The Florida Department of Law Enforcement released its final report today in its investigation into the Public Service Commission and concluded, as expected, no criminal wrongdoing. Download PSC Report
What is newsworthy is that PSC Commissioner Nathan Skop was the one who first brought the issue to state investigators on [...]
Charlie Crist acknowledged in an interview that it may not look like he's 100 percent focused on Florida, when he's spending so much time raising money out of state for his Senate race. "One of the things I like the least about what I do is having to raise money...I [...]
THE VILLAGES -- Lori Pitner walked back to her place in line at Barnes & Noble, holding her toothbrush and tooth paste.
The 46-year-old stay-at-home mom and Sunday school teacher from Tavares, Fla., arrived here with her posse -- a girlfriend who is running for U.S. Congress and several children -- [...]
A special lawmaking session over high-speed and commuter rail inched closer Monday as legislative leaders and the governor said they were ready to tap surplus money discovered in the transportation budget rather than raise taxes on rental cars.
The surplus money -- about $76 million for the current and [...]
Vowing to save the state $5 million, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink said Monday she's asking legislators to make it easier for her office to go paperless to collect payments from vendors. The proposed legislation would allow her to require electronic funds transfer payments, [...]
Sen. George LeMieux said he long wondered how disgraced lawyer Scott Rothstein was so successful but never acted on it because he's not "the kind of person to try to pull down others."
"I’ve talked to him and know him," LeMieux, who ran a competing law firm, said last week. "I [...]
U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisc., is taking aim at Radio and TV Martí, calling it a $300 million "relic of the Cold War ... that virtually no one tunes in to."
"Government studies show that Radio and TV Martí are riddled with problems, and fall short of journalistic standards," Feingold [...]
TAMPA -- Republican Congressional candidate Eddie Adams Jr. made an odd use of his campaign stationary in his capacity as a newly appointed member of the Hillsborough County Hospital Authority, a governmental agency. Adams is once again campaigning for the District 11 House seat held by Democrat Kathy Castor.
To read more, click [...]
Someone sent us this nice shot of Alex Sink and her pal, disgraced fundraiser/alleged Ponzi scheme king Scott Rothstein, who has enough bling on his hands to make Mr. T look like the picture of understated taste by comparison.
It's a scenario that we hear raised surprisingly often now that Gov. Crist is in a tougher-than-expected Senate race against Marco Rubio. So today we asked Crist about the chances of that happening: "Zero. There may be hope on the part of some that that would occur - opponents perhaps, [...]
Lori Edwards' campaign for Florida's 12th Congressional district released a poll today boasting she's got the lead "despite the challenging political environment for Democrats going into 2010."
In a recent survey conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, Edwards holds a 4-point edge over Republican challenger Dennis Ross, 46 – 42 percent. [...]
The initial list of candidates to replace longtime FSU president T.K. Wetherell is in, and the 17 people range from a middle school teacher to a few high-ranking professors and college deans at FSU. The earch committee is slated to start looking at the candidates' files Tuesday, with the aim [...]
Agriculture Commissioner candidate Scott Maddox, a Democrat, made his position on offshore oil drilling perfectly clear at a press conference Monday: "an absolute no."
The former state party leader and Tallahassee mayor stood next to an enlarged photo of an oil rig on fire and declared that offshore oil drilling (in [...]
Mustering all the fear of Armageddon, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush warns in an op-ed in the Tallahassee Democrat this weekend that if Florida Power & Light and Progress Energy don't get their rate increases a reliable energy grid could be "threatened." He blames "populist politics,'' translation: Gov. Charlie Crist, who has [...]
Former state House Speaker Jon Mills and Linda Kobert, an Orlando parent and education activist, appeared on Political Connections Sunday to discuss their lawsuit alleging that the state is vioilating its Constitutional duty to provide "high quality" education to students. The full interview can be seen in Tampa Bay on Ch. [...]
