BICKERING OVER ABORTION, SCHOOLS AS HOUSE READIES BUDGET

By BRANDON LARRABEE
THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, February 8, 2012......Lawmakers clashed over everything from abortion to education policy Wednesday as the House set up the coming fiscal year's budget for a final vote.

Republicans largely swept aside Democratic attempts to overhaul the budget's approach to social policy and school spending, accepting only an amendment to keep a Jefferson County prison open -- and that only after the GOP proposed a different funding method than the one favored by Democrats.

Most of the day's debate was filled with often-emotional clashes over issues with more to do with politics than dollars and cents.

The two sometimes overlapped. Rep. Charles Chestnut, D-Gainesville, pushed to take $2 million aimed at pregnancy crisis counseling programs favored by abortion opponents and instead plow the money into family planning -- arguing the funds would be more effective there.

"Family-planning centers in Florida are often the only source of health care for low-income women," Chestnut said.

But socially conservative lawmakers fought back, arguing the measure was a thinly-veiled attempt to kill the crisis centers.

"Unfortunately, this amendment is simply a political statement in attacking pregnancy centers that are doing a great service, multiplying millions of volunteers' hours to take care of women," said Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala.

The amendment was defeated on a voice vote, as was a Democratic push to split $55 million in education construction money evenly between charter schools and other public schools. Under the GOP budget plan, all those funds would go to charter schools.

"Whether a child goes to a charter school or a traditional public school, it doesn't matter," said Rep. Marty Kiar, a Democrat from Davie who sponsored the amendment. "They're a child that deserves to have education funding. They're a child that deserves to have the funds necessary to be able to have a building built over them so they can learn, so they can play, and so they can become successful in this world."

Republicans responded that public school districts get the lion's share of local property taxes meant to fund education construction -- though some GOP lawmakers are pushing measures that would change that arrangement -- leaving the charter schools with nowhere else to go.

Baxley accused Democrats of "bigotry" against public charter schools.

"We need to quit treating them like stepchildren," he said.

That brought a sharp response from Rep. Scott Randolph, D-Orlando, who noted that charter schools are often free from some of the rules followed by other public schools.

"When the front rows decide to treat them the same, like we've demanded for the last decade, we'll talk about giving them more money," Randolph bellowed.

The GOP also turned aside an attempt to add a provision to the budget barring the House from continuing its lawsuit against a constitutional amendment curbing political gerrymandering of congressional districts. Republicans instead gutted the amendment and provided authority for the Legislature to enter the court fight over the federal health-care law approved by Congress in 2010.

"I believe that it is more important to engage in litigation to defend the individual liberties of the people of Florida and the people of the United States of America," said House Majority Leader Carlos Lopez-Cantera, R-Miami.

But Democrats said it was inappropriate for the House to use taxpayer funds to fight amendments approved by 63 percent of voters, especially after federal judges had ruled against the lawsuit at the district and appeals court levels.

"We've lost this lawsuit at two different stages," said Rep. Perry Thurston, D-Plantation. "Just how much longer will it go on?"

House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, said after the debate that he hasn't decided yet whether to push ahead with the lawsuit after the latest defeat.

"There's no rush, and I'm focused on the things that we're constitutionally obligated to do here right now," Cannon said.

Republicans did push through an amendment to one of the conforming bills that accompany the budget that would bar certain school districts from closing schools to address a budget shortfall unless the district had first rezoned schools and reduced administrator salaries.

"The last place you go to is closing schools," said Rep. Ana Rivas Logan, R-Miami. "That's a very emotional thing you do to parents, and all you do is rile up the community."


But Democrats said the measure was aimed at Seminole County, perhaps the only school district that met the narrow definition in the amendment, and was an attempt to dodge responsibility for the result of reduced per-student education spending by the state.

"This amendment is nothing more than to try to pretend that it wasn't our fault that [the district] closed those schools," Randolph said.

But the amendment's sponsor, Rep. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, rejected arguments that the amendment was meddling, and said Seminole County had built new facilities despite declining student enrollment.

"Flexibility does not include spending ourselves into chronic tax increases," he said.

Lawmakers are expected to more fully debate the budget before Thursday's final vote, which is likely to take place in the afternoon.