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 Saturday, February 19, 2005

Privatization Follies

    "Jeb!"'s privatization schemes could be on their last legs:
    For a governor determined to revolutionize how state government operates, the past seven months have not been the easiest for Jeb Bush.

    In July, three top social service officials resigned after acknowledging they took favors from lobbyists. The same month, errors forced the state to scrap a felon voter list a company was paid millions to compile.

    Two months later, the Bush Administration canceled $176-million in technology contracts after discovering a former official may have improperly communicated with a vendor, prompting an ongoing criminal investigation.

    Last month, a Florida Supreme Court justice appointed by Bush blasted the private lawyers hired to defend death row inmates for performing "the worst lawyering I've seen."

    But none of those problems compare to a single contract that threatens to undermine Bush's six-year legacy of hiring companies to do government work.

    The rollout of the People First personnel system, run by a Cincinnati company called Convergys that had never had a government contract before, has caused paycheck and benefit problems for thousands of state employees - including legislators who sit in judgment of Bush's agenda.
    "Disappointments wear away zest for state privatization".

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