Huge problem for Florida Team Democrat looking toward the 2012 elections: There's no sign of a miracle likely to come dancing out of the locker room later this week.

This week the Senate debated the appropriations minibus that encompasses three major appropriations/spending bills into one bill.

Gov. Rick Scott wants the presidents and trustees of Floridas 11 public universities to outline what the schools are doing to ensure graduates meet the need of employers.

And the education leaders have until Nov. 15 to reply.

Ava Parker, chairwoman of the Board of Governors, wrote Scott that the board would coordinate a response.

Scott intends to use the answers for his higher education plan that he has already said he wants focused on science, technology, engineering and mathematics, the STEM core desired for a high-tech future.

The work in committees went slowly this week, as lawmakers discussed plenty about the budget and redistricting but took relatively few actions on the big-ticket items of the looming legislative session.

But when lawmakers and Gov. Rick Scott talked, those with an interest in the matters listened. And generally talked back.

While Scott found himself squaring off with the state's higher-education establishment, one senator landed in hot water with Latinos while another got in trouble with the budget chair.

SCOTT PROFESSES COLLEGE IDEAS:

If you want to know whether Marco Rubio lied, ask another son or daughter, grandson or granddaughter of a Cuban exile.

A statewide program established in 2009 to require mediation in residential foreclosure cases isn't working and should be significantly changed, a panel set up by the Florida Supreme Court concluded Friday in a report that warns of another deluge of foreclosure cases.

Following a series of conference calls and a review of public comments, a work group led by 2nd District Court of Appeal Judge William Palmer called on the state's highest court to eliminate the requirement that all borrowers and residential mortgage holders seek mediation as part of the foreclosure process.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Richard Mourdock, a Republican and Indiana's treasurer, wants to wrest his party's U.S. Senate nomination from a six-term incumbent who has been a national figure since becoming mayor of this city in 1968 at age 35, who has averaged 69 percent of the vote in five re-elections, and who ran unopposed by a Democrat in 2006.

WASHINGTON -- The operative maxim in cable television can be summed up as follows: Is it good teevee?