SCOTT KEELER | Times The Florida Senate was in session on Tuesday, April 30, 2019 during the last week of the sixty day session. TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Legislature passed a bill, Senate Bill 190, that will result in higher required test scores for Bright Futures college scholarships for students who graduate in 2021 and beyond. For students who would receive the “Academic” scholarship, which covers full tuition and fees at state universities and colleges, the required SAT score will rise from 1290 to around 1330. For the second-tier “Medallion” award which covers 75 percent of tuition and ..read more

  The Miami Shores front-yard vegetable garden, as seen in 2013, that created a dispute leading to this year's legislation that would prevent local governments from regulating locations of such gardens (Walter Michot / Miami Herald file)         A bill that will ban local governments from regulating vegetable gardens — and herb, fruit and flower gardens — is headed to the governor’s desk. The House bill, which passed 93-16 on Wednesday, prohibits local governments from regulating vegetable gardens on residential property and voids any existing ordinances or regulatio ..read more

The state-funded tourism agency Visit Florida survived a potential death this week, with lawmakers deciding to fund it for one more year. But it’s getting a big budget cut. Lawmakers are assigning it $50 million for the next fiscal year, $26 million less than Gov. Ron DeSantis asked for in his budget. The amount is a compromise between the Senate and the House, where Speaker José Oliva, R-Miami Lakes, said he wanted to kill the state’s tourism arm outright. He saw it as a waste of money when companies like Disney already do their own marketing for Florida, where tourism is one of the state’s m ..read more

@doug_hanks Daniella Levine Cava is a Democrat hoping to ride a blue wave into County Hall in the 2020 race for Miami-Dade mayor, and she's using her party's Miami debates to attract some attention.  The two-term county commissioner is airing campaign ads on NBC's Miami station during the Wednesday and Thursday primary debates, her campaign said. The spot ticks off problems in Miami-Dade, including affordable housing, wages, transit and the environment. The "community in crisis" spot  includes an implicit swipe at her Democratic rival in the non-partisan race: former county mayor Alex Penelas ..read more

@doug_hanks He was endorsed by the incumbent months ago, but Kionne McGhee had declined to publicly confirm he was running to succeed Commissioner Dennis Moss in Miami-Dade's District 9 next yea. On Wednesday, McGhee, a 41-year-old lawyer who was born in Naranja in South Dade,  made it official and filed for what's already a crowded race. The Democratic minority leader of the Florida House, McGhee's District 117 overlaps with the county district Moss has represented for nearly three decades. Term limits taking effect for the first time in 2020 are requiring most incumbent county commissioners ..read more

@doug_hanks It's not official yet, but a fourth Miami-Dade commissioner is sending word he plans to run for county mayor in 2020. Jean Monestime, a former commission chairman who took office in 2014 as the first Haitian-American member of the 13-seat board, has privately told fellow commissioners he is running. Publicly, he sounds like a candidate-in-waiting. "I'm speaking to leaders in the community right now. I'm reaching out to different advisers and counselors and elders in the community. ...as I'm trying to formulate a plan to get in there," Monestime said of the 2020 race during a Tuesda ..read more

Florida’s top banking regulator was suspended Friday after an employee accused him of “inappropriate and uncomfortable" behavior just weeks after he took the job. Ronald Rubin, commissioner of the Office of Financial Regulation, is on paid leave while an inspector general investigates. An agency spokeswoman declined to comment, citing the open investigation. Rubin was unable to be reached for comment Monday, but he declined to comment to the American Banker newspaper over the weekend. On Friday, Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis issued a press release announcing Rubin’s suspension ..read more

@alextdaugherty The FBI will meet with Florida Democrats and Republicans in the House of Representatives on May 16th after they asked for a briefing on the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in Florida during the 2016 presidential election, a congressional source told the Miami Herald.  Politico Florida first reported the meeting, which Reps. Stephanie Murphy and Michael Waltz requested on May 2nd. The FBI is also meeting with Sen. Rick Scott and Gov. Ron DeSantis after the Mueller Report said an FBI investigation found that "at least one Florida county" was infiltrated by Russian spea ..read more

@alextdaugherty South Florida Democrats are among the most knowledgable lawmakers on the ongoing crisis in Venezuela, and frequently work with Republicans on the issue. After all, they represent some of the largest Venezuelan and South American communities in the United States.  That doesn't matter to national Republicans. The National Republican Congressional Committee, a group that seeks to elect Republicans to the House of Representatives, launched a Facebook ad campaign this week targeting Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell for not calling on Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar to step down from the forei ..read more

Florida's got a new "water czar," agriculture commissioner Nicole "Nikki" Fried announced Wednesday. Chris Pettit, who has worked for years in water management districts and county water utilities, will replace Steve Dwinell, who retired as water policy director for the state's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services' Office of Agricultural Water Policy. Fried said Pettit and his office will work to develop and implement best management practices, known as BMPs, for agriculture. BMPs, which have been criticized in the past for not being enforced, aim at lowering and maintaining nutri ..read more