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
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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 Saturday, January 15, 2005

Passing the buck

    Those tough minded, business principles driven Rebublicans are at it againm as the "FSU Board Passes Buck To Governors". Lucy Morgan dissects the situation here: "University system still a prisoner of politics"; I particularly like this passage:

    Thrasher and former Secretary of State Jim Smith, both on the FSU board, lobby for a living, depending on the Legislature to butter their bread. On the Board of Governors sits yet another lobbyist, Steve Uhlfelder.

    Enter Senate President Tom Lee, who sees this swamp and decides having lobbyists sit on these university boards is a very bad idea.

    Lobbyists usually bend over backward to keep legislators happy. University trustees shouldn't have to.

    If we didn't have enough politics swirling in the academic air by this time, consider what happened next.

    Uhlfelder picks up the phone in a rage and unloads on Lee, suggesting that he will use the Senate president's own fundraising to embarrass him if he doesn't drop his opposition to lobbyists on the boards.

    Uhlfelder has since apologized but he may have just had the most expensive temper tantrum in town. Big corporations that hire lobbyists don't like it when the guy they are depending on has angered a Senate president.
    See also "Get Conflicts And Lobbyists Off Higher Education Boards".

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