"This thing blocks out the sun," Bush said later at an Orlando campaign stop. "It is so big that it will mean a broad-based tax of some kind. And people need to know that."

Gov. Jeb Bush has launched a plan to save hundreds of millions of dollars a year by restricting Medicaid patients' access to only the least expensive prescription drugs.

Bush ordered his top health officials this month to seek legislative and federal agency approval for his proposal, which would create a scaled-down list of drugs that doctors can prescribe to the state's 2.1 million poor and disabled, half of whom are children.

Strong indications are that U.S. Rep. Jim Davis of Tampa, state Sen. Rod Smith of Alachua and Lawton "Bud" Chiles III of Orlando, son of the late, two-term Democratic governor, are planning to run, according to those attended.

Betty Castor, who lost the U.S. Senate race to Republican Mel Martinez last November, joined the meeting by conference call and told participants she "remains very interested" in the governor's race, participants said.

Charles Lee, vice president of the Audubon of Florida, called the EPA's review "disappointing," particularly since the agency in 2003 had warned portions of the law "appeared to conflict" with federal law.

"In the short term, we're certainly glad that the governor is asking for funds to deal with the backlog. But in the long term, you have to ask why Florida is spending money on a process that most states find completely unnecessary," said Courtenay Strickland, coordinator of voting rights for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, which successfully challenged the Department of Corrections clemency process in a class action lawsuit settled last year. "If you provide for automatic restoration of voting rights after completion of the sentence, then all of this becomes unnecessary."

The Committee to Restore Voter Integrity, a group headed by Sen. Mandy Dawson, D-Fort Lauderdale, has begun to gather signatures to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot in 2006 allowing voters to decide if felons should have their rights automatically restored once their sentence is complete.

[AG] Crist confirmed Tuesday that he wants to know whether there is fodder for a full investigation. His interest was piqued by a Tribune editorial published Jan. 11 urging him and his office to bring an independent eye to Gov. Jeb Bush's pet project.

As antsy faculty and alumni worried about starting a controversial chiropractic school, Florida State University president T.K. Wetherell publicly espoused a cautious approach, saying the university faculty would review the matter to decide the right course of action.

But in e-mails written months ago, Wetherell showed his mind was clearly made up in favor of the new school - and he was spoiling for a fight with the statewide university board that will decide Thursday whether to bless or kill the school, the product of dealmaking in last year's Legislature.

Few would argue that outsourcing some public services to private companies is never a good idea. When a private firm can perform as well or better than government, at lower cost, outsourcing may serve taxpayers better in the long run.

By most accounts, the slate favored by Democratic state senators all happen to be Democratic state senators: Sen. Rod Smith, D-Alachua, would run for governor; Campbell would run for attorney general; and Sen. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, would run for chief financial officer.

None of those prospective candidates say final decisions have been made. And at least in the governor's race, competition appears likely.

Smith's potential competition includes Lawton "Bud" Chiles III, son of the late governor, who has filed papers to run, and U.S. Rep. Jim Davis, D-Tampa, who has been talking to people across the state about running. Maddox implied Monday that while he won't decide for some time, he is inclined to run unless former Education Commissioner Betty Castor gets in the race. She hasn't closed the door on getting in, but has downplayed the likelihood.

Before a closed-door huddle of potential candidates at the Jefferson County farm of U.S. Rep. Allen Boyd, Nelson said he has asked former Sen. Bob Graham to come out of retirement and run for governor again - but was turned down.

That leaves Betty Castor, the party's unsuccessful nominee for the U.S. Senate this year, as the biggest name in the race to succeed Republican Gov. Jeb Bush. Castor is expected to announce her personal plans after the legislative session.

Nelson told reporters at his downtown office that Castor "is very interested in running for governor."

Florida will collect an additional $4-billion in its wallet next year, but Gov. Jeb Bush wants to hand universities what amounts to pocket change. His proposed 2005-06 budget covers only a fourth of what his own Board of Governors says is necessary merely to keep pace with new students.

Attorney Larry Klayman, representing one woman, claimed in opening statements that agents of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service vented their prejudice against Cubans during the raid.

