Critics of Jeb Bush call him an elitist Republican. But when you follow the trend line on FCAT scores, he has done more to boost education for poor, minority students than any governor in Florida's history. The accountability debate is over. It works.

The FCAT, once viewed by detractors as a grading system designed to stigmatize public schools as failures and award tuition vouchers to students for private schools, now appears to be plagued by grade inflation.

Just because the Legislature put up $1.5 billion for the coming year and pledged to spend $750 million a year for the next 10 years doesn't mean the state did anything to manage growth. In fact, the legislation weakens growth management. It lets builders write a check for roads or schools, then go ahead and build, even if the local community can't build the roads or schools fast enough. Making builders pay is good, but easing the standard for providing services won't manage growth; it will hasten it.

Farm workers lost their bid to get two key bills passed that would have saved lives on the state's highways and repaired housing lost to hurricanes last year.

the liberals at a Florida politics Web blog (flapolitics.com) who refer to me as the Sentinel's "reliable Republican apologist," GOP sycophant and Bush family flak.

Dear Scott:

You are correct that this site has referred to you as "the Sentinel's
'reliable Republican apologist,' GOP sycophant and Bush family flak."
But haven't we also referred to you as a "Crotty family retainer", or
words to that effect, for your puff pieces about Rich Crotty?

Out of fairness, though, we have pointed readers to those occasions
when you write about some of the (many) foibles of our (too many)
GOoPer elected officials.

By the way, the correct address for the "Florida Politics" website is
"http://flapolitics.blogspot.com/".

Thanks,

Florida Politics

Despite overwhelming voter demand for a constitutional amendment giving consumers broad access to records of medical mistakes by doctors and hospitals, legislators severely restricted those rights in a bill they've sent to Gov. Jeb Bush.

Seminole County GOP Chairman Jim Stelling went to court Tuesday, hoping to restore his name.

Stelling said it had been smeared by a former Seminole GOP executive committee member who sent a letter to party executives statewide that in part falsely accused Stelling of having been married six times, he alleged in a defamation suit.

Stelling says he has been married five times.

Speaker Allan Bense offers all sorts of excuses for the House's failure to adopt lobbyist reforms endorsed by Senate President Tom Lee.
But the real explanation was evident when the House killed the much-needed reforms. Lobbyists cramming the Florida Capitol erupted as if their favorite team had scored a touchdown.

These high-powered lobbyists were determined to keep their machinations in the shadows. And Bense and House members did their bidding.

So the lobbyists had much to celebrate. They can continue to operate with little oversight or accountability.

It would be nice to think that the Legislature let Gov. Bush's latest education proposals die because lawmakers finally have concluded that the "education governor" has done enough damage to education. But that isn't what happened.

The House, which at Gov. Bush's insistence has helped to burden public schools with ever-increasing state mandates while refusing to pay for voter-approved class-size reductions, sunk his A++ Plan because private voucher schools objected to a Senate proposal requiring them to conduct thorough background checks on employees. Some voucher schools think the state would be heavy-handed if it made them check national databases — not just Florida records — to see if teachers and other employees were convicted of sex offenses in other states.

For better or worse, counties and cities more frequently will have the final say about how their communities develop, and how they balance job creation with environmental protection.

That's good because a particular community's growth should reflect its needs, desires and values.

That's bad because it increases the likelihood that decisions, even more than now, will reflect political influence versus sound science - particularly in smaller counties and municipalities with limited regulatory ability.

What that portends for the state - particularly Northwest Florida, where development is poised to take off - will depend to an even greater degree on the willingness of local commissioners and citizens to wisely balance short- and long-term economic and environmental pressures.

Do you approve or disapprove of the job Jeb Bush is doing as governor?
49% Approve
46% Disapprove
5% Not Sure

Make sure that sentences are appropriate, that parole is completed successfully. Once an ex-convict has done his time or has been discharged from supervision, then voting rights should automatically follow.

bill to that effect favorably cleared two committees in the Florida Senate before it stalled in the Florida House. The bill would have placed the issue on the ballot so that Florida voters would have the choice of amending the constitution to provide automatic voting rights for offenders after successful completion of their sentences.

So add irony to all the other elements of the case involving "L.G.," a 13-year-old foster child whom Judge Alvarez allowed to have an abortion. After last week's ruling, a telephone call came to the judge's office from Don Kazimir, who runs the diocese's Respect Life Office. Mr. Kazimir wanted to know where Judge Alvarez, who is Catholic, attends church. Mr. Kazimir indicated that he would speak to the parish priest about whether the judge should be able to receive communion. Because the Vatican opposes abortion, some bishops have refused the sacrament to politicians whose votes favor abortion rights.

