Weekly Roundup: And they're off

By BRANDON LARRABEE
THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, January 15, 2016..........Usually, legislative sessions start out slowly, with the first week focused on catching up with colleagues and friends at the Capitol. There are some speeches, including the governor's annual State of the State address, and committees that haven't gotten serious about their work thus far begin to do so.

But, because of --- and perhaps to make up for --- the disastrous meltdown of the 2015 session, this year's first week was different. Top priorities for Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, and House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, are already headed to Gov. Rick Scott's desk.

For his part, the governor spent his week trying to sell a $1 billion tax cut and other policies he says will allow the state to continue growing its population and workforce. In committee meetings, behind podiums and on the road, Scott touted the tax reductions and changes to the structure of the state's economic-development incentives.

Meanwhile, forces from outside Tallahassee threatened to upend lawmakers' plans. The U.S. Supreme Court added to the Legislature's to-do list by striking down the state's method for imposing the death penalty. But if the House and Senate keep up the pace set in the first week, they could have time left over to deal with some additions to the agenda.

LOOKING OUT FOR NO. 1

The bills House and Senate leaders most want to pass are usually held up until the session's last week, when they can be more useful as chits in budget negotiations and other aspects of the final "deal" between the two chambers.

However, after the implosion of the 2015 legislative session ended up killing some of Gardiner's and Crisafulli's pet projects last year, lawmakers decided to change the order of the proceedings. Crisafulli got a water-policy bill of the type he has sought for years, and Gardiner pushed through legislation helping people with developmental disabilities.

The business-backed water bill (SB 552), which environmentalists say they will seek to make stronger in the future, was sent to Scott after the House approved it Thursday on a 110-2 vote. That came a day after the Senate unanimously supported the bill, which lawmakers have been trying to advance for more than two years.

"A comprehensive approach to water will result in our ability to protect our state's most precious resource from crisis," said House State Affairs Chairman Matt Caldwell, a North Fort Myers Republican and sponsor of the measure.

Scott made it clear he would sign the measure.

The developmental disabilities legislation (SB 672) was named after Gardiner, whose son has Down syndrome. It would make permanent an expansion of a program known as the Florida Personal Learning Scholarship Accounts Program, which provides money to parents of children with disabilities to help meet educational needs, such as buying instructional materials and receiving specialized services.

The bill also includes another initiative aimed at increasing access to college and university programs for students with disabilities.

Another measure (HB 7003) dealing with job opportunities and financial independence for people with disabilities, passed the House and Senate unanimously and also heads to the governor for his signature or veto.

Crisafulli used his speech on the opening day of session to add another priority to the list: Eliminating a five-year waiting period for children of legal immigrants to be eligible for the state's KidCare health-insurance program.

KidCare is a subsidized program that serves children from low- and moderate-income families. Children of lawfully-residing immigrants currently have to wait five years before they can become eligible. The proposed bills lifting the waiting period and would not apply to undocumented immigrants.

"I believe the time has come," Crisafulli said. "These children and their parents have followed our laws and should be able to access the same services many Florida families can."

It was reminiscent of when former Speaker Will Weatherford, Crisafulli's immediate predecessor, used his office to push for allowing some undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition at state colleges and universities. It took Weatherford working on the legislation for two sessions to get it approved, though, and Crisafulli doesn't have that kind of time.

BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE A BILLION?

In his State of the State speech to open the session on Tuesday, Scott wedged a repeated call for his economic priorities into a speech that seemed more concerned with anecdotes about Floridians who manufacture lacrosse equipment and a call to kill terrorists affiliated with the so-called Islamic State group.

One day earlier, he took his pitch to the Senate Finance and Tax Committee, hoping to get the upper chamber to sign onto $1 billion in tax cuts.

"I think these are going to help continue to grow the economy, help get people jobs," Scott said. "The way to do that is to grow the economy, and the way to grow the economy is to get more companies to want to do business here."

The governor also wants to set aside $250 million for a "Florida Enterprise Fund" that would be used to lure companies to continue the growth of the Sunshine State.

Scott is also using his bully pulpit to push the ideas, setting off on his "Million Miles for a Million Jobs" bus tour to mark the state crossing the seven-figure mark in the number of jobs added since the governor took office in 2011.

That approach appears to be working in the House, though Crisafulli is suggesting that his chamber will focus more on one-time tax cuts, to avoid weakening the state's revenue picture in future years. Legislative leaders have expressed concern that providing too many tax cuts that continue year after year could create shortfalls down the road.

"We obviously have a lot of commitments, whether it be education or other issues in the state that we obviously have to make sure that we take care of, but at the end of the day, a $1 billion total number is what we have in mind," Crisafulli told reporters.

WHILE YOU'RE THERE...

If the U.S. Supreme Court was going to invalidate the way people in Florida are sentenced to death, it chose the time when lawmakers might have the best chance to fix any defects. Almost exactly as the gavels were falling down to being the House and Senate meetings on Tuesday, the justices released their opinion.

The 8-1 ruling says juries --- not judges--- should be responsible for imposing the death penalty. The ruling focused on what are known as "aggravating" circumstances that must be found before defendants can be sentenced to death. A 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, in a case known as Ring v. Arizona, requires that determination of such aggravating circumstances be made by juries, not judges.

Florida requires juries to make recommendations to judges regarding the death penalty after considering aggravating and mitigating circumstances, with judges ultimately imposing the sentences.

But Florida's unique law giving judges the power to decide whether defendants should face death equates to an unconstitutional violation of the Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury, Justice Sonya Sotomayor write in the majority opinion.

Lawmakers quickly vowed to fix the problem.

"This is something that we have to do," House Judiciary Chairman Charles McBurney, R-Jacksonville, said. "We will be addressing the issue which was raised specifically by the Supreme Court in that decision, and then looking beyond the narrow decision to see how it affects other aspects of the death penalty statute to ensure its future constitutionality as well."

What seemed less likely was approval for legislation that would require a jury vote to impose the death penalty be unanimous. Only two other states don't require unanimity. And two other Florida cases that deal with the unanimity issue are now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

That's led to concern that doing the minimum to conform Florida law with the high court ruling is problematic.

"My hope is that the Legislature goes far enough to require unanimity in both the decision that somebody is death eligible and that somebody will get the death penalty. And if they don't do that, they're only inviting more litigation and waiting for the next shoe to drop. They may fix it temporarily, but they're not going to fix it permanently," said Florida International University law professor Stephen Harper, who runs the school's Death Penalty Clinic. "They're only going to put a Band-aid on a much bigger problem."

STORY OF THE WEEK: Lawmakers returned to the Capitol for the 2016 legislative session and quickly got down to business, sending legislation dealing with water and developmental disabilities to Gov. Rick Scott.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "We do a lot of things in Tallahassee that you find out in a mail piece later that maybe you regret. But I can tell you, each of us, Republican, Democrat, things like this is why you come up here."--- Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, on a bill dealing with developmental disabilities that was named after him.