"This was a chance for payback to the Cuban community," he told the judge at the opening of a trial that may take up to two weeks. "Agents intended all along to use excessive force."

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a friend-of-the-court brief Monday in a case challenging Florida's original school voucher law, arguing that a state appellate court that found the law unconstitutional erred in interpreting a U.S. Supreme Court decision.

Florida's Supreme Court is considering the appeal of a November ruling by the 1st District Court of Appeal that the voucher law violates a provision of the Florida Constitution forbidding the state from using tax dollars to aid any church, sect or religious denomination.

The U.S. Supreme Court sent Gov. Jeb Bush a loud message Monday: He is not above the constitution.

In a letter sent to the president Monday, Wexler said Brown should be fired for his "failure to address agency fraud including a massive misallocation of recovery aid funds in Florida."

President Bush's controversial proposal to overhaul Social Security has huge political repercussions in Florida -- home to more than three million senior citizens. ...

"This is, without a doubt, precarious territory," said U.S. Rep. Tom Feeney, an Oviedo Republican who backs Bush's proposal but admits that "no one is betting the ranch we're going to have success."

Feeney notes there may be long-term political advantages for Republicans among younger voters who are worried that Social Security will go belly-up long before they hit retirement age.

"There's a risk here for Democrats, as well," Feeney said.

But Florida's nearly three million seniors remain one of the state's most avid voting blocs, resulting in election-year pilgrimages by political candidates to city-size retirement centers such as Broward County's fabled Century Village, Sun City near Tampa and The Villages in Central Florida.

"People in the system have their antennas up," said Jeff Johnson, a strategist for the Florida AARP. The national chapter is running newspaper ads that denounce Bush's proposal as risky and dispute his contention that Social Security in the future will run out of money. "It's a critical issue, if not the critical issue."

Nelson said he has sought assurances from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada that he'll play a leading role in Democratic efforts to rebuff Bush and portray his proposal as a "breach of a sacred trust."

In a crucial blow to efforts by Gov. Jeb Bush, the Florida Legislature and others to keep Terri Schiavo alive, the U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to take up the governor's appeal in the case, leaving the door open to the removal of the feeding tube that has kept the severely brain-damaged St. Petersburg woman alive for more than a decade.

A lawsuit challenging how Florida funds large urban school districts remained alive, although barely, after a judge threw out key provisions.

A bid by the Miami-Dade school district to undo the way the state doles out money for public schools was seriously damaged Monday after a Tallahassee judge threw out most of the district's lawsuit.

The district first went to court over the summer, after the Florida Legislature reduced the amount of money that Miami-Dade and other South Florida counties traditionally received to help pay for higher living costs. The change in the funding method has helped direct millions more to counties such as Orange, Leon and Duval, the home county of former Senate President Jim King, who was instrumental in altering the formula. ...

But Circuit Court Judge P. Kevin Davey sided with lawyers hired by the Legislature, throwing out two of the three parts of the lawsuit. Davey ruled that changing the cost-of-living formula did not violate the state's requirement that school funding be done in a uniform way. He also ruled that legislators did not use the state budget to change a stand-alone law, which is also prohibited by the state Constitution. ...

The judge, however, kept alive a portion of the lawsuit that questions whether the Department of Education had the authority to alter how it hands out the state money without changing state law first.

Floridians can't afford another year of their representatives expending more energy bickering with each other than working together on behalf of the well-being of all the state's residents.

A legislative panel that will recommend changes to the state's property insurance laws in the wake of last year's four hurricanes decided Monday to delay its vote until next week

Looking to rebound from a disastrous showing in last fall's elections, Florida Democrats soon might unveil a carefully crafted lineup of candidates for some of the state's most powerful posts.

Although at least two contenders will likely slug it out to become the Democratic nominee for governor, party leaders say they are trying to lessen the odds of costly primary fights in the races for attorney general and chief financial officer.