The day after The Post broke the story of Mr. Kazimir's call, Bishop Gerald Barbarito issued a statement that the diocese had taken no position on the case. Mr. Kazimir, the bishop said, was speaking for himself. Bishop Barbarito discussed the call with Mr. Kazimir, but a spokesman said Tuesday that the diocese had no further comment.

Republicans are about to experience something they haven't seen since 1994 — a governor's race without Jeb Bush and the muscle that made him the party's emperor. ...

Bush has been such a dominating presence in the party that he has handpicked candidates for other offices, kept a tight rein on the party's political machine and, some say, stifled the GOP's growth by turning it into the "Bush Party."

But all of that is about to change.

With Bush unable to run for a third term, his political machine is divided between Crist and Gallagher. And Bush, who had strongly hinted that he would support Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings if she were to run for governor, may find himself left in the lurch because Jennings has privately told key supporters that she might not run.

a "Ronald Reagan Republican," Attorney General Charlie Crist formally announced Monday his bid to become governor and the state's conservative standard bearer.

"I used to work for a guy named Connie Mack and a guy named Jeb Bush. That pedigree is where Florida is," Crist said in an interview. "Floridians want less taxing, less government and more freedom."

Earlier in the day, "America's Most Wanted" host John Walsh filed papers with Florida election officials on Crist's behalf ... .

will be glad to know that the Legislature wasn't able to "protect" the state constitution as much as some lawmakers wanted.

At this point, only one change will be on the 2006 ballot. Voters will decide whether to require that any proposed amendment get 60 percent of the vote to pass, rather than a majority. Given the intent behind this proposal, voters should reject it. But the outcome could have been much worse.

Gov. Jeb Bush proposed converting the state's Medicaid program into a proving ground for untested reforms -- including a plan to force recipients into the private market to choose between plans that might not offer the care they need. The central element of Bush's plan: A cap on how much coverage an individual could receive. There were appealing elements to Bush's proposal -- including provisions that gave Medicaid recipients more choice. But advocates for the vulnerable immediately raised legitimate concerns the plan would cut desperately needed medical care while failing to control costs.

State leaders were probably surprised by the vehemence of the opposition to this untried scheme -- and the attention it drew across the country, where Florida is seen as the laboratory for Medicaid changes.

Experts studied Florida's Medicaid system and found it is already more efficient than health care in the private sector, and the program's cost increases are less than half the rate of medical inflation overall. Medicaid coverage costs about $600 a year less than comparable private insurance for an adult.

to check with private phone and cable companies first and go through a cumbersome approval process that includes writing a business plan and keeping a separate budget.

In addition, the PSC portion of the bill clears the way for commissioners to attend conferences and related events that are sponsored by a utility the PSC regulates.

Unlike I-4, the Tamiami Trail runs, as the name suggests, from Tampa to Miami. And Tampa Bay is, as John Kerry learned, Florida’s unquestioned electoral king-maker.

Of George Bush’s top six “most improved” counties from 2000 to 2004, four of them encircle Tampa Bay. Together Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco and Polk gave the Bush campaign a comfortable winning margin of 81,000 in 2000. But the 2004 Bush outfit nearly doubled that margin in whipping up on Kerry by 161,000 votes in those same four counties. Those four Tampa counties alone accounted for nearly 20% of Bush’s entire winning margin statewide and instantly dashed Kerry’s hopes of stealing Florida.

Farther south along the Tamiami Trail are four overlooked but important counties along the lower western coast. Bush carried Sarasota, Manatee, Collier and Lee Counties by a combined 81,000 votes in 2000. In 2004, he pushed that advantage to 127,000 – a 54% increase. The difference, 46,000 votes, accounted for another 12% of Bush’s total Florida victory margin.

For those scoring at home, those eight large counties along Florida’s west coast accounted for about one third of Bush’s Florida winning margin.

But while the top of the Tamiami Trail was a walk in the park for Republicans, the last leg is more a bright spot for Democrats. It is Miami-Dade County – Florida’s largest. With little fanfare, Miami-Dade County gave a 49,000 vote edge to John Kerry when it mustered a 39,000 vote margin for Al Gore four years earlier. Even though it’s only an increase of 10,000 votes, Miami-Dade is one of just three large counties in Florida to actually increase its vote margin for Democrats.

