I don't know about everyone else, but I'm getting sick (no pun intended) of Republicans' scare and delay tactics concerning health care.  (And we can't leave out many of the conservative Democrats who, by not taking a position on this critical issue, are allowing those tactics to work.)

It's now official: the Senate doesn't plan to vote on the reform bill until after its summer break.  It's good to know if any of them get sick on their trips back home, they'll have health insurance to cover the cost.  As for the 14,000 Americans who will lose their health coverage every day while the Senate's not in session, they're not so lucky.

Enough is enough.  We need health care reform.  And we need it now.  For too long, Congress has sat back and allowed millions upon millions of Americans to go without health insurance because politics dictate it's too difficult and costly to reform our system.

To say they need more time is just a convenient excuse to once again delay actually solving the problem.  Why, exactly, does the Senate need more time?  Have they been unable to figure out over the past decade that the system we have is broken?  Have they not been paying attention to the endless talk about reform since their session began?  It's time for a vote.  Up or down.  Reform or not. 

It will now be fall before the Senate can pass a health care bill.  That's if the multiple committees dealing with this issue can agree on a comprehensive version.  Then it must pass a floor vote.  Then it must go to a conference committee, where the differences in the Senate and House versions will have to be ironed out.   

In short, we're still far from seeing a reformed health care system.  And while Congress has spent more money with less debate in the past, critics of the reform plan will use whatever excuses they can to stop it from happening. 

This is politics, pure and simple.  And playing politics with people's lives is simply unacceptable.  

Equality Florida won a big victory for same-sex couples Wednesday, as AAA Auto Club South, the fourth largest AAA affiliate in the country with over four million members in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Puerto Rico, agreed to recognize all spouses, regardless of sexual orientation, in their membership program.

This means that same-sex couples who've been married in other states or countries need only say that they are married in order to qualify for spousal discounts and to receive the family benefits of membership. Additionally, AAA South left the door open for extending marriage recognition benefits to domestic partners, both gay and straight, in the future.

It will likely take 2 weeks for 3,000 AAA South employees to be trained in order to implement the new policy uniformly.

This issue first arose back in 2005, when a same-sex couple from Georgia was denied spousal benefits by the auto club. More recently, Equality Florida received several phone calls from gay couples who were denied family memberships.

Thanks to Equality Florida's face-to-face meeting with AAA South's management this week, that will no longer be the case.

There has been a lot of talk lately amid all the news reports (including this one, and this one, and this one) about last quarter's fundraising numbers for the major candidates for office in Florida in 2010.  Actually, it seems all anyone's been talking about lately is how much money this person or that one has raised so far.  Alex Sink checked in at $1.3 million.  Marco Rubio lagged behind, banking only $340,000.  Charlie Crist trounced them all, raising $4.3 million.

But, while fundraising is the name of the game in today's political world, there is another, perhaps more normatively important (and certainly less often examined) early aspect of campaigns: Web 2.0 outreach.

Campaigns are about communicating with voters, and there is perhaps no better way in the 21st century to measure that than through candidates' new media efforts.  So, in that spirit, let's examine a different set of numbers: Facebook and Twitter ones.

Alex Sink leads the way on Facebook, tallying 7,419 supporters as of July 16.  The two main groups in support of her candidacy total 1,216 members, and she has several regional support groups of over 100 members (including Orlando - 177, Tampa Bay - 162, and Tallahassee - 137).  

Sink's opponent, Bill McCollum, trails her by leaps and bounds on Facebook.  McCollum tallies only 994 supporters and 687 combined members in his two biggest support groups.  

The candidates for U.S. Senate all post impressive Facebook numbers, with Kendrick Meek leading the way.  Meek's page has 4,099 supporters and his top group posts 4,811 members.  Charlie Crist checks in with 3,968 supporters, but has only 554 group members, a number only slightly more than the 536 members in Meek's Tallahassee group alone.  As for Marco Rubio, he fares decently, with 2,803 supporters and 3,015 group members.

