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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, May 01, 2005

Swell

    Only the best - one of Paris' swankiest hotels - for Feeney:
    Special-interest groups bankrolled more than 200 trips for Central Florida lawmakers and their congressional staffs to such choice locales as Paris, London, Antigua, Napa Valley and Palm Springs, a review of travel records by the Orlando Sentinel shows.

    From 2000 to 2005, the lawmakers and their aides enjoyed hundreds of thousands of dollars in trips from companies, nonprofit organizations and trade groups, many with business before Congress.

    They stayed at such places as the luxurious Hôtel de Crillon in Paris, mingled at fancy receptions and, in some cases, brought along family members for free -- all of it legal under House rules.

    The groups that paid for Central Florida lawmakers' trips are a roll call of powerful special interests, including the payday-loan industry, railroads and others with business before the lawmakers' committees. Some examples:

    Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo, and Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Ocala, traveled abroad on the tab of the International Management and Development Institute, a nonprofit group financed by European companies and run by lobbyists.

    The institute's president and one other board member are registered lobbyists and foreign agents. House rules bar lobbyists and foreign agents from paying for congressional travel, but because the nonprofit group paid the way, the trip met the House rules.

    The agenda for the February trip shows that Feeney, Stearns and other lawmakers were offered outings to the private Hermes family museum in Paris and a reception in the New Palace in Stuttgart, Germany. They stayed at one of Paris' swankiest hotels, near the Champs-Elysées, the travel records show.
    "Who pays for trips taken by Congress?"

8:09 AM

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