South Florida media were unsuccessful Friday putting President Donald Trump on the defensive over underfunding the massive Herbert Hoover Dike-repair project.

The president took control of the agenda during his visit to the crumbling 143-mile earthen dike at Canal Point, and he never relinquished it.

Appearing with Florida's top political leaders  -- Gov. Ron DeSantis and U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott -- Trump kept his Everglades comments upbeat and vague.

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday ordered the continued suspension of fees and penalties for SunPass and TOLL-BY-PLATE customers. And the Florida Department of Transportation has imposed a $4.6 million fine on Conduent, the company that oversaw last year’s botched SunPass conversion.

It’s midway through the legislative session and all eyes are on the money now.

The House and Senate this week unveiled competing budget proposals for the upcoming fiscal year. And at roughly $1 billion apart, money fights are sure to abound, as lawmakers inch toward final budget negotiations.

One of the biggest points of contention so far has to do with funding for the state’s tourism industry, particularly Visit Florida, the tourism-marketing agency whose life is on the line.

When Floridians went to the polls in November, they approved 11 constitutional amendments on issues ranging from restoring felons’ voting rights to banning greyhound racing.

Now, it’s clear that many Republican lawmakers hope to avoid a repeat of such ballot-driven decision-making in the future.

Proposals are floating in the Legislature that would make it harder for citizens and groups to put constitutional amendments on the ballot --- and make it tougher to pass amendments that get there.

Wrapping up his first three months as chairman of the U.S. Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee this week, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., advanced three bills and a nomination from the Trump administration this week, sending all of them to the full Senate. 

U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, D-Fla., was elected last week to serve as one of the co-chairs of the  Democratic Women’s Caucus (DWC), formerly the Democratic Women’s Working Group, a caucus of more than 90 congresswomen. 

Frankel, U.S. Rep. Brenda Lawrence, D-Mich., and U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., will lead the DWC as co-chairs while U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Tex., and U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland, D-NM, will serve as the vice chairs. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis continues to ride a wave of popularity among Florida voters, who also support many of his public policy priorities, including the importation of prescription drugs from Canada to reduce costs to Floridians and the creation of a task force to reduce the impact of harmful algae blooms, according to a statewide survey by the Florida Atlantic University Business and Economics Polling Initiative (FAU BEPI). 

State employees have been thrown into the drug importation mix.

Amid a push by Gov. Ron DeSantis to allow Canadian prescription-drug imports, the House Appropriations Committee this week approved a bill that would require the Florida Department of Management Services to offer an international prescription-drug program as a benefit to state employees.

The proposal is included in a bill (HB 5009) that would conform state law to the House’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2019-2020. The Senate has not included the drug-importation option in its budget bills.

Florida patients can now smoke medical marijuana, but some Republican legislative leaders want to put a limit on how high they can get when lighting up.

The House is considering a proposal that would cap THC levels in medical marijuana at 10 percent, Rep. Ray Rodrigues, R-Estero, said in an interview with The News Service of Florida.

No bill has been filed, and Rodrigues, who’s shepherded medical-marijuana legislation in the House since low-THC cannabis was first authorized in 2014, said legislation is still “up in the air.”

This week, U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., brought back his proposal to offer employees of small businesses better retirement benefits.

Buchanan introduced his “Retirement Security for American Workers Act” back in February 2017. When he talked about the proposal at the end of 2016, he said his legislation “makes it less costly for small businesses to offer retirement benefits, and could help the more than 76 million Americans who work for companies that do not offer the opportunity to save for a secure retirement.”