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Four billion dollars separate the House and Senate budget proposals. The Speaker said the House has three concerns with the Senate spending proposal James Call

House Speaker Richard Corcoran finishes his address to legislators as they gather for the first day of session at the Capitol on Tuesday, March 7, 2017.(Photo: Joe Rondone/Democrat)Buy Photo

This is an extraordinary time for the Republican Party. The November election maintained its gripon all branches of state government. Voters also delivered Washington to the GOP as well, increasing the influence of Floridas Congressional Republican delegation and installing a kindred spirit of Gov. Rick Scott in the White House.

But once the celebration quieted, the pressure of governing opened a rift in the coalition. Scott and Speaker Richard Corcoran, oddly representing different corners of President Donald J. Trumps appeal, staged a Tallahassee version of WrestleMania. This week the drama is sure to increase when the House and Senate are scheduled to pass dramatically different budgets for next year.

Scott and Corcoran are on opposite sides regarding whether a fiscally-conservative government provides business incentives. How the Scott v. Corcoran debate will influencethe budget battle remains an open question.

You would think after being at the helm for 20 years they would be good at steering the ship of state, remarked former Florida House Democratic Leader Mark Pafford. Near super majorities in both chambers, a governor and president, you would think you would take advantage of that and start passing laws and implementing philosophies. No one is doing any of that.

The split in Tallahassee became public and vicious two weeks before the start of the 2017 Legislative Session. Corcoran rallied the House Republican Caucus at the trendy Edison Restaurant to go forth and eliminate Scotts pet project Enterprise Florida. He called the economic development agency, which hands out tax credits and other incentives to businesses, an example of corporate welfare.

Scott was said to be livid. He responded with a video depicting Corcoran as a job-killing Tallahassee politician.

The House is an equal opportunity fighter

By the end of this week, $4 billion will separate the House and Senate budget proposals. While the two chambers position themselves for negotiations, Sen. President Joe Negron scaled-back his number one funding request. He wants money and land to handle Lake Okeechobee discharges that occasionally foul the east and west coasts with neon-green poisonous water. Last week he floated a proposal chopping about $900 million from the original plan and reducing the land request by nearly half.

But the plan still involves borrowing money. That's aline Corcoran said the House wont cross.

We are not bonding, Corcoran said Thursday. He's positioned himself as the public watchdog on spending. Meeting with reporters he said the House has concerns about how the Senate proposes handling property taxes, membersprojects and health care spending.

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Three GOP leaders, three divergent visions

2017 Florida Legislative Session

The Pasco County Republican frets about the Senate plan to spend $600 million in federal health care dollars that Congress has yet to appropriate. The Speaker explained that means the money does not exist.

Thats not an acceptable accounting principle, Corcoran said. You do not put money in an account and spend it when it doesnt exist.

Pafford wonders if the inability to agree on fundamental principles foreshadows deeper rifts between the two chambers.

Ive never lived in California but I think what we are seeing are like the rumbling that signals a coming earthquake, said Pafford, who spent eight years being steamrolled by Republican majorities. They are literally all over the place. I think they are trying to define Trumpism in Florida.

Trumpism, Florida-style

What is unique this year is the party infighting played out in public. The fight is among the same party because Florida is mostly a one-party state.

Its textbook, said Susan MacManus, a University of South Florida political scientist. Given the diversity across the state, factions emerge and the battle is within the party (that has control)."

MacManus said Florida is following the typical curve of one-party rule, but there are a couple of unusual dynamics in play. Both Scott and Trump weakened the party establishment by winning without party support. Then factor in term limits; three Cabinet seats and the governors office are up in 2018. When so many people are about to lose their seats and are in the market for a new one,personal ambition can trump party goals.

But more importantly, said MacManus, Florida is changing.

Seniors are no longer the electoral key to winning the state. Millennials and Generation Xers people younger than 50 make up more than half of the Florida vote. Its not Gramps' Sunshine State anymore.

