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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
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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, April 24, 2005

Wouldn't It Be Nice ...

    if we could "Bring democracy home to U.S., Florida":
    Why, for example, does the makeup of the Florida Legislature not accurately reflect the political makeup of the state? Why do Republicans in the Legislature outnumber Democrats by more than two to one when membership of the two parties in the state as a whole is close to 50-50? I haven't noticed Gov. Jeb Bush complaining about that.

    For that matter, I haven't noticed his brother, President George W. Bush, complaining about the grossly undemocratic system still employed for electing presidents of the United States.

    We continue to depend on the archaic Electoral College to elect presidents, making it possible - as happened, of course, in 2000 - for a person who does not come close to winning the popular vote to become president.

    You may recall that Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000 by about half a million, but lost in the Electoral College. I suppose it's understandable that George W. doesn't lie awake nights thinking of ways to abandon the Electoral College that put him in power.
    As for the unbalanced representation in Tallahassee:
    Consider the disgraceful imbalance of political power in Florida, a result of political rigging of congressional and legislative districts - so-called gerrymandering. The dictionary definition: "Dividing of a state, county into election districts to give one political party a majority while concentrating the other party into as few districts as possible." Boy, have the Republican politicians done a job in Florida.

    Registered Democrats slightly outnumber Republicans - but Republican representatives in Congress from Florida outnumber Democrats 18 to 7. In the state House it's 84 to 36. In the Senate it's 26 to 14. All this is a result of politicized redistricting.
    The result: Millions of Floridians are unrepresented. Many of the districts are grotesque. State Senate District 18 literally crosses Tampa Bay on the Skyway Bridge - covering voters with completely different interests and concerns. Senate District 27 stretches across the Everglades for 115 miles from Palm Beach on the east coast into Charlotte and Lee counties on the west coast.

    The only way to correct this ridiculous system is to take the power to draw districts out of the hands of politicians.
    Food for thought.

1:10 PM

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