Rick Scott's out-of-the-sunshine dream legacy: a six-block park in Tallahassee

Some governors left bronze statues behind. Others contributed a library or a sunroom to the Governor's Mansion.

Gov. Rick Scott envisions a legacy that would create Governor's Park, across a six block by three and a half block area in downtown Tallahassee.

The boundaries of the proposal are contained in a memo and maps that state officials attempted to withhold from disclosure in a lawsuit filed by Tallahassee lawyer Steve Andrews as part of a fight over land that once belonged to Gov. LeRoy Collins.

Citing Florida's public records law, a judge ordered release of documents that outline the park plan after reviewing 120 records that the Department of Environmental Protection tried to shield from public view.

"After conducting an in camera inspection of 120 emails, the court finds that 105 emails were public records … and improperly withheld from the plaintiff after a public records request,'' Circuit Judge John Cooper wrote in his Jan. 29 order. Story by Lucy Morgan here.

Marco Rubio's mom: 'Don’t mess with the immigrants... They’re human beings just like us.'

Time's Mike Grunwald pens one of the best mainstream-magazine pieces on Florida Sen. Marco Rubio:

Marco Antonio Rubio, the 41-year-old Senator from Florida and great Hispanic hope of the Republican Party—or, as she [his mom] calls him, Tony. She got his voice mail. “Tony, some loving advice from the person who cares for you most in the world,” she said in Spanish. “Don’t mess with the immigrants, my son. Please, don’t mess with them.” She reminded him that undocumented Americans—los pobrecitos, she called them, the poor things—work hard and get treated horribly. “They’re human beings just like us, and they came for the same reasons we came. To work. To improve their lives. So please, don’t mess with them.”

More here