What we saw in 2016 is the political maturation of a new generation and now we are watching it play out as a generational fissure within the Republican Party, said MacManus. A lot of the younger Republicans have very different views about what the party should empathize.

MacManus spoke on the phone while attending a conference in Chicago where some of the papers presented addressed effective messaging to the emerging cohort of voters.

It is a party in transition, she said of Florida Republicans. A lot of what we are seeing reflects the changing age composition of the people in the Legislature and the electorate at large.

Some have been shocked about how this plays out in committee debates, public comments and in the competing attack videos Scott and Corcoran produced. Pafford said it has been as ugly as anything he saw when the House transferred from Democratic to Republican control in 1996.

Others recall when Senate President Bob Crawford brought boxing gloves to a meeting with Gov. Bob Martinez and Speaker Tom Gustafson. Those disputes involved members of different parties, not players supposedly on the same team displaying aggression towards one another.

During a recent visit to the capital city, former Arkansas governor and GOP presidential contenderMike Huckabee calledthe fighting politics as usual.

Like NFL football, politics is a rough game, said Huckabee, now an Emerald Coast resident. People out on the field, they hit hard. That is part of the process.

Huckabee is a political commentator for FOX news. He said at the state level, unlike Congress, the fighting ends because budgets must be balanced, schools have to be funded and roads need to be built.

You can be ideological up to a point, but, ultimately, there are things that need to get done, said Huckabee.

While the House and Senate begin blending their very different visions of the state into a budget that Gov. Scott will sign, MacManus warns there remain potential pitfalls for a party in transition.

The thing Republicans have to concern themselves about is increasingly the Florida Legislature is looking like Washington where nothing gets done, said MacManus.

Lawmakers are scheduled to remain in session until May 5, but the specter of overtime looms large. The current state budget ends June 30.

Reporter James Call can be reached at jcall@tallahassee.com. Follow on Twitter @CallTallahassee

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Tensions reflect a Republican 'party in transition' - Tallahassee.com

In a move demonstrating the uphill battle President Donald Trump will face attempting to achieve his budgetary goals, 11 House Republicans have signed a letter expressing support for the National Endowment for the Arts.

The New York Times reported on Friday that the signatories included one Republican who previously voted to defund public broadcasting, though none of the lawmakers were named.

The letter was sent to Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) and Rep. Betty McCollum (DFL-Minn.) the Republican chairman and top-ranking Democrat, respectively, of the House subcommittee with jurisdiction over appropriation of funds for the NEA and National Endowment for the Humanities.

Eliminating the NEA and NEH has long been a conservative pet project, but its also a tricky one to accomplish, even when the Republican Party controls both legislative bodies. The endowments may be favorite targets of small-government, budget-cutting hardliners, but theyve nonetheless enjoyed support from a healthy number of Republican lawmakers over the years.

Several GOP lawmakers expressed their support for the endowments after Trumps bold proposal that they be eliminated entirely. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) issued a statement in March that read, in part: I believe we can find a way to commit to fiscal responsibility while continuing to support the important benefits that N.E.A. and N.E.H. provide. Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) commented, I support the present level of funding for these programs.

Arts advocacy groups likely arent surprised in fact, theyve been counting on some level of Republican support for the arts and humanities endowments to see them through this existential threat. In March, PEN America executive director Suzanne Nossel and Stephen Kidd, executive director of the National Humanities Alliance, each cited a February letter sent by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) to the president advocating for continued support of the endowments. The letter was signed by 23 other senators, including two Republicans, while others, like Murkowski and Amodei, issued separate statements endorsing the endowments.

We are heartened by the level of bipartisan support that members of Congress have shown for the NEH in recent years and in recent weeks, Kidd told HuffPost.

After the embarrassing withdrawal of the Trump-backed legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act last month, which foundered due to a lack of Republican support, its clear that even with his party controlling both the House and the Senate, Trump may struggle to achieve much of his agenda.

Signs from G.O.P. legislators continue to suggest that shuttering the NEA and NEH will remain an unlikely victory.

