This is what you get when you vote America's greatest Medicare Fraud in as Governor, because you wanted to send a message to Washington. What's going to happen to you was preventable. You had a chance to vote for Alex Sink, and instead, you get this:
In his first two months in office, [Governor Rick Scott] has irritated the State Senate’s powerful Budget Committee chairman by selling two state jets without legislative permission, a constitutional no-no. The governor wanted the sale done quickly (he uses his own plane), and he succeeded.
He annoyed the ambitious Senate president, as well as a host of leaders in conservative states, by trying to kill off a database to track the fraudulent distribution of addictive prescription drugs before it was up and running. He did so without consulting lawmakers, calling the monitoring system an invasion of privacy.
Most recently, Mr. Scott rejected $2.4 billion in federal stimulus money to build a high-speed rail line from Tampa to Orlando, which he saw as too big a financial drain on state taxpayers in the long term.
His refusal to take the money prompted new bouts of discord; a staunch conservative Republican from central Florida joined forces with a Democrat in filing a lawsuit last month, and 26 lawmakers signed a letter to the federal transportation secretary urging him to basically ignore the governor and send the money anyway. (The State Supreme Court ruled in Mr. Scott’s favor on Friday.)
As State Senator Arthenia L. Joyner, a lawyer and the Democrat who took Mr. Scott to court, put it at a news conference about the suit: “It’s necessary at this time, I think — because our governor’s new — to let him know this is not a monarchy. He’s not a king. This is a democracy.”
Mr. Scott’s go-it-alone style of governing was on display vividly last month when he chose to unveil his two-year budget 200 miles from Tallahassee, in the rural town of Eustis, at a rally jammed with Tea Party supporters. Mr. Scott, who wants to promote business in the state and drastically reduce the government’s reach, proposes slashing $4.1 billion in spending and cutting property and corporate income taxes.
It didn't have to be this way.
At least Wisconsin's got a recall measure.
