Giving away our water

Tampa's Brendan McLaughlin did an excellent story on ABC Action News about the giveaway of our water to Nestle Waters and the enrichment of Robert Thomas. While we are all undergoing a drought and cutting back on water use, these guys clean up at our expense. We applaud the Governor for leading the way on taxing the water. But why don't they at least have to cut back during the drought?

That's Tampa's water, and it would feed directly into the Hillsborough River and come our our taps, if Nestle - Zephyrhills didn't have such a sweet deal. How come we all have to pay for water, but it's free for them?

Veto Elections Bill!

AD HOC COALITION OF CITIZEN, CIVIL RIGHTS AND VOTING RIGHTS GROUPS CALL UPON GOVERNOR CRIST TO OPPOSE AND VETO:

Senate Bill 956 and House Bill 7149

April 22, 2009

Office of Governor Charlie Crist
State of Florida
The Capitol
400 S. Monroe St.
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001
Charlie.Crist@MyFlorida.com

Dear Governor Crist:

We, the below-signed organizations, write to respectfully request that you oppose companion election bills Senate Bill 956 and House Bill 7149, currently under consideration by the Florida legislature. We urge you to speak out forcefully against these bills, and to veto any resultant legislation, should it reach your desk.

These bills, designed to suppress the vote, may be enacted at the eleventh hour of the session with only minimal public consideration or legislative deliberation. Among other provisions, the bills would:

• Delay from 2012 to 2016 making accessible marksense (paper) ballots available statewide to voters with disabilities
• Restrict third-party voter registration efforts
• Make it much harder for grassroots groups to use the citizens’ initiative process
• Restrict nonpartisan election protection programs
• Reduce transparency in the funding of political advertisements
• Bar more voters from casting a regular ballot on Election Day
• Restrict the list of accepted forms of identification for voter registration and identification at the polls
• Expand the ability of lobbyists to influence legislators and legislation
• Restrict the ability of the governor to extend early voting
• Grant sweeping and unchecked power to the Department of State at a time when some supervisors interpret election laws to protect and expand voter rights in their respective counties, in contrast to the state’s restrictive interpretation of the same laws

These provisions needlessly infringe on the voting rights of Floridians, particularly those of historically disenfranchised communities, including elderly and low-income voters, and voters of color. Instead of fixing real problems—such as expanding access to early voting as you directed in November—they would disenfranchise eligible Floridians, for no legitimate reason and at significant taxpayer expense.

We respectfully urge you to right this wrong, and send a strong message to the legislature that you will not condone these unjustified and harmful measures.

For more information please contact Courtenay Strickland, Director of Public Policy, ACLU of Florida (305) 457-5422 cell or cstrickland@aclufl.org, or Carolyn Thompson, Voter Protection Advocate, Advancement Project cell (786) 278-2361 or cthompson@advancementproject.org.

Sincerely,

AARP
Advancement Project
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida
Broward Election Reform Coalition
Business and Professional Women of Florida
Central Florida Teamsters Union
Common Cause of Florida
Democracía Ahora
Equality Florida
Florida AFL-CIO
Florida Alliance for Retired Americans
Florida Association of Planned Parenthood Affiliates
Florida Acorn
Florida Council of the Blind
Florida Consumer Action Network
Florida Health Care Association
Florida Immigrant Coalition
Florida Fair Elections Coalition
Florida National Organization for Women
Florida Public Interest Research Group (PIRG))
Florida State Conference NAACP
Florida Voters Coalition
Haitian-American Grassroots Coalition
Handicapped Adults of Volusia County (HAVOC)
Human Services Coalition
LatinoJustice (PRLDEF)
Latino Leadership
Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
League of Women Voters
Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition
One Nation Volusia
People for the American Way Foundation
Palm Beach Coalition for Election Reform
Project Vote
Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections
SEIU Florida
SAFE
Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry of Florida

Our Legislature is corrupt and insane

Yes, folks, its true. They've lost their minds, and they're up to their ears in special interest money. The grand jury says so. They indicted this year's first house speaker on corruption charges, and then indicted the whole legislature.

While the rest of the country woke up to the half truths and deceptions of these politicians, Florida lags well behind and we are stuck with a bunch of neanderthal legislators (no offense to neanderthals!)

Consider a few of their actions: they plan to give tax break for private planes and yachts for their wealthy patrons while cutting back support for education and health care.

Despite the fact that deregulation got us into the financial mess we're in, the legislature wants to deregulate phone service, and lift all or many restrictions on developers. Haven't we learned anything? Does anyone still believe the deregulation rhetoric?

