Rick Scott dials down his attack on budget 'turkeys' in second year

Much has happened since we last visited this promise in 2011.

Back then, Gov. Rick Scott threw a big budget-signing show to highlight all of the "turkeys” -- line-item projects inserted into the budget by lawmakers, usually to benefit their hometowns -- he was trimming from the budget. We rated his pledge to veto unnecessary projects Promise Kept.

But Scott changed his style in 2012, and the result was more turkey left on the table.

To understand why we're changing the rating of this promise, we'll take you through a comparison of his 2011 vetoes with those of 2012, news coverage of his second budget-signing, and interviews with experts and activists.

The 2011 VetoFest

Addressing a throng of conservative supporters at The Villages, Scott signed the budget and boasted about what it was missing: member projects totaling a record $615 million, thanks to the stroke of his Sharpie.

He berated the "Tallahassee insiders” who tried slipping pet projects into the state's strained budget.

(We"ll pause to note that Scott's total amount of vetoed spending is substantially lower if you exclude money that would have gone toward environmental land buys. More on that here).

The next year, though, saw a new Scott.

What he vetoed in 2012

After the 2012 legislative session, Scott signed the $70 billion "education budget” before an audience of elementary students and reporters. He did not exactly skimp on vetoes, using his pen to knock out $143 million worth of various projects, but he didn't go to town on them like his freshman year.

Among the dozens of casualties: $100,000 to Girls Incorporated of Sarasota County; $3 million for the University of Miami's medical school; $1 million for mosquito control research; $500,000 for the Florida Aquarium in Tampa; and $500,000 for a Bay of Pigs historical museum in Miami -- on the invasion's 51st anniversary. View the full list here.

His veto of $1.5 million for the Florida Council Against Sexual Violence -- intended for rape crisis centers -- made him the ire of national liberal-leaning websites, from The Daily Kos, the Huffington Post, ThinkProgress and Rachel Maddow's blog.

Local officials whose hometown projects got the axe expressed heartache. State Rep. Jose Diaz, R-Miami, told the Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald he was "especially disappointed to see that the governor vetoed two separate projects that would have directly benefited families of children with autism in South Florida.”

What he didn't veto -- and why

Still, Scott did not come anywhere close to topping his 2011 record, and many news accounts acknowledged his comparative restraint. Not that it came easily. This time, getting Scott's approval required interested parties to present a persuasive case.

For example, Scott in 2011 vetoed money for a rowing center in Sarasota County. In 2012, he allowed $5 million for the project to stay in the budget after county officials agreed to return the money if it does not create as much sales tax revenue as expected, the Times/Herald reported.

"When I went line by line through the budget, I asked myself, 'Is this the proper role of state government?' " Scott wrote in his transmission letter of the vetoes. "'Should we spend taxpayers' dollars for that purpose? And if so, what is the return on investment?' "

Lawmakers whose projects remained in the budget praised the more "deliberative” Scott.

"Is he becoming a better politician? Yes,'' Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, told the Times/Herald.

Scott approved $1 million for the Boys and Girls Club of Pasco County while rejecting money for Girls Incorporated in Sarasota County because Boys and Girls Clubs have "measurable results.”

Pasco County is also home to Rep. Will Weatherford, the incoming House speaker at the time.

"The governor has been very deliberate and methodical in going about this," Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, told the Times/Herald. "There's always going to be winners and losers."

Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, in 2011 bemoaned vetoes of his hometown projects, including $10 million for the St. Johns River. But Scott approved $5.6 million to go toward improving the river's lower basin in 2012, and he even toured the river with the secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection in the weeks following his budget-signing.

"I think experience on the job," accounts for the smaller veto total, Thrasher told the Tallahassee Democrat. "He's reaching out to more and more people."

Scott was uneasy with reporters characterizing lawmakers' appeals for personal projects as lobbying.

"Lobby might not be a good word," he said, according to the Democrat. "They convinced me."

What about Florida Polytechnic?

Tea party activist Henry Kelley said Scott was making good on his promise to reduce pork barrel projects, including a veto in 2012 of $1.5 million earmarked for Florida A&M University's pharmacy program in the rural Panhandle town of Crestview.

But that decision does not square with Scott approving the creation of the state"s 12th state university, the top priority of a departing Sen. JD Alexander, the Republican budget chairman from Lake Wales, Kelley said. Scott's approval of Florida Polytechnic epitomized hypocrisy, Kelley said, and led him to question Scott's overall commitment to fiscal discipline.

"The Polytech deal really left a bad taste in my mouth,” he said. "Is now really the time for somebody's pet project to get passed?”

Florida TaxWatch, a business-backed public policy group that provides the most comprehensive annual review of what it considers budget "turkeys” from the legislative session, did not include the creation of Florida Polytechnic as the state's 12th university on its list. (A budget "turkey” means the project ended up in the budget but did not receive proper scrutiny by lawmakers.)

Why? The new university "had substantive legislation behind it,” said TaxWatch president Dominic Calabro at the time.

That's true, said Fasano, a bigtime Polytech opponent, in an interview with us. But "there's no question that Polytech is a member project,” he said.

TaxWatch's list versus Scott's list

We asked Kurt Wenner, Florida TaxWatch vice president of tax research, for his take on Scott's veto actions.

In 2011, Scott vetoed 89 percent of projects -- or 83 percent of spending -- identified as budget turkeys by TaxWatch.

That percentage dropped quite a bit in 2012, down to 61 percent. Scott's second-year performance was even worse by dollar amount, at 37 percent, Wenner said.

The decline does not mean the group is doubting Scott's ability to keep his pledge to cut back on pork, he said.

"While we always feel there were more items worthy of a governor's veto, Gov. Scott's two-year percentage is -- I believe -- the highest in the history of Florida TaxWatch's Turkey Watch,” Wenner said.

When we asked the governor's office for comment on this update, spokeswoman Jackie Schutz sent us the following statement:

"While we continue to cut state spending and pay down debt for the first time in 20 years, Governor Scott supports investing in priorities that help Florida families,” she wrote.

So what's the rating?

Yes, Scott vetoed many special-interest projects in 2012. But he minimized his political clashes with lawmakers and allowed far more to remain in the budget this year.

Lawmakers said he listened. To some fiscal conservatives, he caved.

We're moving this pledge to Compromise.