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 Monday, December 06, 2004

Felon Drumbeat

    Props to the Miami Herald for repeatedly exposing "Jeb!"'s hipocrisy on the felon civil rights thing. Today:
    Nine states since 1996 have eased or repealed felon voting bans, leaving Florida the largest among just seven states that continue to strip all felons of their civil rights for life, including the right to vote, hold public office and serve on a jury. The only way to get those rights back is through approval by the Florida Clemency Board, composed of Bush and the three members of the state Cabinet....

    Jeb Bush defends Florida's clemency system and the voting ban that has been part of the state Constitution for 136 years. He says the process of regaining rights is reasonable and fair and has become far more responsive to felons under his leadership.

    Yet, the Clemency Board has rejected more than 200,000 applications since Bush became governor in 1999, the highest rejection rate in at least 16 years. Included are thousands of nonviolent offenders whose crimes never even warranted prison time, and felons whose convictions are years old.

    "Gov. Bush claims to be spearheading reform, but the numbers are so huge, I'm not entirely convinced," said Ryan King, with the nonprofit Sentencing Project in Washington, D.C., which studies criminal justice. "Minor modifications aren't going to make any significant contributions."
    "Florida one of few in banning felon rights".

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