{"id":4032,"date":"2011-03-01T16:05:26","date_gmt":"2011-03-01T21:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=4032"},"modified":"2011-03-01T16:14:55","modified_gmt":"2011-03-01T21:14:55","slug":"senators-file-emergency-lawsuit-on-high-speed-rail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=4032","title":{"rendered":"Senators File Lawsuit On High Speed Rail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>BY IRIS B. HOLTON<br \/>\nSentinel City Editor<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, two State Senators filed an emergency petition with the Florida Supreme Court pertaining to the High Speed Rail issue. <strong>Governor Rick Scott,<\/strong> who is named as the lone respondent, rejected the $2.4 billion from the federal government last week.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4039\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Senator-Thad-Altman.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4039\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-4039 \" src=\"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Senator-Thad-Altman-150x150.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4039\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Senator Thad Altman<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The lawsuit, filed by Senate Democratic Leader Pro Tempore <strong>Arthenia Joyner<\/strong> (D-Tampa) and <strong>Senator Thad Altman<\/strong>, (R-Melbourne), is asking the court to order <strong>Governor Scott<\/strong> to accept the funding from the federal government by the new deadline.<\/p>\n<p>The petition further stated that the high rail system would provide employment for thousands of Floridians.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe issue at hand is the ability to create a state of the art rail line, at no cost to the taxpayers, and put people to work now and in the future.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStopping this project not only went against everything the governor promised during his campaign, it goes against his constitutional authority as well. The money Florida taxpayers sent to Washington should return to benefit Florida.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnfortunately, litigation was the only way to make that happen,\u201d <strong>Senator Joyner<\/strong> said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Senator Altman<\/strong> said, \u201cThis issue is one of great constitutional significance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur founding fathers created a system of three separate and co-equal branches of government. Clearly, the governor\u2019s actions have exceeded his constitutional authority. To maintain the integrity of our democracy, it is incumbent that we assert the rights of the people who elect their representatives. And the Supreme Court is the proper venue to seek relief.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Raymond LaHood<\/strong>, U. S. Secretary of Transportation, granted the State of Florida an extension until Friday, March 4th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY IRIS B. HOLTON Sentinel City Editor On Tuesday, two State Senators filed an emergency petition with the Florida Supreme Court pertaining to the High Speed Rail issue. Governor Rick Scott, who is named as the lone respondent, rejected the $2.4 billion from the federal government last week. The lawsuit, filed by Senate Democratic Leader [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4032\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}