Floridas congressional delegation divided along party lines last week, after President Barack Obama nominated former U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel to be the next secretary of Defense -- andit looks like the president could be in for at least a modest fight to get his man confirmed.

Though Republican Hagel represented red-state Nebraska in the Senate, he has held a number of foreign policy positions -- specifically stances on Israel, the Middle East and Cuba -- clearly in contrast with the positions of many conservatives, particularly among the Florida delegation.

As Congress hammered out a deal over the fiscal cliff cuts, Florida businesses were on edge, the Florida Chamber of Commerce reports.

The quarterly Small Business Index Survey numbers from the chamber found that as Congress debated cuts to the federal budget made earlier in 2012, 26 percent of 679 businesses responding to the chamber questions between Dec. 3 and Dec. 21 in Florida believe they are worse off today than six months ago.

The mark is down from 35 percent in October.

Grover Norquist, labeled by MSNBC "the most influential man in America who doesn't sleep in the White House," said Thursday, no question about it, the House's 13th-hour fiscal-cliff compromise was a "colossal victory" for Republicans -- and for 99 percent of American taxpayers.

"What happened," he said, "is the Democrats lost their leverage. What's not to like?"

Looking relaxed, sounding precisely as "happy" as he professed to be, the president of Americans for Tax Reform was at the state Capitol to speak to the Tallahassee Chapter of the Center Right Coalition.

The controversial "stand your ground" self-defense law would be repealed under a bill filed this week by a House Democrat.

The law, which allows those who feel threatened to shoot back at assailants out in public, seized the national spotlight last year with the February shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford.

Rep. Alan Williams, D-Tallahassee, filed the measure (HB 4009) on Wednesday.

"This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility."

Unless Florida does health care right, the economy wont prosper.

Florida must deal with mounting Medicaid costs or face the prospect that employers won't grow and will flee to another state or country. That was the no-nonsense message for attendees at a summit in Orlando focusing on how the state should respond to the federal health care overhaul and growing Medicaid costs.

But just what is right remains a myriad of opinions.

Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, said Gov. Rick Scott -- who has come under fire from the media and some medical groups for using state projections on potential health care costs -- was reasonable to question the potential economic impact of the Affordable Care Act on Florida.

There are a lot of moving parts in determining what happens if you expand Medicaid, Negron said. Some individuals who would be covered under the expansion of Medicaid would fall off other areas of the budget.