Self-Serving Scott’s Week in Review: Ducking Blame, Late to the Opioid Fight, Failing Grade and Bragging About Jobs in a County That’s Lost 8,000

Rick Scott doesn’t have much to brag about following his last legislative session as governor. Instead of a victory lap, Scott is having to defend his administration’s role in the FIU bridge project while observers are criticizing his weak response to the opioid crisis and poor funding for public education. He even went to a county that’s lost 8,000 jobs in the last decade to boast about job creation. 

RICK SCOTT’S “POLITICAL RESCUE MISSION.” Scott and his administration deceived the people of Florida when they said the state was not involved in the bridge project, but documents, experts and officials clearly indicated the state had an “integral” role – demanding changes to the design, participating in meetings and the selection of those who worked on the bridge, and was aware of a crack in the concrete just before the collapse.

• From Politico: Scott and his political action committee received almost $50,000 from the contractor during the bidding process
• From the Sun Sentinel: Rick Scott has a history of trying to “duck blame” for the role of his administration in tragedies including Parkland, nursing homes deaths, and the bridge collapse. With the bridge, Scott began his own “political rescue mission” right after rescuers began their search.

THE REAL RICK SCOTT ECONOMY. A fellow Republican “swipes” at Scott on jobs and this was before Rick Scott’s handlers decided to have an event boasting about jobs in a county that has lost 8,000 jobs since 2007. Marion County still hasn’t recovered from the recession.

• “You have 36 counties today with less jobs than they did when they entered the recession,” Republican state Sen. Tom Lee said Monday. Politico pointed out “that’s bad” for the so-called jobs governor. 
• Can Rick Scott run on jobs when he’s left half the state behind?

PALM BEACH POST EDITORIAL: RICK SCOTT “LATE TO THE OPIOID FIGHT” “The reality is that he has done far too little to attack a crisis tied to 5,725 deaths in his state last year,” according to the editorial, which pointed to the devastating consequences of the opioid crisis and the need for the state to take stronger action. Palm Beach County Mayor Melissa McKinlay said disappointingly Scott’s legislation “falls woefully short of meeting the demand for services our families need.”

SCHOOLS “ROBBED, HOSED AND SHORT-CHANGED” BY SCOTT, GOP. Miami Herald column gives Scott and lawmakers and ‘F’ for fair funding of schools after lawmakers passed a budget that increased funding per student by just a “pitiful” 47 cents – not enough to fund the increasing cost of education or the mandates passed along from Tallahassee. South Florida schools “got screwed on the money” while the Ocala Star Banner asserts Scott and lawmakers are “abrogating a paramount duty” because “schools simply do not have enough resources to provide all the education 21st century students need.”

• “Florida’s school buildings are in disrepair, its bus fleets are aging, its teachers are underpaid, to many textbooks are a generation old and there is not enough technology as part of the education process.” 

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