The Florida Chamber of Commerce is upset that voters overwhelmingly have approved a constitutional amendment raising the minimum hourly wage $1, to $6.15. The chamber, which speaks on behalf of businesses, doesn't think it's fair to compensate the state's lowest-paid employees a little better. It thinks it's unfair that employers have to pay the higher wages. It claims, from alarmist and alarmingly phony evidence, that jobs and benefits will be lost as a result. The chamber can't change the minds of 71 percent of voters who approved the amendment. So it's asking the Legislature to "clarify" through a new law the meaning of three words: "employer," "employee" and "wage." The clarification presumably would help businesses skirt the amendment so that they can legally keep paying their employees chattel wages.

Ambrose Bierce's "Devil's Dictionary" defines a corporation as "an ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility." It's a harsh judgment. But the Legislature would only be making Bierce's point, and shaming Florida, if it went along with the chamber's dodge around the Minimum Wage Amendment.

Gov. Jeb Bush's plan to let state employees set up "health savings accounts" embodies two ideas that have been gaining attention in recent years.

First, HSAs would give "ownership" of their insurance plans to employees who choose them, by letting them bank some tax-exempt savings and having the money matched by the state - up to $500 for individuals and $1,000 for families. ...

Second, HSAs represent a cost-shifting from employer to employee. ...

Instead of having one premium for individual employees and another for families, last year Bush tried to let employees choose between a stripped-down basic plan and a comprehensive policy that would have cost more and covered more. There still would have been separate columns for single and family coverage in each category, but the Legislature rejected the whole idea.

Now, instead of a Volkswagen plan and Cadillac plan, Bush has come up with something like a bus pass with tax breaks.

There seems to be a new attitude toward privatization in Florida's Capitol.

Republican legislative leaders, who gave Gov. Jeb Bush pretty much whatever he wanted in "outsourcing" of state services over the past six years, now speak of "accountability" in contracting.

And Democrats, who have doggedly resisted every initiative that would reduce the number of government jobs, have adopted a conciliatory tone of not throwing themselves in the way of efficiency initiatives that are going to pass anyway.

Even Gov. Jeb Bush, who sent shock waves through Tallahassee's major industry by speculating about emptying downtown office buildings in his second inaugural address, last week acknowledged that his administration made "mistakes" in negotiating big-ticket deals. Bush included $1 million in his budget proposals for creation of an "office of procurement" to help agencies drive a harder bargain when they contract out for services.

Electing politicians for a single geographic district is a structure that works well in most situations. It allows more participation from minorities while it holds down the cost of running for office. The Legislature and county commissions benefit from the structure, as does the U.S. House.

But it doesn't work for school boards. That's particularly true now that the cornerstone of school-accountability plans for both Florida and the nation is the transfer of students from bad schools to better ones. And usually the schools are in different political districts.

Just two years after Florida started flunking 9-year-olds for scoring low on a state reading test, Education Commissioner John Winn is entirely too eager to declare victory. His push for legislation that would extend the testing consequences to students in all grades is more than a little hasty.

Winn describes his effort as "bumping the standards up," but his plan doesn't increase the passing scores or change classroom curriculum. What it does, rather, is take one of the most agonizing decisions any teacher faces - whether to promote or retain a struggling student - and subject it to a rigid state bureaucratic directive where the teacher's judgment is irrelevant.

Mr. Bush is proposing that the state's 2.1 million Medicaid recipients be allotted money to buy their own health care coverage from managed care organizations and other private medical networks. If enacted, the program would make Florida the first state to allow private companies, not the state, to decide the scope and extent of services to the elderly, the disabled and the poor, half of them children. ...

Florida, with the most radical plan so far, would not be the only state to incorporate managed care into its Medicaid program. Most states do. The difference is that other states impose strict conditions about who will be covered and for which services. Under Governor Bush's plan, the private companies would make those important decisions without government interference. ...

Some details of the Florida plan are still vague, including at what point spending would be capped and whether any services would be guaranteed.

As Republican leaders have pushed in recent years to cut a tax imposed on investors, they have used a folksy message: Florida shouldn't penalize its "seniors and savers."

But with Gov. Jeb Bush signaling last week that he will lead a renewed effort to slash -- and ultimately eliminate -- the so-called "intangibles" tax, don't expect the senior and savers who would benefit from it to be the same ones you see bagging groceries at the corner store.

