Florida Politics - Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government.

Martin DyckmanApril 6, 2015

The original Religious Freedom Restoration Act – RFRA for short – was intended to protect faith-based practices from unnecessary government interference. That’s the opposite of trying to use it to justify faith-based discrimination against others. But of course irony and hypocrisy are hardly strangers to politics. Congress enacted RFRA in 1993 in response to the […]

Shannon NickinsonApril 6, 2015

9,071 years. That is what Escambia County lost in a year based on the health outcomes reported in by the University of Wisconsin and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. That measure – years of potential life lost before the age of 75 – is the bottom line of the county health rankings released March 25. Many […]

Guest AuthorApril 6, 2015

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is, in the words often attributed to Einstein, the definition of insanity. Unfortunately for Floridians, so too are the calls today to expand our state’s Medicaid system under the Affordable Care Act. After decades of failed reforms, this $450 billion federal health care […]

A.G. GancarskiApril 6, 2015

Jesse Leigh Wilson, a one-time Republican Jacksonville City Council candidate who was removed unceremoniously from the Duval County Republican Executive Committee meeting that saw the party officially endorse Lenny Curry instead of his candidate, Bill Bishop, has officially broken with the Duval GOP in a Metro Jacksonville article, a move that probably surprises few observers. Citing his goal to […]

Melissa RossApril 6, 2015

It’s perhaps a fitting metaphor for the world’s largest crowdfunding festival. Just hours before Tuesday’s opening ceremony begins for One Spark in downtown Jacksonville, a giant shark will splash its way into the fountain at Hemming Park. For the third year in a row, the Enlivened Spaces class at UNF has created a massive sculpture in […]

Mitch PerryApril 6, 2015

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Tampa lawyer Brian Willis has made it official: He’s running for the Democratic nomination for Hillsborough County commissioner in the countywide District 6 seat that term-limited Kevin Beckner leaves in 2016. “I have always been dedicated to making Hillsborough a better place to live, ” Willis said in a prepared statement released early Monday afternoon. […]

Florence SnyderApril 6, 2015

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A Tallahassee theater on a holiday weekend is a lonely place, especially if the film is The Hunting Ground, a documentary examination of sexual assault on college campuses. Frat boys and football players raping young women and young men is not a popular topic in a town where the money-making machinery revolves around Greeks and […]

A.G. GancarskiApril 6, 2015

In the ever-evolving saga of “How many debates will incumbent Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown agree to?,” the Mayor seems to be borrowing a line from Meatloaf and saying “two out of three ain’t bad.” That doesn’t sit well with Action News Jax, which invited the Mayor to the first proposed Mayoral debate, on May 6, only to find […]

Associated PressApril 6, 2015

Authorities say set records in the Florida Panhandle this year. Law enforcement officials tell The News Herald that they saw across-the-board increases in calls for service, arrests and gun-related incidents during March. The Bay County Sheriff’s Office reported that arrests jumped to 928 compared with 324 in March 2014. The agency also said gun seizures increased […]

A.G. GancarskiApril 6, 2015

One of the memes put forth by the Alvin Brown campaign of late has been the relative lack of public events from his opponent in the Jacksonville mayoral runoff, Lenny Curry. That’s in spite of ample evidence that Curry has been seen since the election, including meeting at Starbucks with his First Election opponent, Bill Bishop, and being […]

Uncategorized

Martin Dyckman: Religious freedom isn't license to discriminate

Shannon Nickinson: Preventing the loss of thousands of years of life

Chris Hudson: An alternative to Medicaid expansion

Jesse Wilson breaks from GOP for Alvin Brown

Swimming with sharks: Politicians to press flesh at One Spark

Transit activist Brian Willis files for Hillsborough County District 6 race

Florence Snyder: A postcard from the movies

Action News Jax and Lenny Curry pressure Alvin Brown for more debates and forums

Panhandle authorities report more spring break arrests

Lenny Curry April 13 #UniteJax event announcement coming