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 Friday, March 11, 2005

Why Do GOoPers Hate Democracy?

    In a nutshell:
    A Republican-led House committee approves measures making it vastly more difficult to amend the state constitution.
    "Bill sharply restricts citizen amendments" See also "House panel targets ballot amendments". This bill is on a fast track:
    People who want to change the Florida Constitution would need more votes and could tackle fewer issues under a package of changes that started moving Thursday in the Legislature.

    The House Judiciary Committee approved four measures that would substantially rein in the citizen initiative process, which state lawmakers attempted last year without success.

    Many lawmakers and Gov. Jeb Bush have chafed under recent voter-approved constitutional amendments, like class-size reduction and a high-speed train project, which voters approved in 2000 and repealed last year.

    One of the freshest irritations in the Capitol is the South Florida slots provision, which was added to the state constitution in November and was the subject of local elections this week, with Broward County voters approving slots at race tracks and jai-alai frontons and Miami-Dade County voters rejecting them.
    "House panel OKs changes to amendment process". What does it all mean?
    [I]f Florida lawmakers currently pushing through changes to the state's constitutional-amendment process had their way a few years earlier, it is unlikely that the minimum-wage initiative -- approved by 7 in 10 voters -- would have made it on the ballot.
    "Limits on amendments gain ground". That pretty much says it all.

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