State figures show that fewer than 2 percent of Floridians are required to pay the tax, which is collected on stocks and bonds. And those who pay often are millionaires.

"Indecent proposal"

Gov. Jeb Bush is proposing a budget that would repeal the remaining taxes on Florida's wealthiest stockholders and deprive thousands of seriously ill people access to the hospitals and doctors who keep them alive. What the taxpayers would save is nearly what it would cost the state to continue the federally subsidized Medically Needy program.

Is this what the people of Florida wish the government to do in our names? Who among us could look in the mirror and say yes?

Bush's proposal to "make Medicaid coverage look and operate more like private insurance" inspires more worry than confidence, especially when private insurance is either unaffordable or otherwise unattainable for another 3.2 million Floridians.

That he quickly followed his announcement with a plan to cut the Medically Needy program casts more doubt on his brand of private-must-be-better "reform." The program offers last-ditch coverage to about 32,000 people who work but cannot afford, or are too sick to qualify for, private insurance.

Ms. Castor, who may run for governor in two years, announced this month that she will work with a group called the Committee for Fair Representation. Led by a Democratic legislator, its goal is to gather enough signatures to put on the November 2006 ballot a constitutional amendment that would establish an independent commission to draw congressional and legislative districts. ...

As you would expect, Florida's Republican chairman mocked the idea as "desperate," saying that Democrats want to change the rules for their benefit. And it's true that the Democrats would have said the same thing if Republicans had proposed it when they held just nine of 40 state Senate seats. But the proposal should have been on the ballot in 1998. The reason it wasn't is that GOP lawmakers knew it would pass and intervened. Most members of the Constitution Revision Commission supported the idea. Then Republican legislative leaders engineered vote-trading among commission members, and the proposal fell one vote short.

"I believe this is a common-sense budget based on sound conservative principles," Bush said of his spending plan. The same can't be said for his counterproductive strategy that targets an extremely vulnerable segment of Florida's population.

The State Board of Education's move to end social promotion sounded sweeping and bold, but it faces skeptical lawmakers, uncertain details and a long phase-in period.

State and local governments have paid or promised more than $21-million of benefits plus a tax break worth up to $74.5-million to help a financial corporate titan create jobs in Tampa - the same company that will lay off 1,900 employees this year.

Time and again, the company now called JPMorgan Chase & Co. promised Tampa and the state that it was bringing more high-wage jobs to Tampa - even as it was shedding other jobs here.

Florida easily could change its name from the Sunshine State to the Ocean State if Rhode Island, despite its meager 40 miles of coastline, hadn't already nabbed the title.

With a coast that is 1,350 miles long, Florida is second only to Alaska with real estate abutting the water. But Florida's population of 17 million uses its coast much more than the 650,000 Alaskans use theirs.

Pro-guns, pro-business, pro-family and patriotic — sound like the GOP?

Nope, it's the Mainstream Democrats, a group of Florida lawmakers touting personal responsibility, morals, patriotism and efficient government to woo back voters in a state where Republicans dominate politics on all but the local levels.

"The Republicans started this campaign that the Democrats were liberal, left-wing wackos, and we ignored it because it was so ridiculous," said Sen. Steve Geller of Hallandale Beach, who formed the Florida Mainstream Democratic Alliance last year with a handful of Senate colleagues.

Gov. Bush and the Legislature have a record of giving private voucher schools special treatment. They kept up that record when writing guidelines for the universal pre-kindergarten program. To make the program work, the Legislature must change rules that put public schools at a disadvantage.

Bush fails to recognize another reality: If a new judge is assigned to a criminal division, he will need defense lawyers and prosecutors to handle the cases. Bush's budget proposal includes no additional funding to hire more lawyers to work for public defenders and state attorneys in Florida.

Lawmakers must not ignore this reality. In putting together the budget they should take a holistic approach: If taxpayers are going to pay for more judges, they must also provide for the other essential partners.

U.S. Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart, R-Miami, will become the next vice chairman of the House Rules committee, giving him considerable power over every piece of legislation that goes before Congress, including Social Security and the U.S. embargo against Cuba.

