With a flick of his pen, Florida's tea party Republican governor, Rick Scott, used a line-item veto to cut funding to the state's rape crisis centers last week—in the middle of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

The centers in all of Florida's 67 counties, coordinated by the Florida Council Against Sexual Violence, are supported by a trust fund made up of fines levied on sexual offenders. But the fund, established in 2003, isn't yet large enough. "Fewer than 10% of sexual violence programs are able with current resources to provide the standard services identified as those most needed by rape victims," the group's site states. "As a result, many programs have waiting lists."

The state legislature had approved $1.5 million to help close the gap so the centers could keep serving the approximately 700,000 women in Florida who've been victims of rape. But in reviewing the state's $70 billion budget, Scott decided last Tuesday that the .002 percent slated for the crisis centers was just too much. He used his line-item power to veto the funds, alongside $141 million in other cuts targeting a wide range of projects, including an indigent psychiatric medicine program, Girls Incorporated of Sarasota County, the Alzheimer's Family Care Center of Broward County, and a state settlement for child welfare case managers who were owed overtime. The entire list of vetoed programs is available here (PDF).