decided earlier this year to strip Ayala, the state's first black elected state attorney, of two dozen cases from her circuit, which covers Orange and Osceola counties.
Ayala says that move usurped her authority on the prosecutions, including a high-profile case involving accused cop-killer Markeith Loyd. Scott reassigned the cases to Ocala-area State Attorney Brad King, a veteran prosecutor and outspoken defender of the death penalty who is also a defendant in Ayala's lawsuit.
Justice R. Fred Lewis, who consistently sides with the liberal-leaning majority in high court opinions, hammered Roy Austin, a lawyer representing Ayala, over how much discretion Ayala and other state attorneys have.
"To my mind, discretion is when you make a decision on a case-by-case basis," Lewis said. "But this was just the uniform --- or am I mistaken --- was there not a statement that, 'I am not going to follow Florida law,' essentially?"
But Austin, a Washington, D.C., lawyer, argued that "there's nothing in the law that says discretion has to be on a case-by-case basis."
He also disputed harsh questioning by some of the court's more conservative members, including Justices Charles Canady and Alan Lawson, who asked whether Ayala's position could allow prosecutors to refuse to charge drug dealers with crimes if the state attorneys disagreed with the Legislature's views on drug policy.
Florida Solicitor General Amit Agarwal, representing Scott, said that no one --- including Ayala --- has the right to ignore Florida law.
"No one individual, in our society, has the right to say 'I've taken a hard look at this. I've considered all of the available evidence. I've figured out this issue, and I am going to make a policy judgment that is blanket, across the board.' That has the practical effect of effectively nullifying it," Agarwal said.
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