In the next most intriguing race, the Democratic primary for Attorney General, Dave Aronberg leads Dan Gelber in Facebook supporters, 1,190 to 1,033.  Gelber has a group in support of his candidacy totaling 1,570 members, however, while Aronberg has no comparably large group.

Turning to Twitter, the candidates fare slightly differently.  Sink (1,605 followers) and McCollum (1,675 followers) have close-to-equally successful Twitter efforts, but the big winner on Twitter is Marco Rubio, who boasts 3,828 followers.  His two rivals lag behind, with Charlie Crist's page having 2,069 followers and Kendrick Meek's two pages combining for 1,795 followers.  In the AG race, Gelber leads Aronberg 1,279 to 850 followers, respectively.

One other area that bears examination is the number and/or amount of online donors each campaign has garnered.  Although this topic involves fundraising, it is fundraising of a different kind than the traditional method.  Online fundraising empowers individuals who lack the time or connections to get involved in politics to make a difference, and it seems to be a good early indicator of grassroots support for a candidacy. 

There is no better example of this than Alex Sink.  Over a third of her donors (1,310 of 3,402) have been online, where she has raised $209,000.  Her rival, Bill McCollum, had a goal of raising $10,000 online by the end of June.  It's unclear whether or not his campaign met or even exceeded that goal, but even if it did, McCollum's not even in Sink's ballpark in terms of online donors.  

As for the U.S. Senate candidates, the Meek campaign reports nearly 1,000 online donors, while Marco Rubio's campaign recently touted $144,000 in online donations.  Charlie Crist's campaign, on the other hand, isn't publicizing where his money's coming from, so it's difficult to know how successful his online efforts have been.

Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill have begun, and, as GOP senator from South Carolina Lindsey Graham noted Monday, barring a "complete meltdown," Sotomayor will likely be confirmed by the Senate.  

That being said, the outlandish comments of several prominent conservatives in the time since President Obama nominated Sotomayor to the Supreme Court cannot be ignorned.  Since being announced as the nominee in May, Sotomayor has been called a lot of not-nice things, including a racist, a bigot, and an angry woman.  And that's just by Rush Limbaugh alone.

Now, Presente Action, a Latino online advocacy group, is fighting back.  With the support of other progressive organizations, and the endorsement of the Progressive Campaign Change Committee (PCCC), Presente Action has begun airing spanish-language ads in Orlando and Tampa targeting GOP representatives John Mica and Adam Putnam for their failure to denouce Limbaugh's remarks.  

Take a look at the ad running on WRUM in Orlando:

And here's the text of the ads:

In Spanish:

"Sonia Sotomayor is set to be the first Latina, and the first Puerto Rican, to serve on the US Supreme Court.  It is a proud moment for our community. Yet Republican leaders insist on attacking her:"

In English:

"She doesn't have any intellectual depth. She's got a -- she's an angry woman, she's a bigot. She's a racist."

In Spanish:

That's Republican leader Rush Limbaugh calling Judge Sotomayor a racist and a bigot.

It's insulting to all Latinos and Americans.  

We asked Republican Congressman Adam Putnam if he would denounce Limbaugh's words. He refused to reply. Let's put a stop to the hate.  Call Congressman Putnam today at 863-534-353 and tell him to condemn this language.

This ad was paid for by Presente Action

Mica Translation

[Only the bottom section is different]

It's insulting to all Latinos and Americans.  We asked Republican Congressman John Mica if he would denounce Limbaugh's words. His response? Silence.  

Let's put a stop to the hate.  Call Congressman Mica today at 407-657-8080 and tell him to condemn this language.

This ad was paid for by Presente Action 

Nice story in the Naples News Thursday about how pleased Southwest Florida legislators are over this year's recent session. 

Good to know they're happy to give themselves a pat on the back for capping the amount Big Tobacco has to set aside for lawsuits; trying to loosen the class size amendment, eliminate public art funding, and open the eastern Gulf up to reckless drilling; and making it even easier for Big Developers to promote sprawl and wreck the environment.  All in all, apparently not a bad session's worth of work. 

