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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
"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, May 06, 2005

"Jeb!"'s Game is Lame

    Good news:
    In twin defeats for Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida senators rejected controversial proposals Thursday to ease school class-size requirements and expand taxpayer-funded vouchers.

    Senators voted 21-19 to kill a Bush plan that would have asked voters next year to scale back a 2002 constitutional amendment requiring smaller school class sizes. In exchange for easing class-size requirements, Bush proposed raising teacher salaries to a minimum of $35,000 a year.

    Hours later, the Senate changed another education bill to eliminate a proposal that could have led to tens of thousands of additional children receiving vouchers. Bush has made vouchers a centerpiece of his efforts to overhaul the state's education system.
    "Governor's schools plan gutted" See also "Bush's proposal on class sizes defeated", "Senate refuses to put Bush class size proposal on ballot" and "Bush rebuffed on class sizes" ("The Senate rejects the governor's bids to revamp the class size amendment and expand the school vouchers program.")

    The Miami Herald put it this way:
    In an extraordinary and once-unthinkable rebuke, the Republican-controlled Florida Senate on Thursday scuttled Gov. Jeb Bush's proposal to undo public school class-size limits that voters approved in 2002.
    "Class-size limits will remain after governor's effort fails".

    The St Pete Times ed board:
    A coalition of Senate Democrats and a handful of brave Republicans stood up for the voters and public education Thursday. The Senate soundly rejected Gov. Jeb Bush's cynical effort to gut the popular class size amendment by bribing voters to change the rules in return for higher teacher salaries. The class size amendment has flaws, but this was not an honest attempt to address them and deserved to be defeated.
    "No class size revote".

5:53 AM

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