Florida Politics - Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government.

Jim RosicaAugust 31, 2015

If “self-interested partisans” can’t agree on congressional redistricting, then it’s time for an independent commission to redraw the state’s political boundary lines, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson said on Monday. Nelson, who met with a small of group of reporters in his Tallahassee office, referred to the recent Special Session called for lawmakers to draw a new map […]

Jim RosicaAugust 26, 2015

As expected, Circuit Judge Terry Lewis has asked the Florida Supreme Court for guidance in the ever-complicated challenge to the state’s congressional redistricting. In a 2-page filing submitted Wednesday, Lewis noted that the high court charged him with overseeing the details of the case, including the actual redrawing of a new map. The problem is […]

Bill PrescottAugust 26, 2015

Writer, international scholar, FSU English professor, opinion columnist and environmentalist Diane Roberts entertained a crowd of North Florida Democrats Tuesday evening with her incisive wit and pointed observations about the state of Florida and its leaders. Referring to herself as “that professor conservatives warn you about,” Roberts let fly a quiverful of bon mots as […]

Melissa RossAugust 25, 2015

One of the state’s leading pollsters says Republican legislators may live to regret seeing Florida’s redistricting mess turned over to the courts. “There is absolute risk,” says Mike Binder, University of North Florida political science professor and lead pollster at the school’s Public Opinion Research Laboratory. “While the Senate is willing to compromise, the House is […]

Jim RosicaAugust 24, 2015

Lawmakers couldn’t agree on congressional redistricting but they do seem to agree on one thing: Muzzling the Florida Supreme Court. The latest special session ended last week with no new map to apportion Florida’s 27 U.S. House districts. It did result in lots of rhetoric, including from some Democrats, on “judicial overreach” and breaching the […]

Guest AuthorAugust 10, 2015

Welcome back to another Special Session! It’s been fun blaming the Florida Legislature for gerrymandering and all that, but GOP state Rep. Mike Hill from Pensacola wrote penned an interesting letter to House Speaker Steve Crisafulli. In part, he wrote: “Under the guise of interpreting Sections 20 and 21 of Article III of the Florida […]

Guest AuthorAugust 9, 2015

Welcome back to another Special Session! It’s been fun blaming the Florida Legislature for gerrymandering and all that, but GOP state Rep. Mike Hill from Pensacola wrote penned an interesting letter to House Speaker Steve Crisafulli. In part, he wrote: “Under the guise of interpreting Sections 20 and 21 of Article III of the Florida […]

Julie DelegalAugust 2, 2015

The Florida Legislature just passed a law that will award bonuses to police officers who were patrol boys or patrol girls in fifth grade. Not really. But what they did was equally absurd. And it could be illegal, too. In last-minute budget horse-trading during the Legislature’s first Special Session this summer, Rep. Erik Fresen’s bill […]

Ryan RayJuly 9, 2015

Thursday’s landmark Florida Supreme Court decision invalidating eight congressional districts drawn by the Legislature sends shock waves through Florida’s balance of power. That’s true nowhere more than in the northern third of the state, where a national debate in the courts over U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown‘s 5th Congressional District continued to bleed into adjacent districts. […]

Guest AuthorJune 25, 2015

Now the Special Session is finally over and the Legislature finally finished the budget they worked on long into the night. They handed it to the governor so he could have his way with it and put his pen to paper, signing it into law with one hand and slashing it with his veto pen […]

Tag: special session

Bill Nelson on redistricting: ‘Time for an independent commission’

Judge formally asks Supreme Court for redistricting direction

Diane Roberts skewers ruling class during Tallahassee talk

UNF pollster on redistricting: “absolute risk” for GOP leadership

Arguing Florida lawmakers agree on one thing: silence the Florida Supreme Court

Henry Kelley: It’s time to fix high court’s districting overreach

Henry Kelley: It’s time to fix high court’s districting overreach

Julie Delegal: Erik Fresen’s folly fosters another education absurdity

Court-ordered congressional boundary changes could wreak electoral havoc in North Florida

Gary Stein: What have tax cuts really accomplished?