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11 Republican Lawmakers Sign Letter In Support Of Arts Funding - Huffington Post

The Republican health care bill remained in shambles Thursday as House leaders threw up their hands and sent lawmakers home for a two-week recess. GOP chiefs announced a modest amendment to curb premium increases, but internal divisions still blocked their promised repeal of former President Barack Obama's law.

"This brings us closer to the final agreement that we all want to achieve," House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said of the new amendment, flanked by about two dozen GOP lawmakers at a news briefing meant to project unity.

But in a sentiment echoed by other leaders, Ryan conceded "we have more work to do" over the "days and weeks ahead." That underscored the longer timeline Republican leaders acknowledge they'll need to resolve disputes between conservatives and moderates that blew up their legislation last month, dishing a mortifying defeat to Ryan and President Donald Trump.

Ominously, lawmakers from both ends of the party who've opposed the GOP legislation said Thursday's revision wasn't enough to turn them around. They included Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., who leads the conservative House Freedom Caucus, a hotbed of opposition, and moderate GOP Rep. Leonard Lance of New Jersey.

"I favor making sure no one is denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition. So I doubt this would be enough," said Lance.

Frustration over the bill's dismal performance in Congress spilled out during a meeting Ryan and other House leaders attended late Wednesday at the White House, according to several Republicans who'd been told about the session.

White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and others expressed unhappiness that the legislation remained unfinished, and the fanfare accompanying the amendment introduced Thursday was a direct result of that meeting, the Republicans said.

"The president and the speaker had a very good, long conversation last night and they remain fully on the same page on the path ahead," Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said. Trump and Ryan spoke after the White House meeting.

The new language was aimed at containing premiums by providing an additional $15 billion over a decade to help insurers cover the costs of seriously ill people, said Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., a sponsor of the amendment. Such customers' expensive care can drive up premiums for all consumers.

The money would be on top of a $100 billion fund already in the GOP bill that states could use for various purposes, including high-risk insurance pools where people with medical problems can get coverage.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., emailed GOP lawmakers that if a breakthrough on the bill occurred during the recess, "We will advise members immediately and give you sufficient time to return to Washington." The prospects for that seemed remote, at best.

Two weeks ago, Ryan called off a House vote on the measure repealing much of the 2010 health care overhaul. The GOP legislation replacing it would scale back the federal role in health care, covering 24 million fewer people over time while cutting taxes for upper-income earners.

Deep differences among hardliners and moderates have impeded the Republican march. Each side blames the other, and the recess could drain more momentum from the repeal drive.

A proposal discussed between the White House and leaders of the Freedom Caucus would let states seek federal waivers of two insurance requirements the law established.

One forbids insurers from charging higher premiums on account of people's medical problems or pre-existing conditions. The other spells out categories of benefits, like hospitalization and substance abuse treatment, that all insurance plans must cover.

Conservatives who want the federal government out of health care argue that those provisions have driven up premiums and decreased choice.

Critics say eliminating those insurance requirements would raise premiums for people with serious medical problems and threaten to leave many people without coverage they need.

Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report.

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Republican health bill in shambles, House commences two-week break - Chicago Tribune

The March 31 opinion piece, LGBT conservatives have political clout. It's time they stop using it to enable GOP bigotry, was equal parts histrionic and uninformed. Author Nico Lang breathlessly declared: Advocating for inclusion and compassion from Republican leaders is a noble goal. But it clearly isnt working.

Give me a break.

In his zeal to promote a liberal worldview of LGBTQ rights, Lang overlooks an inconvenient truth that Democrats rarely admit: The victories we have achieved as a community would not have been possible without Republican support.

Liberals such as Lang are fond of talking a big game when it comes to Democratic support for the LGBTQ community, but the last time Democrats held concurrent majorities in the U.S. Senate, the House of Representatives and the presidency, LGBTQ rights advanced very little, and what victories we did achieve happened only because of GOP involvement.

