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| Appeals Court Mulls Ruling on Prison Privatization |
| By sunshinestatenews.com - Jim Saunders |
| Published: 06/28/2012 |
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FL -- With a prison-privatization plan all but dead, an appeals court Wednesday appeared hesitant to decide a constitutional fight about whether lawmakers improperly used the state budget to approve the plan. Jonathan Glogau, representing Attorney General Pam Bondi, acknowledged to the 1st District Court of Appeal that there is virtually no chance that the state will go ahead with the plan to contract with private companies to run prisons across the southern part of the state. That is because lawmakers included the plan in budget fine print, known as proviso language, that expires June 30 at the end of the fiscal year. A Leon County circuit judge ruled last year that lawmakers violated the state Constitution in using proviso language to approve the plan, prompting an appeal by Bondi. Appeals court Chief Judge Robert Benton and Judge Nikki Ann Clark questioned Glogau about whether the demise of the plan meant that the state was asking for what would amount to an advisory opinion about the Legislature's actions. Clark said any opinion the court issued on the privatization plan would be "for naught." Glogau said the "current dispute disappears on July 1 -- there's no question about that." But he said it is important for the court to take up the constitutional issues involved in the case. "This is an important issue of legislative authority,'' he told the three-judge panel. "We believe it is certainly repeatable." Read More. |
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