The Palm Beach Post dismantles the Jebbite claims that "One Florida" has improved the lot of minorites in higher education admissions:
According to preliminary numbers, the percentage of minority freshmen at Florida's 11 public universities has increased to 37.3, up from 36 percent last year. The fact that new students have been enrolling in record numbers and Florida's increasingly diverse population would explain the rise from 35.6 percent in 1998, the year before Gov. Bush proposed his One Florida Initiative to ban affirmative action in university admissions. Yet each fall, Gov. Bush is given to premature chortling that One Florida is a rousing success.
Last week, Gov. Bush wrongly accused opponents of having claimed that "Armageddon was about to occur" when One Florida was enacted in 2000. "What we've proven," he said, "is you don't have to use race as a factor." But while his plan eliminated race per se, he and the universities have substituted all sorts of surrogates. For example, One Florida guarantees admission to a state public university for students who graduate in the top 20 percent of their high school class. Universities have increased outreach programs to high school students while trying not to use the "r" word, but a major component of the new feeder pattern, critics correctly note, is heavy recruiting in schools with lots of minorities. . . . Gov. Bush crowed when minority percentages were flat, even as overall enrollment numbers were going up. This year, the percentages are not up enough to justify his baiting of skeptics. The 34.6 percent figure at Florida Atlantic University is down from 36.1 percent a year ago. Eliminate Florida A&M, which is 94 percent black, and Florida International, where more than half of the students are Hispanic, and the minority percentage throughout the system is down.
In fact, skeptics asked whether One Florida was about politics or minority opportunity. The numbers don't impress, but Gov. Bush never misses an opportunity to claim the success he hasn't achieved. "One Florida's real total".
Med Mal -It's too bad the Florida Medical Association has decided to try the constitutional amendment route to give doctors what they didn't get from the Legislature. This strategy could unleash a backlash that costs the FMA the high ground it held during the medical malpractice insurance battle that ended in a compromise during the third special session of the Legislature in August "Reaching too far".
Education Lottery -The lottery is an official state gambling enterprise precisely because voters in 1986 wanted the profits to go to public education. But notice the sleight of hand on Tuesday as a $50-million Lotto jackpot went unclaimed. That's the largest jackpot ever unclaimed, and its current cash value is $30.1-million. So what happened to the money? "No jackpot for education".
Byrd Antics -Johnnie Byrd, our beloved leader in the Florida House of Representatives, needs your help.
He wants to be a U.S. senator, a cause worthy of spending your tax money to achieve, if that's what it takes. And apparently it does. In the guise of providing public information, Byrd has used public money to spam inflated accounts of his leadership via the Internet on unsuspecting Floridians as he geared up for the campaign. And then before declaring his candidacy, he spent public money to send a targeted mailing to Floridians who have the anti-abortion "Choose Life" specialty license plate. "House speaker may play tag: You're it". See also Howard Troxler's "Silly ideas: Your inbox and Byrd are full of them".
Not A Good Thing -Public employees do not have to turn over private e-mail to the public, even when using government computers at work, the Florida Supreme Court ruled Thursday. . . . Written by Justice Barbara Pariente, the unanimous opinion found that e-mails are not public documents simply because they are created or stored on government computers. The ruling did not address who should decide what is public. In an era when business increasingly is conducted electronically, critics worry the ruling erases an important layer of public oversight, leaving government employees to police themselves and taxpayers forced to trust the judgment of those workers. "Workers' private e-mail is just that". See also "Some public e-mails are private, court rules".
FCAT - Florida needs to rethink its overreliance on the FCAT as a cause for mandatory retention. It may not be the best policy. "The retention trap".
"Jeb!" - Rehnquist Scandal Evanesces - As "[t]he chief of the state's investment system said Thursday that despite a controversial audit, Florida's pension plan does not owe the federal government a $267 million refund on pension payments", the underlying "Jeb!" - Rehnquist scandal seems to have become a nonissue. See "State official says Florida doesn't owe the feds".
Diaz de la Portilla Catches A Break -Nearly two years after the Florida Elections Commission gave Miami state Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla the dubious distinction of being the state's most heavily fined elected official, a Miami appeals court has ordered the $311,000 fine dropped, saying the Republican senator did not violate the law willfully.
In a strongly worded opinion that said the elections commission misinterpreted the law, Florida's Third District Court of Appeal threw out all but 17 of the 311 charges against Diaz de la Portilla stemming from incomplete campaign-finance reports filed during a 1999 special election. The court ordered the commission to hold another hearing to set the senator's fine on the remaining charges.
Diaz de la Portilla, the 39-year-old member of a prominent Miami political family who campaigned for reelection last year under the shadow of the large fine, claimed vindication Thursday and said he will continue to fight the remaining charges. . . . The court's findings are expected to bolster Diaz de la Portilla's political aspirations in Tallahassee, where he has been lobbying senators to win the Senate presidency in 2008. "Appeals court lifts weight of record fine from senator".
Hmmm -A settlement at Florida's Department of Citrus has left state taxpayers with a $25,000 bill, and despite several memos from state financial officials, nothing in the way of explanations. Mia McKown, the department's former chief lawyer, received the settlement in August 2002. McKown said she suffered in a type of hostile-work environment, though she wasn't claiming sexual harassment.
Last month, the state's auditor general wanted to know more. Department officials said the payment was for unforeseen extra work that McKown performed. But the auditor pointed out that McKown, a senior management official, didn't qualify for extra pay, according to the August audit. So the citrus department's director, [alleged Democrat] Bob Crawford, wrote a response letter saying the settlement was for something else. He didn't elaborate but said the settlement was justified. "Citrus agency payout shrouded in mystery". 8:37 AM
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