Ah, but in comparison to other states, maybe Florida's session wasn't so bad.

"Rep. Matt Hudson, R-Naples, said California and Illinois both started their fiscal years on July 1 without a balanced budget.  Florida did pass its budget, despite the fact that they were hit with a $6 billion deficit at the start of the session."

Yeah, and come to think of it, New York's legislature has grinded to a complete standstill recently.  So Florida's legislature looks pretty good in comparison, right?  Right?

Wrong.

Just because other state legislatures could possibly be more screwed up than Florida's doesn't mean we should all be happy about what we've got.  And what we've got is a legislature beholden to special interests, a governor who's bailing for D.C and selling out the state in the process, and a bunch of really bad new public policies.

So before we go hailing our legislative session as a success simply because it got a budget passed (late, by the way, costing the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of extra dollars), let's stop for a minute and think about what good really was done.

Then it's easy to wonder if what's happening in New York is really such a bad thing after all... 

From the "Seriously? I mean, seriously?" department Tuesday comes this statement by a spokesman for Gov. Crist in a Tallahassee Democrat article about the recently proposed drilling amendment in the U.S. Senate:

"Gov. Charlie Crist, who is running next year for the U.S. Senate, has not studied the federal legislation and has no position on it."

Seriously, Governor?  I mean, seriously?  "No position?"

There's only one thing worse than those bought-and-sold politicians who think giving Big Oil more access to Gulf waters is a good idea, and that's politicians who are so worried about alienating one constituency or another that they have "no position" on an issue this important.

As a candidate for the very governing body in which this legislation is currently being debated (the frontrunning candidate, it should be noted), it seems fair to expect Charlie Crist to be aware of it, to have an informed opinion on it, and to answer a question about his position on it.  As the current governor of the state the legislation would affect, it seems fair to expect Charlie Crist to be aware of it, to have an informed opinion on it, and to answer a question about his position on it.  And yet, none of those things appears to be the case.   

There are a lot of politicians out there who I disagree with.  But so long as their opinions are pure, so long as they are backed up by fact, so long as they express their views civily and have an open mind to be persuaded, I can at least respect those individuals. 

To claim, however, that you don't have an opinion when you clealry must; to be so worried about your job approval that you don't do your job; to straddle the fence to avoid any hint of controversy; and to claim that you haven't had a chance to study something that directly affects you and the people you represent and that has been in the news non-stop for a week, is simply too much for me to take.

Tell us what your position is, Governor.  The people of your state at least deserve the right to know.     

If you were looking for a reason as to why the oil drilling amendment passed through the Senate Energy Committee with 13 votes last week - and the special interest dollars weren't quite good enough - Bill Nelson's got your answer.

In Tallahassee Monday speaking out against the raids to trust funds in former governor Lawton Chiles's name, Nelson once again voiced his displeasure with the proposed amendment to the energy bill that would allow drilling off Florida's Gulf coast.

In his remarks, Nelson turned the attention to the oil companies' motivation for getting this proposal passed. 

"The land grab over Florida's coastline, he said, is self-serving greed.  'A lease has a value and value adds to the assets of the oil company and the greater the value of the oil company, the greater the value of the stock,' he said.  'The demand for increasing the value of their company is insatiable.'"

Nelson also pointed out that the reason Big Oil is so interested in expanding their efforts to Florida's waters is because they already have infrastructure in place in the Gulf that would allow them to expand eastward without facing additional start-up costs.  He also reminded Floridians that 10 miles, which is how close the amendment would allow drilling in some areas, is well within eye-shot.

Everyone knows that companies are in the business of turning a profit, but what is often overlooked in this battle is not only how outrageous the profit being produced really is (Exxon Mobil, for instance, has repeatedly broken its own record for the largest annual profit by a U.S. company), but that the oil companies already have leases to drill in other regions where they have yet to do so.

This latest invasion of Florida's coastlines is just a greedy power grab by an industry already quite familiar with greed.  That greed will affect us more than just at the pump if this proposal is passed.

