Sunburn — The Morning Read Of What’s Hot In Florida Politics — 11.17.21

By Peter Schorsch

Good Wednesday morning:

The deadline to submit nominations for INFLUENCE Magazine’s annual list of the Rising Stars in Florida Politics is Thursday at noon.

Please email me your nominations to Peter@FloridaPolitics.com.

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Tampa General Hospital will host a tribute to health care workers in the Capitol courtyard at 12:30 p.m.

The tribute will see Senate President Wilton Simpson, Tampa General President and CEO John Couris and CMO Dr. Peggy Duggan lead the public in ringing bells to honor the health care heroes of Florida.

The event is part of Tampa General’s “We Are TGH Day” at the Capitol. Scores of Tampa General workers and patients boarded buses to Tallahassee on Tuesday afternoon to spend Wednesday talking to lawmakers about their experiences of giving and receiving care at the institution.

Many of the health care heroes — the physicians, nurses, technicians and support services workers who keep TGH running — will be in the Capitol courtyard for the ceremony.

The first “We Are TGH Day” was held in 2019 and saw Couris and Simpson, then-Senate President-designate, celebrate the hospital performing its 10,000th transplant — a milestone hit by only a small number of hospitals.

Tampa General has hit several milestones since and has become known as one of the highest volume transplant centers in the nation. In October, TGH was named one of the Top 10 Best Smart Hospitals globally and announced that it had completed its 700th lung transplant.

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Spotted — At the Florida Education Association gathering in Tallahassee to mark American Education Week: Vance Aloupis, Robin Bartleman, Lori Berman, Lauren Book, David Borrero, Kamia Brown, Richard Corcoran, Gary Farmer, Benjamin Gibson, Mike Gottlieb, Mike Grieco, Joe Gruters, Chris Latvala, Jason Pizzo, Tina Polsky, Alex Rizo, Anthony Rodriguez, Kelly Skidmore, Annette Taddeo, Allison Tant, Perry Thurston, Matt Willhite, Patricia Williams and Marie Woodson.

— SITUATIONAL AWARENESS —

—@PressSec: For anyone who needs to hear it. @VP is not only a vital partner to @POTUS but a bold leader who has taken on key, important challenges facing the country — from voting rights to addressing root causes of migration to expanding broadband.

—@Mkraju: Asked (Joe) Manchin what WV voters are telling him about $1.75T bill after a week back home. Says his voters are “very much concerned. Inflation has hit them extremely hard. … I hear it when I go to the grocery store … They say, ‘are you as mad as I am?’ And I say ‘Absolutely.’”

—@JonCooperTweets: BREAKING: The number of shipping containers sitting on docks at the Port of Los Angeles has declined by 29% in recent weeks. Why isn’t the media reporting this GREAT NEWS?!

—@elahelzadi: my take on masks remains that some of y’all still wear shoes inside your homes and there are limits to my trust

—@MDixon55: Have never seen so many floor questions go unanswered. Several times now @ArdianZika has responded to questions by not yielding time. Basic idea is questions were outside scope of the bill, which happens, but seems more frequent today. Running a tight ship down there … And now they are one-by-one going over Democrat-filed amendments and declaring them at odds with chamber rules because they are outside the call of the Special Session … It always feels scripted because, well, there are actual scripts. But no one is even trying to hide the guiderails during this special

—@MDixon55: When you don’t win a congressional election, you also get to give your goodbye floor speech early

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