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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 Saturday, September 03, 2005

"McCarty will fit right in"

    Yeah, she "will fit right in"
    Gov. Bush named Palm Beach County Commissioner Mary McCarty to a panel charged with shaping Florida's growth. It ranks among his worst decisions.

    During her nearly 15 years in office, Commissioner McCarty consistently has opposed reasonable growth management. She fought a proposal to tie school construction to home building, commenting caustically that parents disliked school crowding only because it meant that their children might be going "to brunch and not to lunch." She routinely expresses disdain for planning, complaining that taxpayers have preserved too much land. Commissioner McCarty championed the decision to put The Scripps Research Institute on the rural Mecca Farms site. She dismissed alternative locations and put together a delicate coalition to deliver the site the governor wanted.

    Then there are Commissioner McCarty's ethics problems. After the 2000 election, she became involved in a short-lived, unsuccessful campaign to oust three Florida Supreme Court justices who had issued some rulings against candidate George Bush. Her role led to an election law violation, which she escaped with a $2,000 fine, down from a recommended $450,000. To cover her legal bills, she violated ethics laws by accepting illegal contributions from developers with business before the commission. A yearlong ethics probe is ongoing. ...

    But given the first 10 appointments to the 15-member Century Commission for a Sustainable Florida, Commissioner McCarty will fit right in. There's a former aide to Gov. Bush, a lobbyist, a representative of the state's largest landowner and a Brooksville real estate agent named Gary Schraut. Of Mr. Schraut, a political opponent told The St. Petersburg Times, "If you take one person who has been most responsible for (pushing) uncontrolled growth and manipulating growth management, the name that comes to mind is Gary Schraut." In Palm Beach County, the name is Mary McCarty.
    "McCarty choice stunts growth panel's integrity".

8:52 AM

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