What does Gov. Rick Scott have that the average everyday lobbyist can't offer? A Tallahassee mansion with a full-time wait staff. So as the votes tighten on the Republican priority to weaken public employee unions by banning the automatic deduction of union dues, the governor's got his mansion staff working the clock. He's invited seven senators in this week who have expressed some reservations about voting for the bill and last week invited Sen. Greg Evers, R-Crestview.

The bill “is a distraction,’’ said Sen. Nancy Detert, a Venice Republican, who had dinner with the governor on Monday. “We’re doing five years of work in 60 days. We’re reforming everything ... and yet this bill will get all kinds of heat and upset people for nothing.’’

She said the governor urged her to support the bill but Detert, an 11-year veteran of the Legislature, said she told him “this has more to do with politics than it has to do with policy.’’

“Republicans say that the unions use all their dues money against us and I say, ‘Well, if that’s what they do, they haven’t been very successful,’’’ she said. With only 12 Democrats in the Senate, and Sen.Larcenia Bullard absent because of illness, Detert jokes: “if they all went to Georgia, we’d still have a quorum.’' Here's the story 

Here's the governor's meal schedule with Senators, thanks to the staff in the governor's communications office.