{"id":15636,"date":"2012-12-18T09:11:47","date_gmt":"2012-12-18T14:11:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=15636"},"modified":"2012-12-18T09:11:49","modified_gmt":"2012-12-18T14:11:49","slug":"lawmaker-changes-his-mind-about-bright-futures-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/12\/18\/lawmaker-changes-his-mind-about-bright-futures-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawmaker Changes His Mind About Bright Futures Bill"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_15637\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 220px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/12\/18\/lawmaker-changes-his-mind-about-bright-futures-bill\/jimmiesmith\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-15637\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15637\" title=\"JimmieSmith\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2012\/12\/JimmieSmith.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"220\" height=\"297\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">myfloridahouse.gov<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">After hearing from voters, Rep. Jimmie Smith plans to withdraw his Bright Futures bill.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A Florida lawmaker who filed <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/12\/13\/bright-futures-recipients-may-have-to-stay-in-florida-after-graduation\/\">a bill that would make Bright Futures recipients stay in Florida<\/a> after graduation seems to have changed his mind.<\/p>\n<p>A spokesman for Rep. Jimmie Smith, R-Lecanto,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.myfloridahouse.gov\/Sections\/Documents\/loaddoc.aspx?FileName=_h0035__.docx&amp;DocumentType=Bill&amp;BillNumber=0035&amp;Session=2013\"> told the Orlando Sentinel<\/a> that Smith will withdraw the bill that was filed this month.<\/p>\n<p>It would have required college graduates to stay and work in Florida six months for every semester the scholarship was used.<\/p>\n<p>Those who didn\u2019t stay in state or who didn\u2019t finish school would have to pay the money back.<\/p>\n<p>If the bill had passed the Florida Legislature, the new requirements would have gone into effect in a couple of years, when unemployment in the state is forecast to remain above the national average.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>According to House Bill 35, Smith wanted to give Florida\u2019s brightest students an incentive to stay and work here, which in turn would be a benefit to the state.<\/p>\n<p>He apparently heard from a lot of constituents who didn\u2019t like the idea.<\/p>\n<p>He says he now feels better options are out there, and he looks forward to finding solutions for shoring up <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/08\/22\/florida-bright-futures-scholarships-by-the-numbers\/\">the Bright Futures program<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Florida lawmaker who filed a bill that would make Bright Futures recipients stay in Florida after graduation seems to have changed his mind. A spokesman for Rep. Jimmie Smith, R-Lecanto, told the Orlando Sentinel that Smith will withdraw the bill that was filed this month. It would have required college graduates to stay and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[1014,1104,467],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15636"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}