In 2010, the militarys discriminatory dont ask, dont tell policy was repealed with the votes of 22 Republicans in a lame duck Democratic Congress compelled to act only because of a lawsuit initiated by Log Cabin Republicans.

In 2011, Republicans provided the key margin of victory that legalized marriage equality in New York state. That vote was also held in a Republican-controlled Senate. When the same vote came up two years before at a time when Democrats held both chambers of the Legislature and the governorship, it failed.

In 2013, the U.S. Senate passed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Longtime GOP allies of equality Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Mark Kirk (Illinois) were joined by seven of their peers, Sens. Orin Hatch (Utah), Jeff Flake (Arizona), Pat Toomey (Pennsylvania), Kelly Ayotte (New Hampshire), Dean Heller (Nevada), Rob Portman (Ohio) and John McCain (Arizona), to stand up against LGBTQ discrimination in the workplace. The bill would never even have come to the floor had it not been for their support.

And in 2015 the same year a Supreme Court justice appointed by President Reagan wrote a decision making marriage equality the law of the land in all 50 states the conservative state of Utah passed a landmark LGBTQ non-discrimination bill. Lang declares that the legislation was carried over the finish line by liberal LGBTQ activists. It wasnt. Collaboration in good faith among Republicans in the state Assembly and Senate, Utahs Republican governor, Gary Herbert, leaders from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the states dominant faith) and liberal LGBTQ activists are what led to historic protections for LGBTQ Utahans in legislation that could serve as a model for red-state America.

I dont pretend that the GOP is perfect, but the Democratic Party isnt either. Time and again, GOP support has been required to advance LGBTQ equality and it will be necessary to achieve further progress, whether Lang wants to admit it or not.

Right now Republicans have majority control of 32 state legislatures. In 25 of those states, Republicans control both legislative-chamber majorities and the governorships. Nationally, Republicans control both houses of Congress and the White House. If LGBTQ equality is going to become a reality outside the blue Northeast and the West Coast, we need to meet Republicans where they are and seek to strike balance; otherwise we are doomed as a nation to litigate an endless culture war with no viable means of resolution.

In his piece, Lang offers a dangerous bit of advice: The only way to change the Republican Party is to leave it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Quite the contrary: If you put all your faith into a single political party, your destiny is to be ignored by one and taken for granted by the other a concept Lang would do well to understand.

Gregory T. Angelo is the president of Log Cabin Republicans, a national organization representing LGBTQ conservatives and straight allies.

This piece is part of Blowback, our online forum for rebuttals to the Los Angeles Times. If you would like to write a full-length response to a recent Times article, editorial or Op-Ed and would like to participate in Blowback, here are our FAQs and submission policy.

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Without Republican support, much of the recent progress on LGBTQ rights would have been impossible - Los Angeles Times

Photo: Carolyn Kaster, STF

Michael Conaway, Texas Republican, to take over House Russia probe

WASHINGTON Texas U.S. Rep. Michael Conaway was tapped Thursday to lead the House Intelligence Committee probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election, which has been hampered by weeks of partisan discord over its chairman, Devin Nunes, who agreed to step aside.

For Conaway, a Republican from Midland and a senior member of the intelligence panel, the assignment represents a sudden leap into the center of a gripping national drama over the U.S. intelligence and diplomatic apparatus, Russian agents, and leading figures in both the Trump and Obama administrations.

"I have been a member of the House Intelligence Committee for over eight years now, and it is a responsibility I take with the utmost seriousness," Conaway said. "My profession as a CPA and auditor has taught me to be objective and methodical, and that is how I intend to help lead this investigation.

Conaway's new role was announced by House Speaker Paul Ryan, who acceded to Democratic calls for Nunes, who worked on President Donald Trump's campaign, to step aside in the face of fresh ethics complaints over his role in helping the White House parry criticism of the president's unsubstantiated claim that he was wiretapped by former President Barack Obama.

While saying that Nunes, a California Republican, continues to have his trust, Ryan said the new ethics probe would be a "distraction," and called on Conaway to take the lead on the Russia investigation. "I am confident that he will oversee a professional investigation into Russia's actions and follow the facts wherever they lead," Ryan said in a statement.