Jeb Bush never actually mentions Charlie Crist in this Tallahassee Democrat column , but he clearly is taking a shot at Charlie Crist for vocally opposing FPL's requested rate increase. Seems to us the first time the former governor has publicly criticicized current leadership in Tallahassee:
The well-publicized pronouncements made [...]
Winner of the Week: State Sen. Ted Deutch. It looks more and more like the first term Democratic legislator from Boca Raton will walk into the Congressional seat Robert Wexler is vacating to take a well-paid middle east policy advocate job. No serious rival [...]
TAMPA — About 1,000 people lined up along Dale Mabry Highway for the chance to meet conservative pundit Glenn Beck, who visited a Borders bookstore as part of his whirlwind tour through Florida on Saturday to promote his latest book, Arguing with Idiots.
His [...]
The U.S. Senate just voted 60-39 to advance the health care bill, exposing deep division that will continue to play out during debate after Thanksgiving. Florida Senators reflected the party line vote.
"This is a debate that we must have. It is a debate that we cannot afford not to have," [...]
WASHINGTON — George LeMieux has been a member of the U.S. Senate only two months but has managed to jam up legislation on oil drilling, a bill cutting funding for Radio Marti and he is blocking President Barack Obama's nominee for ambassador to Brazil.
But what [...]
The answer [...]
A motion motion filed today with the First District Court of Appeal, lays out several technical arguments why the appeal is justified and asks the appellate court [...]
State Sen. Mike Bennett sent an angry letter to the state's five Public Service Commissioners this week, "appalled with the lack of oversight'' in the general counsel selection process when it let agency executive director Mary Bane "change the rules as you go in order to accommodate candidates who failed to meet the deadlines.''
"With [...]
What do Nintendo, the A-Team, MTV, and Microsoft Windows have in common?
That was the question posed to dozens of top Democratic fundraisers gathered last night at the lakefront Thonotosassa home of Alex Sink for a [...]
UPDATE: Florida's Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson will vote to move the bill forward. Listen to his floor speech
Sen. George LeMieux said he will vote against moving the health care bill to the floor, contending it is still an unfinished product. "It's out for six weeks in Harry Reid's conference [...]Gov. Charlie Crist is in D.C. today raising money at Holland & Knight but insisted he is also focused on the dreadful state of the Florida economy, reinforced by a fresh report about 11.2 percent unemployment.
"I just think it's so important to stay focused on jobs, jobs, jobs," the [...]
A poll commissioned by Al Lawson's campaign shows him even with U.S. Rep. Allen Boyd in the Democratic primary for the 2nd Congressional District.
In the head-to-head match up, Lawson took 34.9 percent to Boyd's 30.7 percent, a slight lead that fell within the 4.6 percent margin of error, the results from [...]
Cigarettes sales are down 27 percent in Florida during the past four months, thanks to a new $1-a-pack tax designed to balance the budget and cut down on smoking.
But despite the drop in sales, tobacco tax collections in Florida are high and holding steady. That's because state economists accurately factored [...]
This shouldn't be much of a surprise, but Florida GOP leaders took no formal action at their closed door meeting in Lake County this afternoon - called to help iron out concerns many party leaders expressed about the state Chairman Jim Greer.
"It was productive, definitely. Just open discussion,'' said Hillsborough [...]
Florida Trend: A U.S. Commerce Department spokeswoman told Florida Trend Thursday that the agency is frustrated over the delay in Frank Sanchez’s confirmation to be under secretary of international trade but rejected speculation that the holdup is related to anything other than the fact that the [...]
FSU's presidential search committee just released a timeline for choosing longtime President T.K. Wetherell's successor, with the aim of sending a list of finalists to the Board of Trustees by early December.
The search consultant, John Hicks of Academic Search Inc., said the schedule is "expedited" because several other universities nationwide [...]
CFO Alex Sink just announced she is promoting deputy chief financial officer Tammy Teston to serve as her chief of staff for the Department of Financial Services. The change will take effect in January, when Teston will replace current Chief of Staff Jim Cassady, who is leaving then to work on the [...]
