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 Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Diaz de la Portilla

    Strange:
    State Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla spent three hours in a Tallahassee courtroom on Monday, continuing to insist he cannot afford to pay up to $17,000 for election law violations that occurred during a 1999 campaign.

    The state senator has been tangling with the Florida Elections Commission for more than four years and has been able to whittle down 311 charges to 17 remaining violations. ...

    The senator has insisted that he should pay nothing for what he calls ''technical'' violations and that his only source of income is the roughly $30,000 he makes as an elected official.

    But during a hearing in January and again on Monday, he was confronted with records of his financial dealings and asked to explain them.

    Part of Monday's hearing focused on what Diaz de la Portilla did with the proceeds of a $384,000 mortgage refinancing the Miami Republican and his wife signed on May 5, the next-to-last day of the annual legislative session for his home in Miami.
    "Lawmaker: Can't afford to pay fines". See also "Ethics case drags on over senator's claims of poverty" ("As Alex Diaz de la Portilla continues to insist he can't pay a $17,000 fine, a judge orders him to produce financial records.")

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