Florida Politics - Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government.

Martin DyckmanMay 25, 2015

The obituaries for Helen Gordon Davis correctly recounted what one called her “trailblazing” career in the Florida Legislature, where in 1974 she became one of very few women – the first from Hillsborough County – in what a colleague famously called “the land of the Bubbas.” She weathered the sexism and condescension and compiled a […]

Mitch PerryJanuary 20, 2015

It wasn’t that long ago — 2010 perhaps? — when I still eagerly anticipated watching the State of the Union address from Washington. But no mas. In January of 2010, my first year writing for Creative Loafing, the editors thought it would be cool for me to “live-blog” the event. And it was sort of […]

Mitch PerryJanuary 20, 2015

Fifty years after the passage of the federal Voting Right Act, speakers at today’s 35th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Breakfast in Tampa said it’s time to allow the hundreds of thousands of ex-felons in Florida get their right to vote restored. “This modern-day disenfranchisement and discrimination is our modern-day challenge,” said U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, […]

Mitch PerryJanuary 6, 2015

With all due respect to all of the people who will be attending Governor Rick Scott’s inauguration later this morning, the speech by the recently reelected Republican is not the biggest story in Florida today. No, there have been inaugurations before and there will be again. But for the first time in the history of […]

Mitch PerryJanuary 6, 2015

With all due respect to all of the people who will be attending Governor Rick Scott’s inauguration later this morning, the speech by the recently reelected Republican is not the biggest story in Florida today. No, there have been inaugurations before and there will be again. But for the first time in the history of […]

Guest AuthorAugust 14, 2014

The story in Ferguson, Missouri, is all too familiar, even callously so. A young, unarmed black man is shot by a white police officer. A frustrated community erupts in anger. While the details involving the shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown are still being investigated, one fact is troubling and clear: Another casual encounter between […]

Martin DyckmanJuly 9, 2014

Among the flock of on-line petitions I declined to sign last week was one calling for the impeachment of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Much as I and others might wish them gone and forgotten, impeachment is a terrible idea. The merits aside, it […]

Guest AuthorJune 2, 2014

Amidst the Memorial Day barbecues, shopping sprees, sporting events and endless miles of “are we there yet?” there were speeches and commentaries to remind us of the fallen and the freedoms they died to protect. Typically, these tributes mentioned the rights specified in the Constitution: religion, speech, assembly and press. U.S. Rep. Dennis Ross wrote […]

Martin DyckmanDecember 29, 2013

Human intuition — aka common sense — can be a keen judge of the obvious. For example, “coffin nails” was slang for cigarettes long before the surgeon general’s statistics proved that’s what they are. When it comes to persuading judges and politicians, it usually takes science to prove the obvious. Today, anybody with eyes and […]

Darryl PaulsonSeptember 19, 2013

Fifth in a series The civil rights movement and the passage of federal laws such as the Voting Rights Act ended the major hurdles to black voting in Florida and the South. Black voter registration soared and, with the passage of time, hundreds of blacks in Florida would be elected to political office. The election […]

Tag: Voting Rights Act
Vern Buchanan and Ashley Moody are turning up the heat on FEMA.

Martin Dyckman: Helen Gordon Davis an early victim of racial gerrymandering in Florida

Mitch Perry Report for 1.20.15 — And now for the most disappointing night in American politics

Restoring voting rights for ex-felons major theme at Tampa MLK breakfast

Mitch Perry Report for 1.6.15 – Florida's big news day

Mitch Perry Report for 1.6.15 – Florida’s big news day

Andrew J. Skerritt: Ferguson seems a case study of race and power gone wrong

Martin Dyckman: We should limit terms of U.S. Supreme Court justices to 18 years

Martin Dyckman: Republicans are winning the gerrymander game in Florida

Martin Dyckman: Voter suppression aims to curb black vote, study says

Darryl Paulson: Black voter discrimination in Florida: Vote dilution