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FLORIDA POLITICS
Since 2002, daily Florida political news and commentary

 

UPDATE: Every morning we review and individually digest Florida political news articles, editorials and punditry. Our sister site, FLA Politics was selected by Campaigns & Elections as one of only ten state blogs in the nation
"every political insider should be reading right now."

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Welcome To Florida Politics

Thanks for visiting. On a semi-daily basis we scan Florida's major daily newspapers for significant Florida political news and punditry. We also review the editorial pages and political columnists/pundits for Florida political commentary. The papers we review include: the Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel, Palm Beach Post, Naples News, Sarasota Herald Tribune, St Pete Times, Tampa Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Tallahassee Democrat, and, occasionally, the Florida Times Union; we also review the political news blogs associated with these newspapers.

For each story, column, article or editorial we deem significant, we post at least the headline and link to the piece; the linked headline always appears in quotes. We quote the headline for two reasons: first, to allow researchers looking for the cited piece to find it (if the link has expired) by searching for the original title/headline via a commercial research service. Second, quotation of the original headline permits readers to appreciate the spin from the original piece, as opposed to our spin.

Not that we don't provide spin; we do, and plenty of it. Our perspective appears in post headlines, the subtitles within the post (in bold), and the excerpts from the linked stories we select to quote; we also occasionally provide other links and commentary about certain stories. While our bias should be immediately apparent to any reader, we nevertheless attempt to link to every article, column or editorial about Florida politics in every major online Florida newspaper.

 

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The Blog for Sunday, November 21, 2004

Time to Pay Back the Preachers

    Buoyed by polls showing that moral values influenced the election, officials from the White House to the statehouse are planning to draw more faith-based groups into services traditionally provided by government.

    But organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union caution that government zeal to contract with religious groups for everything from pre-school to prisons to nursing homes could run afoul of the separation of church and state.
    In Florida, the constitution expressly forbids the use of government money to aid religious organizations.

    Florida lawmakers may be grappling with such issues in the upcoming legislative session, thanks to an order Gov. Jeb Bush signed last week creating a Faith-Based and Community Advisory Board. Its first task is to draft legislation by February so it will outlive Bush's remaining two years as governor.

    Bush has had an advisory group since last year that tries to encourage people of faith to volunteer with government programs. But he thinks that formalizing a board in state law will give faith-based groups a chance to compete for state contracts and get more things done, especially in the area of social services. "Lawmakers set for faith-based issues".

6:34 AM

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