Gov. Rick Scott continued his push to upgrade Floridas port system by calling for $38 million in state and local money to be pumped into JaxPort to attract larger cargo ships.

The money would complete the second phase of the TraPac Container Terminal project, allowing the Jacksonville Port Authority to fix the navigational problems in the St. Johns River at Mile Point.

Floridas ports are critical to providing jobs for Florida families -- and we can no longer wait on the federal government to fund such an important project, Scott stated in a release.

With some voters waiting in line up to seven hours to cast their ballots -- in one Democratic-leaning county they were urged out by late weekend robocalls -- county elections supervisors suggested that a 60- to 90-minute maximum wait-time could be more acceptable in the future.

Appearing before the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee, a number of county supervisors said its difficult to put an arbitrary, acceptable duration on the voting experience.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Miami, in releasing a pseudo-amnesty plan that would give about 11 million people currently living illegally in the country a chance to obtain legal residency, told The Wall Street Journal the proposal is not blanket amnesty or a special pathway to citizenship.

The proposal offered by Rubio -- who has previously spoken in favor of reforming the nations immigration policy as a counter to the DREAM Act -- is designed to help the nation attract skilled workers and maintain its agricultural base.

Contending county election reform must start with leadership, state Rep. Gayle Harrell remains unimpressed by the state audit conducted on the election meltdown in St. Lucie County.

Now, with election supervisors due to testify over in the state Senate on Monday, she intends to seek more specific recommendations when a review of the states 2012 general election is released in a couple of weeks.

In the near future, a resident in rural parts of Florida may simply log onto their computer to Skype with their primary care physician for standard consultations, diagnoses and prescriptions.

Just dont expect Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, the powerful Budget chairman who also heads his chambers Select Committee on Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to champion the cause in the coming legislative session.

Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, adamantly defended before a room of Central Florida business leaders a proposal by two of his chief lieutenants to consolidate county transit boards.

Darn right well support Senator Simmons, Gaetz told members of the Tiger Bay Club during a legislative preview at the Citrus Bowl on Friday.

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.

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.