To help make sure it isn't, don't forget to continue urging Sen. Nelson to do all he can to oppose this terrible idea by signing Progress Florida's letter here, and encouraging your friends and family to do the same.   

Hard as we all try to ignore it, there's no denying that judicial appointments, at every level, are largely political events.  While there are certainly other factors that come into play (experience, qualifications, temperament), the fact is that some judges are more conservative and others more liberal.  It's just the way it is.   

What we hope is that, in selecting judges, our elected leaders will find the best, most able, most qualified person for the job.  Of course a Republican is likely to nominate a more conservative individual, and a Democrat a more liberal one, but if that person is qualfied; if they have proven they can dissent from other judges nominated by the same party when the time comes; if they understand the importance of equal justice under the law, then at least we can rest easier knowing that the judiciary is in good hands. 

This is why Sonia Sotomayor should be confirmed to the Supreme Court without much trouble, and why John Roberts's confirmation went so smoothly in 2005.  The two probably share little common ground when it comes to constitutional and statutory interpretation (after all, the "law" is only as good as the people who write it, and it certainly can't speak to every dispute - if it did, we wouldn't need courts in the first place), but they are both highly qualified to serve on the nation's highest bench.

Where problems arise is when merit is removed from the process, and replaced with something wholly political.  Take today's editorial in the Orlando Sentinel, which describes the three finalists for a vacancy on Florida's 18th Judicial Circuit.  Curiously, one of the finalists has made campaign contributions to candidates related to the chair of the commission charged with filling the Circuit's vacancy.

The whole system Florida has in place for filling judicial vacancies just asks for this kind of impropriety, and, if it's not changed, political influence on judicial appointments will only continue to increase.  Because the governor has the authority to appoint a majority of the members to each of the nominating commissions, the Florida Bar Association's role, which should be a mitigating one to the politics of selection, has been reduced to minimal in the process.

Gov. Crist should seriously consider Bob Graham and Sandy D'Alemberte's advice, and return the system to its pre-Jeb Bush ways.  If nothing is done, Florida's court system - and all those who must go before it - will suffer the consequences of a politicized judiciary.

You may remember that last week, I wrote about legislative leaders' quest to open up Florida's Gulf Coast to drilling. Well now, the battle over whether or not to allow oil drilling off our coastline may be coming to a ballot box near you.

According to The News Service of Florida, "at least one group is attempting to craft and promote a constitutional amendment to not only allow but require the state to push for the discovery and recovery of oil in the Gulf of Mexico up to 125 miles from shore."

And although it's a long road to climb in order to get a proposed amendment on the ballot, this just goes to show that the question of whether or not to drill is alive and well in Florida's political circles.

I won't reiterate the point I made a week ago about why this is a terrible idea, but I can't help but wonder what impact this campaign will have on the legislature's push to open the Gulf's waters.  As one commenter last week noted, proponents of offshore drilling do a great job of brainwashing the public, and if the spin machine starts early this election cycle, we all better be prepared to fight back before it's too late.  

It seems hard to fathom that Florida's public universities are too inexpensive when the price of a college degree keeps going up.  And yet, Florida does have some of the least expensive tuition in the country.

Now, as Capitol News Service reports, Florida's public universities have been given the power to raise tutition up to seven percent, on top of the already imposed eight percent hike approved by the Legislature for the Fall. 

While you can (and some do) make the case that the best colleges in the country are those that cost the most, an equally valid argument can be made that every child deserves the opportunity to attend college (not to mention that there's a cause and effect argument at play here; i.e. it's easier for students with greater access to resources to be higher achievers, so it's the money that comes first, not the other way around). 

With universities' budgets being cut, the amount of money available for scholarships and financial aid will likely be affected, as it already has been with Bright Futures.  It has never been more difficult to get accepted to one of Florida's finest public universities, and raising tuition by leaps and bounds only shuts more students out of the process.

While the state university system is suffering from the same budget woes as the rest of the government, it seems unreasonable to pass the buck onto the students - and their families - to pay for all of it.   

