When Gov. Rick Scott signed off Friday on the SunRail commuter-rail system in Central Florida, he drew derision from some of his conservative supporters.
But it was that kind of week for Scott, who sometimes seems like a magnet for criticism.
Orlando-area business and political leaders have long pushed for SunRail, but tea party types -- a large part of Scotts political base -- see the project as a costly boondoggle.
Scott also faced criticism this week on issues such as requiring government employees to contribute 3 percent of their paychecks to the state pension fund, reducing the number of weeks of unemployment benefits, and deciding to suspend agency rule-making.
But on the flip side, Scott has strong backing from business and conservative groups for requiring the pension contributions and scaling back unemployment benefits.
ON TRACK:
Scott created a huge amount of suspense about SunRail when he killed a Tampa-to-Orlando high-speed rail project earlier this year.
But when it came time to announce his decision Friday, the governor sent out Department of Transportation Secretary Ananth Prasad to confirm SunRail would go forward.
Among the key factors for his decision: assurances from local officials that the state would not have to pay more than it has already pledged for the project.
There were no new facts, Prasad said. It was just the governors due diligence.
Tea partiers felt abandoned by the decision. But maybe nobody felt as lonely as Sen. Paula Dockery, an early Scott supporter who spent years trying to derail SunRail.
In a statement, the Lakeland Republican described Scotts decision as betraying the trust of the conservative electorate who put him in office by moving forward with the least cost-efficient commuter rail project in the nation.
Scott set a July 1 deadline for the SunRail decision. But July 1 is a magical date in the Capitol for other reasons, as it marks the start of the fiscal year and is the effective date for many new laws.
The governor signed his final bill (SB 404) Tuesday, keeping on track a statewide boarding school for academically at-risk students. Lawmakers approved the school on the hectic last night of the legislative session.
The school was criticized by one lawmaker who thought it had not been vetted and would cost the state too much money. But Scott sided with the boarding school supporters and signed the bill with some caveats. He said supporting the bill did not mean he would approve funding for it in the future.
COURTING CONTROVERSY:
As the top lawyer for Scott, Charles Trippe may have to get used to the short walk from the Capitol to the white-domed Florida Supreme Court building.
Trippe spent his Wednesday morning explaining to seven Supreme Court justices that Scott had not, in fact, exceeded his authority when he issued an executive order shortly after taking office to freeze all state agency rulemaking and to change a process for developing new rules.
Though the issue involves wonky government policy, advocates for the disabled, elderly and the environment did their best to explain how Scotts order impacted real people.
The case, Whiley v. Scott, involves a blind woman who was awaiting an agency rule change that would make it easier for her to apply for Food Stamps. By freezing rulemaking, her attorney argued, Scott had attempted a power grab that was illegal. The power to determine how agency rules are set belongs to the Legislature, said prominent Tallahassee attorney Sandy DAlemberte.
But Trippe told the justices in an argument very similar to one he made earlier in a lawsuit about high-speed rail -- that the governor's power and duty is provided directly by the Constitution.
A few blocks away Thursday, a Leon County circuit judge started considering a constitutional challenge to another Scott-driven issue. The Florida Education Association and other labor groups are trying to block a new law that requires 3 percent pension contributions from hundreds of thousands of state and local workers.
The state won an initial round when Circuit Judge Jackie Fulford refused to require the state to set aside the contributions in a separate account while the case winds its way through the courts. The FEA sought the requirement because of concerns about how the state could refund the contributions to workers if, ultimately, the law is found unconstitutional.
But state attorneys said Florida would make workers whole, if necessary, and Fulford went along with that argument.
JOBS AND JOBLESS:
Scotts pledges of job creation his stated goal is 700,000 jobs in seven years -- took a small hit this week with 1,600 government jobs lost as a result of state budget cuts.
State workers had started receiving pink slips earlier in the month, with a deadline of July 1. Thats when the new, leaner state budget kicked in and eliminated about 4,000 positions from a year ago.
To cope with the job losses, Tallahassee-area business and civic leaders said Tuesday they had established a web-based clearinghouse to help jobless government employees find work and deal with the trauma of being laid off.
BigBendWorks.com will assist both public- and private-sector job seekers by putting them in touch with potential employers, educators and support groups to help them deal with the many facets of being unemployed. Think of it like a local Monster.com targeted at former public employees.
"We came together because we all realized the impending layoff in this community of thousands of employees is something we have never experienced as a community and we needed a unique and different response," said Jim Murdaugh, president of Tallahassee Community College.
Possibly adding to the anxiety of laid-off workers of all stripes, Scott this week signed HB 7005, which immediately scales back the duration of state unemployment benefits from 26 weeks to 23 weeks.
Also, the number of weeks of unemployment insurance would decline further as the unemployment rate goes down, bottoming out at 12 weeks if the rate hits 5 percent.
The bill was a major priority of business groups, who feared a continuing increase in unemployment taxes. The states unemployment fund has already borrowed $2 billion from the federal government.
"We think it's really a step in the right direction to make the system more sustainable long-term," said Tammy Perdue, general counsel for Associated Industries of Florida.
STORY OF THE WEEK: Scott approved moving forward with the 61-mile SunRail project, which eventually will stretch through the Orlando area, from Volusia to Osceola counties. The decision was a victory for many Central Florida business and political leaders but angered people who argue the project is a waste of money.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "This was a ghoulish attack on the victims of the recession to benefit the big guys at the top that caused it," said AFL-CIO lobbyist Rich Templin, after Scott signed the bill scaling back unemployment-compensation benefits.
