Scott Powers, Author at Florida Politics - Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government.

Scott PowersJanuary 4, 2017

Vowing to do everything he can to prevent another terrorist attack like the June 12 Pulse nightclub massacre, Gov. Rick Scott pushed for nearly $6 million to create a new counter-terrorism and law enforcement intelligence task force in Florida. “Terror, like we saw in the attack on the Pulse nightclub, is a threat to our state, […]

Scott PowersJanuary 3, 2017

NASA has extended additional flight contracts to the two private companies hired to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station and reported that the first such flight now is expected no earlier than May, 2018. In an announcement made Tuesday, NASA reported that Boeing and SpaceX now each will be hired to run […]

Scott PowersJanuary 3, 2017

Florida’s Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio has picked up a seat on the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee in the 115th Congress to go along with his appointments to the foreign relations and intelligence committees while Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson‘s remained unchanged from the previous Congress. Rubio also received a seat on the Special Committee […]

Scott PowersJanuary 3, 2017

Declaring that the glitch that blew up its last rocket while sitting on the launch pad back in September has been identified and fixed, SpaceX announced it is ready to launch again – Sunday, from California. SpaceX said it plans to launch a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Station. to carry a French Iridium […]

Scott PowersJanuary 2, 2017

U.S. Rep.-elect Stephanie Murphy has named her top congressional staff while announcing she intends to maintain two district offices – in Orange and Seminole counties, Murphy, the Winter Park Democrat elected in November to represent Florida’s 7th Congressional District, announced that Brad Howard will serve as her chief of staff, John Laufer as her deputy […]

Scott PowersJanuary 2, 2017

U.S. Rep.-elect Val Demings has announced her senior congressional staff, a mixture of those who supported her 2016 election in Orlando and some Washington D.C. savvy. That begins with Wendy Anderson as the Orlando Democrat’s chief of staff, and includes Caroline Rowland as her communications director and Sonja White as her district director in Central […]

Scott PowersJanuary 2, 2017

Orlando lawyer and Republican fundraiser Ben Newman also is known — sadly not to all — as a merry prankster and over the weekend had many believing he was leaving the powerful GrayRobinson law firm to run a burrito truck. Me among them. Sorry about that. Newman has left GrayRobinson, where he’s been a shareholder […]

Scott PowersJanuary 2, 2017

A before-and-after time line now exists for Orlando – June 12, 2016 – and on this side of the Pulse massacre the city may be seen by the world and through its own citizens’ eyes as a very different place, with a new political perspective. Before June 12, Orlando was a city without an an […]

Scott PowersDecember 29, 2016

Story co-written by Orlando-Rising staff reporters Scott Powers and Lawrence Griffin. In Orlando, 2016 will always be remembered as the year of the Pulse gay nightclub massacre, and Pulse redefined everything; but it’s not the only major event to have shaped politics in Orlando during the year. Here are a few events that defined politics […]

Scott PowersDecember 28, 2016

Puerto Ricans and other supporters are counting down days until Jan. 20, 2017, waiting to see if President Barack Obama will heed their pleadings to release Oscar López Rivera – a federal prisoner varyingly known as a terrorist, Puerto Rican nationalist freedom fighter, dangerous criminal, political prisoner, avowed enemy of the United States, or a conscience for a […]

Scott Powers
Image via AP.

Rick Scott wants to hire counterterrorism agents

NASA hires SpaceX, Boeing for more astronaut flights, pushes first to May 2018

Marco Rubio picks up appropriations, aging panels; Nelson’s committees unchanged

SpaceX shooting to launch again on Sunday, in California

Stephanie Murphy names senior congressional staff

Val Demings announces senior staff in Congress

Ben Newman New Year’s prank: leaving GrayRobinson for possible political run, not love of burritos

Politics in Orlando now takes place in a post-Pulse city

2016 in Orlando politics: Pulse, outside money, hotel taxes, frogs

Barack Obama’s decision awaited on Oscar López Rivera – terrorist or political prisoner