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In politics, facts and figures are material for the spin cycle
May 17, 2013
TALLAHASSEE — With Gov. Rick Scott bound for Chile to tout Florida's business climate, one report he probably won't take with him came courtesy of Anderson Economic Group — a Michigan-based organization that ranked the state's business-tax burdens among the worst in the nation.
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Donor 'transparency' doesn't apply to state political parties
May 10, 2013
TALLAHASSEE — With the 60-day lawmaking session complete, Florida legislators are wasting no time getting back to what they do the other 10 months of the year: raising copious amounts of cash from wealthy donors and companies.
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Tax-cut vote shows might trumps right
May 3, 2013
TALLAHASSEE – The Florida House of Representatives embarrassed itself this week by ramming through a tax-cut that turns one of Gov. Rick Scott's top legislative priorities into potential litigation fodder.
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Scott, lawmakers at odds going into session's last week
April 27, 2013
TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Rick Scott should be at the high tide of his influence, dropping the hammer on fellow Republican legislators thwarting his agenda.
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Scott to get fewer tax-incentive dollars, more qualifiers
April 20, 2013
TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Rick Scott will get a slimmed-down tax-incentive toy box with tougher standards for evaluating the economic benefit of projects.
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Influence of big-money 'SuperPACs' not so clear
April 12, 2013
CHICAGO — There's a scary bedtime story on money in politics about how the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling unleashed a tidal wave of corporate cash into politics and drowned out the voices of the little people.
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At midpoint of session, political divides are emerging
April 5, 2013
TALLAHASSEE -- Halfway through a legislative session that has seen a rebounding economy, replenished coffers and a spirit of cooperation between chambers and parties, the gravitational pull of politics is taking hold.
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Failed Digital Domain deal was turning point for Brill
March 31, 2013
TALLAHASSEE — Dr. Dale Brill calls himself a "reformed bureaucrat and government interventionist." Translation: He thinks his old job was part of the problem with government wading into the private market and shaking things up.
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Florida, finally, may set ethics reform trend
March 22, 2013
NEW ORLEANS –People who have taken a government class are familiar with the Athenian Oath, the two-millennia-old pledge of civic responsibility to "transmit this City not only, not less, but greater and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us."
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Medicaid expansion pits anecdotes against economists' numbers
March 10, 2013
TALLAHASSEE – Why do lawmakers legislate by anecdote? It's an old question that plays out every year in state houses and Congress.
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Florida Republicans have a battle brewing in their tent
March 1, 2013
TALLAHASSEE – Lenny Curry picked a good time to call a trick play.
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Lobbying a lucrative cap for a legislator's career
February 24, 2013
TALLAHASSEE – You have to forgive Florida's reform-minded lawmakers if they don't want to preclude all their current colleagues from cashing in as lobbyists.
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Tax incentives are questioned — except when lawmakers want more
February 15, 2013
TALLAHASSEE — There's sort of a politico cognitive dissonance occurring this year in Florida's Capitol when it comes to corporate welfare.
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Contribution limits are on a collison course with transparency
February 8, 2013
TALLAHASSEE – Former Gov. Jeb Bush used to opine that campaigns would be such simpler and more transparent functions of our democratic process without campaign-finance limits.
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Scott's Budget 3.0 has something for everyone
February 1, 2013
TALLAHASSEE – Gov. Rick Scott didn't become a titan in the health-care industry by staying on the wrong slope of the learning curve. And what a transformation two years has made to the one-time tea-partyer.
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Killing rules is like pulling weeds: They grow back
January 25, 2013
TALLAHASSEE – Gov. Rick Scott's offensive to use the power of government to create jobs began with an attempt to repeal reams of rules he claimed were hamstringing businesses.
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New data analysis will inform lawmakers' Medicaid decision
January 18, 2013
TALLAHASSEE – Florida policymakers are facing a multibillion-dollar dice-roll over whether to capitulate to President Barack Obama and dramatically swell the size of the Medicaid health-care program.