Legislators have to call a DC think tank operator, Grover Norquist, to ask permission to vote for a tax. Don't legislators think they should consult with their constituents instead? Are they nuts?

And just in case you were thinking about doing something about this, they are passing new legislation restricting your voting rights. They're making it harder to register to vote and doing everything they can to protect their jobs.

Maybe they are getting the idea that people might consider this corruption and insanity enough reason to throw some of these rascals out. It happened to the rest of the country. Florida may be behind the times, but maybe we can catch up next election cycle.

Unregulated Insurance Rates?

Howard Troxler writes an excellent column today on Senate Bill 2036 and House Bill 1171 regarding deregulation of insurance rates. As Howard explains it, insurers could offer rates in excess of their approved rates and that might create some competition for policyholders. Hmmmm...

We regulate insurance because it is a complicated product and the consumer is at a considerable disadvantage, which you know if you have ever tried to read your policy. So the state analyzes the policy for you and decides what is a fair price, with a lot of input from the company and in comparison to similar policies. Also, if the policy doesn't cover you, the rest of us often end up picking up the tab. We have an interest in making sure your policy pays. The state also stands behind policies through the Florida Insurance Guaranty Fund (FIGA) which is like the FDIC is for banks. You can buy a policy from a small company knowing they are backed the same as State Farm. For some reason, big insurers always lobby to keep small insurers from advertising this.

You can always buy a policy on your own through what is called "surplus lines." Chubb is a surplus lines company. Generally, the market for these policies is people with multi-million dollar homes that can afford an attorney and financial advisors to negotiate the policy for them.

I have two questions about this "deregulation": Will we still be assured that the policy covers what we think it does, meaning it is still the policy "form" approved by the state Office of Insurance Regulation? And what about the wind?

Assuming that the same standard insurance (or form) will be what is offered, then insurers could offer insurance to people they otherwise wouldn't insure because their approved rates are too low, or so they say. Those people might now be in Citizens, and could then opt out for a cost.

Say you are currently with State Farm, which says it is leaving because the state won't let it charge high enough rates. You could stay with State Farm if it chose to offer you insurance at the unregulated rate. That's why some people think this is the "State Farm" bill. Your option would be another insurer or Citizens.

Citizens? As I understand current law, people would still have the option of buying Citizens as long as the rate offered by the private competitor was 15% higher than Citizens. Since State Farm says they need a 62% increase, most cost sensitive people would go to Citizens. Brand name shoppers might actually pay the increase. What would stop insurers that currently offer policies within that 15% from no longer offering those policies and only offering higher priced policies, but say, 14.99% higher?

And what of the wind? In coastal areas, would the higher priced policies include wind coverage from the insurers or from Citizens? This is not clear.

One thing is clear, assessments should not be exempted, and Troxler agrees: "the House bill would create two classes of Floridians: a privileged class that could afford to "buy its way out" of paying for Florida's future hurricanes, and those still in the old system who would get stuck."

Everyone in Florida will have to pay for hurricane damages, and setting up a group of people who could opt out of the costs of the state helping us out, but would still reap the benefits, just isn't fair.

Trox also suggests this bill "couldn't hurt." That is unclear as well. Trox may not have heard of something called "unintended consequences." They can roar like a hurricane.

New Senate Insurance Bill

The Florida Senate today is looking at attempting to fix Florida's insurance crisis. We won't know until later what comes out of the committee, but an early bill analysis is encouraging.

What I see is "file and use" ratemaking extended another year, but in exchange for "flex bands" for insurance companies, and higher Citizens rates. Extending "file and use" is FCAN's top priority.

The insurance companies have asked for flexibility and the experiment should be allowed to proceed. If insurers are responsible, it should continue. The Senate Bill contemplates allowing insurers raise to rates less than 10 percent per year, triggered by various circumstances including higher reinsurance costs.

Many people will object to Citizens raising its rates, but the state simply has too much exposure. FCAN has endorsed the so called "glide path" to reach actuarially sound rates. However, that might mean some rates could go down. The definition of "actuarially sound" is questionable. Insurer models are suspect, and recently the National Association of Insurance Commissioners started to look into the problem and may produce its own model.

One good item is that part of the Citizens increase would go into My Safe Florida Homes, which pays for retrofitting Florida homes to make them withstand hurricanes.

More on this bill in the coming days. The house insurance committee is expected to look at insurance on Friday. There is bound to be plenty of horsetrading.