One of Florida's largest outsourcing efforts has spurred a battle of the titans, with telecommunication giants AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, BellSouth and MCI brawling over which should get as much as $200 million to replace the state's aging voice and data network.

It took political guts for Department of Children and Families Secretary Lucy Hadi to choose to keep state workers at the core of Economic Self-Sufficiency Services, the program that determines eligibility for food stamps, Medicaid and cash assistance. The Bush administration is bent on privatization, and Hadi might have scored more political points with the governor's office if she had backed the wholesale outsourcing of services and workers.

The St. Petersburg nonprofit company that sells goods made by Florida prisoners has severed ties with a controversial spinoff and acknowledged the alliance might have financially compromised the firm.

As has been the case since 1999, Gov. Bush's budget is less than what it seems. Yes, he proposed a 300 percent increase for the program to keep children from smoking. That $4 million total, however, would be about $70 million less than experts believe the state should be spending. The money is there, sent to the state every year as part of the 1997 settlement with tobacco companies. But Gov. Bush, who opposed the lawsuit that produced the settlement, spends the money on his own priorities.

Those include tax cuts. Two stand out. One would eliminate, at a cost to the state of nearly $50 million, the tax on liquor by the drink. In 1998, during the governor's campaign, an association fund-raiser brought in $250,000 for the Republican Party of Florida. In 2001, Gov. Bush tried to slip into the budget a cut in the drink tax, just after meeting with a lobbyist for the Florida Restaurant Association. The Post exposed it. Now, the governor intends to keep that promise, and then some. Don't expect any savings when you hoist a cold one.

Nor would most Floridians benefit from phasing out the intangibles tax on non-retirement securities accounts. Gov. Bush has trimmed it for six years, and that has meant savings for the minority of Floridians with significant stock portfolios. For Floridians without those portfolios, the governor cuts most of the Medically Needy program.

"School ban on showing 'The Passion' assailed"

A community college is drawing criticism for banning a Christian student organization from showing the controversial Mel Gibson movie, The Passion of the Christ. Indian River Community College officials defended the decision, saying they were following a longstanding practice banning student groups from airing R-rated films.

But the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE, has accused the school of a double standard because it allowed other R-rated films, such as the documentary, Welcome to Sarajevo.

FIRE president David French said the college was trampling on "legal and moral rights to free speech and freedom of conscience." He said it's part of a national problem of limiting campus religious activities.

IRCC spokeswoman Michelle Abaldo said R-rated movies, such as Welcome to Sarajevo, have been shown as part of class lessons, but never by a student group. Recently, the school denied another group's request to show The Last Samurai.

Reading Gov. Jeb Bush's budget recommendations raises questions, once again, about his priorities for the state.
Tax cuts for rich people? Sure. A slush fund for business incentives? Absolutely. Making it cheaper for folks who get sloshed in bars? Might as well.

Meanwhile, Bush wants to kick seriously ill Floridians out of hospital beds. Scrimp on pre-kindergarten education. Raise college tuition by more than 7 percent.

"Florida's GOP delegates laud speech as inspiring"

After hours of discussion that nearly killed an agreement with the gambling industry, Miami-Dade commissioners set a March 8 referendum on slot machines at parimutuels.

The program ended last summer after Gov. Jeb Bush vetoed the $2 million cost of the monitors. State officials are now relying on parents to alert them if teens run away or go missing before trial.

The 111-page proposed bill, given to House and Senate leaders Wednesday by Associated Industries of Florida, would limit people's ability to sue in about 30 different situations, including inadequate street lights and asbestos contamination.

It also would limit class-action lawsuits and ban advertising by personal injury lawyers.

The proposal promises to pit businessmen against attorneys, as was the case when lawmakers considered lawsuit-reform packages in 1999, 2001, 2002 and last year.

Of course, there is one small problem for Diaz.

He's not a Democrat.

He used to be. In fact, he was a very active Democrat who helped a number of politicians around the state get elected, including U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson. But Diaz renounced his membership in the party and became an independent in 2000 following the government's seizure of Elián González.

Diaz was one of the lawyers for the Cuban boy's Miami relatives. He was very critical of Janet Reno, who was U.S. attorney general at the time, and the whole Clinton administration.