Robo poll from liberal DailyKos and Research 2000: Gov. Charlie Crist leads Rubio 47 percent to 37 percent among Republicans. In January, Crist led 57 percent to 11 percent. Among all voters, Crist beats Kendrick Meek 50-33, while Meek beats Rubio 38-30. Birthers prefer Rubio 54-31.
These trendlines are bleak for Crist, [...]
Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum is (finally) taking a position on whether the Republican Governor's Association should return the $200,000 that disgraced donor Scott Rothstein gave the organization.
"As I have said on many occasions over the last few weeks, I believe that any individual or organization that has received money [...]
A Tampa company got a $900,000 Air Force contract through a program benefiting veteran-owned businesses but funneled the job to another firm, according to a new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
The GAO report on fraud and abuse cites 10 examples in which firms obtained $100 million in contracts [...]
On the heels of Sen. George LeMieux's active use of "holds" to block legislation and the U.S. ambassador to Brazil comes word that he has been reviewing U.S. attorney recommendations suggested to the White House by Sen. Bill Nelson and former Sen. Mel Martinez.
LeMieux met with White House counsel Greg [...]
If we have to blog one more lob in this week's tit-for-tat between Democrats and Republicans on the whole unemployment compensation/federal stimulus deal, we might pull our hair out.
So we talked to Amy Baker, the state's chief economist, to try and bring this partisan finger-pointing to a conclusion.
Baker's [...]
Three days ago we asked the Bill McCollum gubernatorial campaign if he intended to call on the Republican Governor's Association to return the $200,000 contribution it received Nov. 17, 2008 from Scott Rothstein. McCollum, after all, was quick to call for both the state GOP and [...]
The Center for Public Integrity today is criticizing a bill introduced by U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek that would get rid of a competitive bidding program for Medicare.
"The dispute concerns so-called durable medical equipment — items like power wheelchairs and oxygen supplies. Federal investigators have long complained that the equipment business [...]
My father-in-law, former Raleigh Times editor A.C. Snow, hails from the same rural North Carolina County as Alex Sink. Here's his column on what lessons we may learn from Alex Sink's great grandfather Cheng, of the original Siamese Twins, Cheng and Eng:
The next time [...]
Almost daily, some supposedly savvy Florida political operative insists Charlie Crist has already lost the U.S. Senate race. It's a crazy suggestion considering Gov. Crist is leading Republican rival Marco Rubio by about 20 points in recent polls and so [...]
Florida Sen. George LeMieux is setting up a political action committee -- Protect America's Future -- and signaling he's likely going to pursue elective office after his temporary gig is up next year.
"The goal is to use it as a vehicle to promote the ideas he believes in: Reducing the [...]
Sen. Mike Bennett will try again this legislative session to get a bill through that allows lawmakers to serve longer -- but this time he wants to target local elected officials, too.
SB 598 would allow state senators to serve two 6-year terms, and House reps to serve 3 four-year terms. City [...]
In politics, payback can be a real ...well, you know, female dog.
Sen. Mike Bennett insists his just-filed bill isn't payback, but it sure could affect the job security of Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty.
SB 740 would require that the Cabinet, acting as the Financial Services Commission, reconfirm the insurance regulation leader [...]
In response to this post, came this press release: RESPONSE TO E-MAIL CONCERNING GOVERNOR’S ATTENDANCE AT ESCAMBIA GOP DINNER
Pensacola—Statement from Escambia County Republican Party Chairman Susan Moore concerning private e-mail:
“Today, I was notified that a private e-mail that I sent to five members of the Escambia County Republican Party [...]
U.S. Congressman Kendrick Meek, the Dem who could find himself running against Gov. Charlie Crist for U.S. Senate, wades into today's unemployment compensation finger-pointing.
Here's his letter to Crist:
Mary Ellen Klas, Shannon Colavecchio, Adam Smith, Alex Leary, Janet Zink, Steve Bousquet, Times Editor, Lee Logan, John Frank, Amy Hollyfield, David DeCamp, Joni James