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Washington does — and doesn't do — what voters dictate
January 11, 2013
TALLAHASSEE — Front Porch America could learn a lot from watching Washington work, or not work. For our political system's inability to solve its fiscal and economic problems can be traced back to the politically militarized and polarized home fronts.
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Florida's growth challenges are the same, but political realities aren't
January 4, 2013
TALLAHASSEE – For more than a year, Florida's job-creation agency has been developing a 50-year strategic "vision" for handling the state's growth. But sometimes it's important to also look in the rear-view mirror.
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Fact is, we don't know what might curb gun violence
December 28, 2012
TALLAHASSEE – One lesson to glean from tragedies like the one at Newtown, Conn., is the hardest to process: We don't know whether our gun culture is to blame for violent crimes. And that's our own fault.
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Fiscal-cliff fallout is about to hit Florida
December 21, 2012
TALLAHASSEE — The fiscal cliff-diving in Washington is going to have far-reaching effects on Florida's fragile economic recovery.
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Charlie's future is all about campaign cash
December 14, 2012
TALLAHASSEE – Charlie Crist 2.0 must answer a serious question before he becomes a serious alternative to presumed Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls like former CFO Alex Sink, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer or ex-Broward Sen. Nan Rich.
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'Transparency' is a virtue -- except when it's not
December 7, 2012
TALLAHASSEE – There's an obvious reason why Florida politicos spend so much time talking about the cleansing effect of transparency without ever hopping in the tub. Whether in war, business or politics, informational advantages are powerful forces that can determine outcomes – and protect the status quo.
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Legislative bipartisanship may not last through the holidays
December 1, 2012
TALLAHASSEE — Drink up, wayward partisans. Florida lawmakers may be striking a bipartisan tone as of late, but there are too many points of ideological contention for this camaraderie to survive intact beyond the holidays.
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Political insiders have much to be thankful for
November 23, 2012
TALLAHASSEE – It's the season for fattening up, and Florida politics is fueling the expansion of some well-placed operatives' wallets.
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Lawmakers forcing economic-development accountability
November 18, 2012
TALLAHASSEE – Florida's economic-development strategy for years has been a taxpayer-financed piggy bank handing out big bucks to companies that made grand job-creation promises and were seldom held accountable for their flops.
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Gov. Scott gets to work on reinventing himself
November 11, 2012
TALLAHASSEE – It's time everyone meet the new Gov. Rick Scott, the softer, family-friendlier version who cares about the poor, public schools and state workers.
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Consultants don't want you to see who's financing campaigns
November 4, 2012
TALLAHASSEE — Cockroaches hide from the light. And so do some of Florida's highest-paid elections lawyers and consultants, who have done their darnedest this year to cover up the financing behind their election advertising.
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Players change in school-choice fight – but not the objective
October 26, 2012
TALLAHASSEE – Florida education interest-groups are waging a multi-front fight this fall over traditional public-school alternatives like charters and voucher programs.
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Ethics reform is talked about – but rarely carried out
October 19, 2012
TALLAHASSEE -- Ethics reform is a frequently prescribed but seldom swallowed political tonic in Florida. Maybe that will change next year, but history and the alignment of politicians' incentives suggest otherwise.
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Campaign may turn on whether GOP starving or remaking schools
July 13, 2012
TALLAHASSEE – Has Florida's political leadership defended public education or de-funded it over the last two years? The answer you get depends on the party you ask this election season.
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Florida GOP's challenge: Assure donors money goes to elections, not jet charters
February 6, 2010
Jim Greer's exit from the Republican Party of Florida could be almost as tumultuous as his three-year tenure as state chairman.
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GOP avoids primaries in gambit to survive
May 24, 2009
It makes sense that top insiders in both of Florida's political parties want to avoid costly primaries at a time when the economy is in the toilet. But for Republicans, it may be a matter of sheer survival. That's why Attorney General Bill McCollum could announce last week that he had already assembled more than 150 of the state's top GOP campaign check-writers to back his bid for governor.