Conaway also said Nunes continues to have his full support, and emphasized that his new leadership role in the Russia probe is temporary.

Conaway has handled sensitive assignments before as a former chairman of the House Ethics Committee, which investigates allegations of wrongdoing against members of Congress, generally considered one of the most thankless jobs in Washington.

A certified public accountant by training, he also once led an audit committee that uncovered fraud in hundreds of thousands of dollars of missing funds in National Republican Congressional Committee bank accounts.

The 68-year-old lifelong Texan has deep ties to the Bush family, including doing CPA work for an oil and gas company run by former President George W. Bush.He graduated in 1966 from Permian High School in Odessa, where he was a standout player for the Permian Panthers and a member of the first Permian State Championship team in 1965. He went on to Texas A&M and served in the U.S. Army. Among his assignments is the Committee on Armed Services.

In May, acting along with nine other House committee chairmen, Conaway endorsed Trump for president.

But as the current chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Conaway generally maintains a low profile overseeing commodity and nutrition programs that keep him far away from the national spotlight.

That is about to change, with Democrats and allied groups alleging that the House Republicans are seeking to stifle the progress of an investigation centered on potential cooperation between Trump campaign aides and Russian government and industry officials.

So far, he has only briefly flirted with controversy when he told the Dallas Morning News in January that Mexican singers and soap opera stars who appeared at Hillary Clinton campaign events influenced the election as much as Russian hackers did.

"Those are foreign actors, foreign people, influencing the vote in Nevada. You don't hear the Democrats screaming and saying one word about that," Conaway said.

The comment was widely decried by Democrats, including U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, who tweeted, "This is a pathetic and offensive attempt to try to diminish the consensus that Russia meddled in the 2016 election to boost Donald Trump."

Conaway, who has represented Texas' 11th congressional district since 2005, will take temporary control of the controversial Russia investigation with fellow Republicans Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, and Tom Rooney of Florida.

Despite the change in management, reactions from lawmakers on both sides Thursday suggested that the partisan dynamics of the Russia probe will be little changed.

House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady, a Texas Republican from The Woodlands, defended Nunes' work and said he foresees little change in direction under Conaway. "Like Devin Nunes, he's a very thoughtful member of Congress and will go to the facts and to the truth of this," Brady said.

Democrats, meanwhile, continued to press for an independent investigation.

"Putting three Republicans in charge of an investigation that has been so bungled by one is not reassuring," said U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a San Antonio Democrat. "While Mike Conaway is an amiable and thoughtful colleague whom I respect, the only way to restore public confidence is with a nonpartisan, independent, comprehensive review of the Russian attacks and any possible involvement of Trump associates."

"Instead," Doggett continued, "as with the Trump tax returns cover-up, Republicans seem much more interested in protecting Trump than learning the truth."

Nunes, meanwhile, will retain his position as chairman of the intelligence committee.

"Despite the baselessness of the charges, I believe it is in the best interests of the House Intelligence Committee and the Congress for me to have Representative Mike Conaway, with assistance from Representatives Trey Gowdy and Tom Rooney, temporarily take charge of the Committee's Russia investigation while the House Ethics Committee looks into this matter," Nunes said. "I will continue to fulfill all my other responsibilities as Committee Chairman, and I am requesting to speak to the Ethics Committee at the earliest possible opportunity in order to expedite the dismissal of these false claims."

Nunes has been under fire for his handling of information that Trump officials may have been swept up in surveillance of foreign agents. He said he briefed Trump on the information before telling other members of the committee.

The New York Times subsequently reported that White House officials were Nunes' sources on the information.

The committee's top Democrats, Adam Schiff of California, said he respected Nunes' decision to step aside.

Said Conaway: "I am confident that Ranking Member Schiff and I will be able to work together to conduct an effective, bipartisan investigation."

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Michael Conaway, Texas Republican, to take over House Russia - Chron.com