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Using emergency power given to him in times of crisis, Governor Charlie Crist accomplished what the state legislature failed to do.

Today Crist signed an executive order allowing 250-thousand jobless Floridians to receive extra weeks of unemployment pay. As Whitney Ray tells us, extended benefits stopped flowing June 2nd, and legislative leaders wanted jobseekers to wait until September for relief.

When state lawmakers met in Special Session Tuesday, they could have paved the way for 250-thousand out-of-work Floridians to receive extra weeks of unemployment pay. Instead they voted to go home; claiming they didn’t know Congress was going to extended benefits, even though the extension was on a fast track to passage.

Cretul: When we begin to think about what could or couldn’t happen in Washington in particular… who knows?

Ray: But it seems like a lot of people knew.

Cretul: Well, apparently they did, but the reality is we’ll deal with it when we come back in special session.”

That special session is tentatively scheduled for September. And if nothing happened until then an estimated 450-thousand people would be without benefits.

Governor Charlie Crist said that’s not good enough. He used emergency executive powers to issue their order Friday doing what the state legislature failed to do… allow Floridians to receive extended benefits. Labor Union, AFL-CIO, began calling on the governor to fix the problem after it became apparent the legislature wasn’t going to budge.

“Those that have fat bank accounts, that can write campaign contribution checks, when they need something the legislature and the Republican leadership in the House is quick to act. When working families need something, who can’t write the big campaign contributions, they are ignored,” said Rich Templin, with the Florida AFL-CIO.

With the extension now in place, the focus is back on the jobs and Florida’s 11.4 percent unemployment rate.

Today’s action by the governor was a last ditch effort. State lawmakers were warned about this problem more than three months ago during regular session, when they decided to put a deadline on how long Florida would participate in the federal Extended Benefits program.