Should Florida universities raise tuition to be more on par with other states?  It's not unreasonable.  But why is it such a bad thing that Florida has some of the cheapest tutition in the country?  Shouldn't it be the goal of every state university system to provide quality, affordable higher education for all?

But, since tuition costs are on the rise, let's hope the money gets spent where it should - on faculty and research, which are the backbones of any good university.  If we're going to pay more, we should at least have something to show for it in terms of a better educated crop of students. 

If that's not going to be the case, I'd just as soon keep tuition right where it is.    

Since it’s never too early to prepare for the battles bound to ensue in next year’s legislature, here’s one to keep an eye on.

Rep. Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, who is next in line for the House speakership, is already making plans to re-introduce his last minute offshore drilling bill that would lift current restrictions on oil drilling within 10 miles of the Gulf Coast. This year’s version, HB 1219, which passed by a vote of 70-43 in the House, died in the Senate.

From Tuesday’s Tampa Tribune:

“Last week, Gov. Charlie Crist said [the general drilling] concept merits further exploring. But to support it, he said, he would need a guarantee that it would not harm the tourism industry or the environment.

Cannon said he can provide that guarantee. He would agree to requiring that drilling be invisible from shore. ‘I have never contemplated, and would not support, energy exploration that presented either a visual or an environmental threat to Florida’s pristine beaches.’”

But, as pointed out later in the article by Rep. Jim Frishe, R-St. Petersburg, Cannon cannot make those claims with absolute certainty because, “there’s only one way to guarantee that tourists on west coast beaches would be safe, and that’s not to drill.”

With gas prices on the rise again, talk of offshore drilling is likely only to heat up again in advance of next year’s session.

It’s hard to believe Floridians would really support drilling off the Gulf Coast, given what we know about the devastation that would ensue in the event of a spill, but the big oil companies have a lot of lobbying influence in Tallahassee, and with 2010 campaign war chests in need of as much stuffing as possible given the current state of the economy, it’s not unreasonable to believe another attack on our environment is just around the corner.

There have been a lot of accusations flying around lately about Florida’s elected officials playing politics with their current jobs as they battle for new ones next year.  This talk will likely only intensify as campaign season heats up over the next year and a half (that’s right, these elections are still over 17 months away!), although it seems the real story would be if politicians weren’t being political during their day jobs. 

Regardless of your opinion on the merits of the claims many Democrats are leveling against Attorney General Bill McCollum’s cyber safety PSAs, it’s hard to argue that McCollum and CFO Alex Sink’s battle to replace outgoing Gov. Charlie Crist is a bad thing for government accountability. 

As Beth Reinhard and Adam Smith pointed out last week, “every trip on the public’s dime, every taxpayer-funded initiative, will [now] be scrutinized in the context of a political campaign.”  But nasty as the attacks themselves may be, the pay-off for Floridians can only be positive. 

After all, would anyone argue that increasing the amount of scrutiny placed on how government officials are spending taxpayer dollars is a bad thing?  If anything, we need more accountability, action, and transparency from our leaders, and if it takes a campaign to highlight those issues, then bring on the campaigns. 

Tuesday, Sink launched the latest installment in her transparency efforts, “Florida’s Checkbook,” a project designed to give the public access to Florida’s financial records.  Whether the timing of the online tool’s release was a political ploy is up for debate (much like McCollum’s PSAs), but there is no doubt “Florida’s Checkbook” is a great step forward for government accountability – something everyone should be able to rally behind. 

Sink and McCollum may be playing politics with their jobs to curry favor with Florida voters, but in so doing, they are also increasing accountability and transparency among our state leaders, awareness of online predators (all the political focus on McCollum’s ads has, if nothing else, made them more visible), and the general openness of our state government.   

For all these reasons, let’s hope the political games continue.  I think we can all agree that getting our leaders to take action to improve our state government is worth the politically-motivated attacks that might come with it.   

Besides, nothing that’s said anytime soon is really going to affect the outcome of a race still 17 months away anyway.