Florida legislature ends session without Medicaid expansion

Florida lawmakers ended their 60-day session Friday, waiting until the final hour to pass a $74.5 billion budget and then leaving town without passing a bill to extend healthcare coverage to 1.1 million Floridians.

The Legislature did send Gov. Rick Scott an elections bill that attempts to fix problems with long lines and vote-counting delays that made Florida a joke across the nation last November. Among other things, the bill allows elections supervisors to hold up to 14 days of early voting instead of the eight days now in law, a reversal for the GOP-led legislature from two years ago. It also allows more early voting sites.

The $74.5 billion budget was approved just before session ended, but the House and Senate never bridged a wide gap on a healthcare plan.

The Senate wanted to use $50 billion in federal money over the next decade to expand healthcare coverage as allowed under the federal healthcare law, while the House doesn't want to accept any federal money for Medicaid expansion.

The Senate began Friday by sending Scott a bill that would speed up the residential mortgage foreclosure process.

Among bills that died on the final day were a measure that would have helped the Miami Dolphins with $400 million in stadium renovations, prohibited judges from applying foreign law in Florida cases, banned abortions based on the race or gender of a fetus and created a needle-exchange pilot program, among others.

Still, Scott already has signed many major bills into law, including a ban on Internet cafes offering slot machine-like games, a wide-ranging ethics bill, an increase in campaign contribution limits and more. Scott vetoed a bill that would have ended permanent alimony.

Scott said he will sign the elections bill.

The Republican governor was also able to claim victories on his top two priorities: a sales-tax exemption for manufacturers and teacher raises.

"When you go across the state and listen to Florida families, they all want a job and they want the education system improved. That's exactly what they want and that's exactly what they got," Scott said after the session ended.

The Legislature approved a bill that will exempt manufacturers from paying the 6 percent state sales tax on new equipment from April 30, 2014, to April 30, 2017. He wanted to permanently eliminate the tax. Lawmakers also included $480 million in the budget for teacher raises. Scott wanted raises for all teachers, but the Legislature is basing the increases on teacher performance.

"I think the governor gets two wins. I think it gives him a lift going into the summer and into the election cycle," said Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville. "And I'm for Rick Scott for governor, so I'm glad he got the wins."

Gaetz and House Speaker Will Weatherford praised the work done in the session and the passage of most of the major bills, the healthcare plan being the big exception.

"When we set out on session, we talked about having priorities, and we didn't say they'd be House priorities or Senate priorities, we said they would be legislative priorities," said Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel. "We went four for five and that's pretty doggone good."

Unlike last year, when the Legislature didn't finish its business until midnight, or the year before, when the budget was passed at 1:55 a.m., lawmakers wrapped up the annual session with the "sine die" hanky drop ceremony an hour before sunset.

"It will be kind of neat to sine die and not be tired and having absorbed copious amounts of caffeine all day long and a Red Bull at the midnight hour," Rep. Matt Hudson, R-Naples, said as the session was nearing a close. "That's a huge plus. That's a win right there."