In 2002, Diaz endorsed Republican Jeb Bush for governor. And in 2004, he sat on the sidelines during the presidential race.

Gov. Jeb Bush's proposal to eliminate a $400-million health care program for the poor got a skeptical reception from legislative leaders on Wednesday.

Bill Nelson, long rumored to be considering a run for governor of Florida when Gov. Jeb Bush steps down next year, said Wednesday he will not, and instead will seek re-election to the Senate in 2006.

We think, however, that there is a more-humane and cost-effective way to get rid of the backlog: The Legislature should discard the entire clemency process and restore felons' rights automatically. The current process is an anachronistic holdover from the 19th century, when lawmakers sought to roll back blacks' post-Civil War gains. It wastes millions in taxpayers' money each year, and it robs thousands of former inmates of the chance to live productively. ...

The state has disenfranchised 500,000 people, disproportionately African-American men, by, in effect, punishing them twice: once, rightly, for their crimes, then again by not automatically restoring civil rights after felons have completed prison terms.

The state should provide every incentive for ex-felons to become full participants in civil society, encouraging them to find employment and become engaged, productive residents. The clemency process is a costly, needless stumbling block.

For Florida's Democratic Party activists to unanimously endorse Howard Dean's bid to run the national party speaks volumes about their political ineptness and strategic cluelessness.

state budget cutbacks in medical care would affect thousands.

Senate President Tom Lee has started to make good on one of his key promises -- building a firewall to cool the relationship between lobbyists and the state Legislature.

Just two months ago, after taking over the helm of the Senate, Lee railed against the power and arrogance of special interests.

Now, prompted by the debate raging over the future of a plan for a chiropractic school at Florida State University, Lee wants to keep lobbyists from serving on boards that govern the state's public universities, including the boards of trustees at each school and the statewide Board of Governors.

"We have 17.4 million Floridians," said Lee, R-Brandon. "We can't find 100 talented people who don't butter their bread with the Florida Legislature to serve on [these boards]? Give me a break."

Lee has asked two of his key lieutenants to see how far the Legislature can go in banning lobbyists from serving on key boards that often decide how state dollars are spent or whether legislators have violated ethics rules.

Key power brokers no longer retain influential posts, and other states are jostling for influence. There is, of course, Jeb Bush.

Increasing options for early voting, establishing larger precincts that require fewer poll workers and restoring the right of ex-felons to vote all are big-picture subjects that Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood could have proposed last Thursday at a joint House and Senate elections committee hearing.

Instead, Ms. Hood offered a minimalist agenda designed to avoid upsetting state lawmakers who apparently believe that the state's voting system is beyond reproach. Admittedly, the state needs to improve tracking of absentee ballots, clarify rules for making contact with people waiting in line to vote and correct overlapping registration deadlines, which were the issues Ms. Hood suggested. But the state's three-stage, trying-to-be-everything-to-everybody system of early voting, absentee voting and Election Day voting needs help. Will the Legislature act? Not likely, said Senate Elections Chairman Bill Posey, R-Rockledge. "It's really working pretty good."

Since the call to overhaul comes from the right, some fear a new constitution proposed by the current Republican Legislature would infringe on abortion and church-state separation. But any ideas out of the mainstream would not escape the Legislature, much less survive a public referendum and get past the U.S. Supreme Court.

True, it would take four to six years to test provisions in a new state constitution. By then, a Bush-appointed judiciary might be less inclined to find "penumbras" and "emanations" in the Bill of Rights or its own past edicts.

The 2006 elections are more than 1 ½ years away, but the field for statewide races is starting to form. Rep. Joe Negron is the first to jump into the race for attorney general.

Florida legislative leaders vowed to end the infighting and tackle tough issues during their session that begins in March.

Florida State University's president and provost Wednesday stood by their trustees' decision last week concerning the proposed chiropractic program.

Instead of taking a stance on the proposal, trustees handed its fate over to the Board of Governors.

it seems disingenuous of Mr. Bush to turn to the Board of Governors - whose creation he fought every inch of the way - to do what he could have done himself months ago.