The biggest critic of a massive prison privatization scheme in Florida was stripped of his chairmanship of the Budget Subcommittee on Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriation for opposing Gov. Rick Scott’s (R) plan to outsource prison oversight to the lowest bidder.

Sen. Mike Fasano (R) is one of ten Senate Republicans who opposes the plan to give private, for-profit vendors control over 26 prisons, but his vocal criticism provoked retribution from one of the bill’s biggest supporters, Senate President Mike Haridopolos (R):

Amid the mounting tension, Senate President Mike Haridopolos refused to bring up the bill for debate, a sign that it faced defeat. Ten of 28 Senate Republicans have voiced strong reservations or opposition to such a major policy shift, a serious rift in the GOP caucus.

The drama intensified as Haridopolos stripped Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, of his chairmanship of a budget subcommittee overseeing prisons, saying Fasano “was not rowing in the same direction” as Senate leaders on budget decisions.

“It’s become clear to me that Sen. Fasano was not willing to make these choices,” Haridopolos said.

Fasano said Haridopolos told him he was being punished for his anti-privatization comments in an MSNBC interview Monday.

This week Fasano introduced an amendment that would effectively stop the plan and require further study on its fiscal impact. Critics of the plan say that it will save little if any money and cost thousands of state workers their jobs. The price of paying the displaced prison workers for unused sick leave and vacation could well offset the estimated $16 – $30 million in savings. “It’s really just a gift to the private-prison industry,” David Murrell of the Police Benevolent Association said of the plan.

Yet Haridopolos claimed he outed Fasano because he had “lost confidence in him to fulfill [the] mission” of balancing the budget and not raising taxes because Fasano raised concerns about the real cost of prison privatization.

Last year a judge threw out a similar plan because proponents tried to sneak it into the budget, but Republican sponsors have revived the bill. And they have a clear personal interest in fighting so hard. The country’s biggest private prison companies, who stand to make millions from the Florida plan, have given generously to many state legislators.

GEO Group, a private prison company based in Boca Raton and one of the largest contributors to the Florida Republican Party in 2010, gave over $11,000 to the campaigns of 14 of the 20 members of the Budget Committee that approved the privatization bill. They also gave the maximum $25,000 to Gov. Scott’s inaugural fund.

The Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s largest corrections company, also has close connections to GOP statehouses across the country. The company has spent $373,000 in political contributions in Florida since 2003, over 60 percent of which have gone to Republicans.

Last year, a Florida judge struck down Gov. Rick Scott’s (R) plan to privatize much of the state’s prison system because of a flaw in the way it was enacted. Nevertheless, Florida lawmakers are now reviving this ill-conceived plan:

Dozens of correctional officers shouted “Shame! Shame!” as the Senate Budget Committee voted Wednesday to revive a hotly debated budget-cutting plan to privatize state prisons in 18 South Florida counties. . . .

“Come work a shift with us … come do what we do every day,” prison officers called out to Senate Budget Committee Chairman JD Alexander, R-Lake Wales, after his committee voted 14-4 for a bill (SB 2308) that restores the massive privatization plan the Legislature passed in budget language last year. Sgt. Thomas Johnson of Marion Correctional Institution challenged Alexander to show up at a prison unannounced and take a tour with rank-and-file guards to see what they face on the job.

Private prisons have a well-documented record of failing to save taxpayers money. An exhaustive 2007 study conducted by the University of Utah concluded that “the value of moving to a privately managed system is questionable,” while many services are often inferior at private facilities as compared to public ones.

But while the taxpayers may not see much return on their investment, others stand to reap millions of dollars. Last year, a report issued by the Justice Policy Institute found that private prisons spent millions on lobbying to help “make money through harsh policies and longer sentences.” In 2010, the two largest private prison companies had a combined $2.9 billion in revenues, Think Progress reported.

The corporations that own and operate private prisons are not the only ones who benefit financially either. An examination of campaign finance records shows that GEO Group, based in Boca Raton, was one of the 15 largest contributors to the Florida Republican Party in 2010, and gave over $11,000 in contributions directly to the campaigns of 14 of the 20 members of the Budget Committee that approved the bill, by a vote of 14-4. Since 2006, GEO Group has spent a total of $1.3 million in campaign contributions in Florida alone.

The political investments private prison companies are making are not limited to Florida, either. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer accepted at least $60,000 from people directly connected to the Corrections Corporation of America. And in Pennsylvania, a judge was sentenced to 28 years in prison after it was discovered he had been “selling” convictions of young offenders to several private juvenile detention centers, which profit mightily from heightened incarceration rates. One victim was sentenced to three months in one of the centers for mocking an assistant vice principal on MySpace.

MIAMI, Florida — A group of undocumented students gathered outside a Mitt Romney campaign stop yesterday to protest the former Massachusetts governor’s pledge to veto the DREAM Act if he were elected president.

The DREAM Act would allow certain qualified youth, most of whom were brought here as children, to apply for residency and citizenship in the United States after completing high school and two years of college or the military. The bill was passed by the House of Representatives in December 2010 and received 55 votes in the Senate, but failed due to a Republican filibuster.

Last month, Romney promised an Iowa audience that even if Congress sent the DREAM Act to his desk, he would veto the measure.

The student protestors on Wednesday were outraged by the presidential hopeful’s pledge, which would hinder their future prospects in the country they’d grown up in. Led by Felipe Matos, an aspiring biology teacher who was elected president of the student government at Miami Dade College Wolfson Campus and named one of the top 20 community college students in the country, the students chanted, “veto Romney, not the DREAM Act!” and “education, not deportation!”

Watch highlights from the protest:

Ironically, the venue of the event was Miami’s Freedom Tower — “a monument to the Cuban immigrant experience” where “thousands of Cuban exiles were processed when they first entered the United States.” Inside, Romney’s speech focused almost exclusively on bringing “freedom” to Cubans. “I will use the power of America to spread freedom in Latin America,” he said. This apparently does not apply to people who come to the United States from Latin America or elsewhere looking for freedom.