This could be the best news of all for Democrats. With their continued dominance in Broward and Palm Beach Counties, an emerging stronghold in Miami-Dade could give Democrats a real trifecta in the southeast where Kerry collected nearly 1.2 million votes.

But to have any real chance of winning statewide, Democrats can’t allow themselves to be bludgeoned in Tampa. They will have to offer candidates such as Betty Castor, whose Tampa political base made her a formidable statewide candidate, or impressive Tampa Congressman Jim Davis, who is already a candidate for Governor in 2006. Or Democrats may have to cultivate newcomers like State Representative Charlie Justice from St. Petersburg if they hope to make inroads around Tampa Bay.

Even more than competing in Tampa, Democrats can no longer afford to ignore Florida’s lower western coast. The region is growing in population and Republican strength. Democrats must recognize the importance of campaigning there and will have to make real investments to be competitive.

Last, Florida Democrats must take advantage of the political climate in Miami and make changes that will exploit and accelerate the growth of their new emerging majority. That means grooming Hispanic candidates and developing messages that work in Spanish.

Republicans have a naturally easier time along this new political road. They can either move to maximize their advantages in Tampa by fielding candidates like Attorney General Charlie Crist from St. Petersburg who is a rumored 2006 candidate for Governor or override growing Democratic strengths in Miami-Dade like Cuban-American Mel Martinez did to win his seat in the Senate. But if Republicans allow Miami-Dade to become another Broward or Palm Beach County, their days of winning in Florida are over.

Candidates looking for election roadmaps in Florida in 2006 and beyond would do well to take a spin down the Tamiami Trail. The candidates who focus their campaigns on the voters who live there will be best positioned to win. And the political party that develops messages that work in Tampa, Naples and Miami at the same time can likewise look forward to a long and prosperous winning streak.

No class-size changes, no new vouchers, no middle school reform. None of Bush's education initiatives passed. Not even a last-minute proposal to delay the measuring of class size based on the average within each school from 2006 to 2007 — when Bush will be out of office. That means Bush will have to deal with paying for the more expensive school measurement next year, or again push for another delay or the repeal of the amendment.

Privacy experts cheered last month when the Florida Department of Law Enforcement announced that it was ending a controversial data-mining project that compiled reams of personal information on state residents and dumped it into a statewide database.

Turns out the project -- dubbed MATRIX, for Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange -- wasn't as dead as it seemed. The FDLE's real plan: Expand MATRIX by adding credit-bureau and insurance information on millions of Floridians, most of whom have never committed a crime -- and place all that information in the hands of a private vendor trafficking in personal information.

For many, the response might be a yawning "So what?" People with no criminal record might think they have nothing to worry about. But these growing databases pose a serious threat to privacy.

"What (FDLE's) building is the skeleton of a system to track every single American," says Chris Calabrese, counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union's Liberty and Technology Project. Imagine every chat-room conversation, every late bill payment, every copy of a store surveillance camera tape -- do you really want that information preserved forever, tagged to your name and constantly examined for markers that you might be thinking about breaking the law?

For most of his time in office, Gov. Jeb Bush has all but walked on water, pushing through changes that a less confident or pedigreed politician would not have dared. But with less than two years left in power, Mr. Bush is experiencing something strange: defeat.

His mind was plainly on his legacy in March, when he used his State of the State address to call for "bold, brave ideas" to "define us as dreamers, builders and problem solvers." Among his top goals were expanding a school voucher program that has been found unconstitutional and is under review by the Florida Supreme Court and scaling back a costly constitutional requirement to reduce class size in public schools.

Mr. Bush, who wants most to be seen as an education reformer and architect of government efficiency, also proposed overhauling the state's Medicaid system, making it harder to sue businesses and planning more responsibly for the state's unfettered growth. But as the two-month legislative session spun to a close this week, Mr. Bush suffered some of the sharpest losses of his tenure - at the hands of his own Republican party.

On Thursday, the State Senate rejected the governor's proposal to ask voters to scale back the class-size limits they approved in 2002, which he has said would cost taxpayers billions of dollars. It also killed his plan to expand the voucher program, which would have allowed struggling readers to transfer to private and religious schools.

For a governor who has accrued unparalleled power in Florida and fashioned a national profile as a GOP leader on education and healthcare, it was an abrupt snap to an unprecedented winning streak. And it was fueled, observers said, as much by Bush's aggressive, imperial style of governing as by the fact he's term-limited and will be leaving office shortly after a new governor is elected in November 2006.