Some of the work of the state’s health care agencies should be consolidated, the state should push for repeal of the federal health care law, and shifting of Medicaid patients to managed care should continue, Gov.-elect Rick Scott’s health care transition team recommended.

A poll released Tuesday from Public Policy Polling (PPP), a firm with ties to Democrats at the national level, reveals that Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson is ahead of most of his potential opponents, but remains vulnerable: He could not muster more than 50 percent against a pack of mostly unknown Republicans. 

Incoming Gov. Rick Scott Tuesday named retired Army Col. Mike Prendergast as his chief of staff. Prendergast, a Republican who offered a spirited but ultimately unsuccessful challenge to Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, served as an aide to former U.S. Senator Bob Graham and as a legislative liaison in the Secretary of the Army's Office.

Republican Rick Scott got plenty of political mileage during the governor’s race ridiculing the Obama administration for running up the federal deficit.

The highly contentious teacher merit pay proposal that was shot down by Gov. Charlie Crist last spring has re-emerged, but with some preliminary concessions to teachers and also perhaps to Gov.-elect Rick Scott, who -- as the father of a special education teacher -- voiced concerns about the proposal’s fairness to some educators.

Newly elected House Speaker Dean Cannon blasted the Florida Supreme Court in formal remarks before the House Tuesday accusing the court of overstepping its constitutional duty as an impartial arbiter of the law.