The lawyer for Orlando's "ballot king" said Friday that his client was paid by Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and a who's who of Central Florida politicians to gather absentee votes, an allegation that if true means they may have broken the law.

According to his lawyer, Thomas told prosecutors that he did the potentially illegal work for the campaigns of Dyer; former Orlando Mayor Glenda Hood; U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez; state Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando; Circuit Judge Alan Apte and perhaps others.

"The problem is that you're not supposed to be paid to collect absentee ballots," Mosley said.

"for distributing, ordering, requesting, collecting, delivering or otherwise physically possessing absentee ballots."

Most interpret the law to prohibit only paying ballot brokers per vote and paying voters directly.

While Dyer and other politicians have never hidden the fact that they have hired Thomas to help on their campaigns, the mayor has denied that Thomas' only task was to gather absentee votes. Dyer's campaign treasurer reports, for instance, indicate Thomas was paid $10,000 for vague "get-out-the-vote" efforts.

The ex-senator from Florida will lead a panel in rewriting the U.S. tax code. ...

Mack is a long-time fan of a flat tax -- an income tax with few or no deductions and few different rates. But he said Friday that he goes into the process with no foregone conclusions.

But the facts remain. The governor didn't take a press secretary of any kind with him and he refused to take any Florida reporters who might highlight his role on the trip.

Doesn't sound like a man running for president to me.

Bussard said little was done about Brown until she wrote a story in an alternative news weekly last October describing his "insatiable appetite for Internet pornography" at work that caused him to become sloppy. She also called The Times-Union "racist," citing one of Brown's editorials downplaying the effects of slavery.

Brown, 65, resigned from The Times-Union as editorials page editor on Nov. 2, after the newspaper reported it had found instances of plagiarism in its editorials. The paper's publisher wrote a note to readers explaining Brown's departure and the paper's discovery of plagiarism in some of the editorials he had written or edited.

On Dec. 20, Brown was hired to write speeches, policy proposals and letters to the editor for Bush.

"the fact that we take sexual harassment allegations very seriously here proves that the allegations of sexual harassment made against Lloyd have no merit."

Less than a week into his Senate career, Republican Sen. Mel Martinez is expanding his international policy profile beyond Cuba, jetting to the Mideast to monitor Sunday's Palestinian election.

will propose an overhaul of Florida's Medicaid system next week that could end more than three decades of open-ended health coverage for the poor and disabled.

Working with the administration of his brother, President Bush, the governor is expected to try to establish a model for states grappling with rising costs of the program, which is funded jointly by the states and the federal government.

The day after Gov. Jeb Bush fired a top official over sexual harassment allegations, Bush's office confirmed it had hired a former [Florida Times-Union] journalist who resigned in November following public allegations of plagiarism and sexual harassment.

"If Jeb Bush's last name wasn't Bush, he would be among the top two or three Republicans running and some weeks would be the prohibitive favorite," said Grover Norquist, president of the influential Americans For Tax Reform. "His challenge is his last name and the fundamental republican objection of too many people with the same last name running for president in too short a period of time."

And so, in the fourth-largest state in America, some classes are taught in hallways because there is no other place for them; many teachers spend their own money on basic school supplies because districts can't afford to provide everything students need; and portable classrooms have proliferated to the extent that many schools have had to give up their playgrounds and athletic fields. And still the Legislature does nothing.

[The Florida School Boards Association] is studying whether the state's constitutional provision calling for a "high-quality system of free public schools" is being adhered to. It plans to produce a report next month. Expect it to conclude that Florida does not have a high-quality public school system. And still, if history is any guide, the Legislature will do nothing.

A leading children's advocacy group gave Florida's new prekindergarten plan a failing grade Thursday, saying the standards fall below those of almost every other state that offers pre-K.

Technology giant BearingPoint finds itself in the unusual position of replacing itself, at least temporarily, on a state contract it lost after an investigation revealed bidding improprieties and possible criminal wrongdoing.

The McLean, Va.-based BearingPoint, along with Tallahassee-based Infinity Software Development, will take over the state's central computer operations for a year. In the meantime, state Chief Information Officer Simone Marstiller will determine whether it's in the best interest of taxpayers to bring the operation and its 150 employees - 60 of whom worked there when it was a state agency - back into state government or whether the state should try to outsource the project again.

The state launched Thursday its $150 million reimbursement program for property owners who faced multiple insurance deductibles after their homes were repeatedly damaged in the four hurricanes that ravaged Florida last year.

Accepting freebies is OK, Hillsborough County commissioners concluded. That's just a perk of elected office.
Tickets to sports games? Sure. Dinner at pricey charitable fundraising events? No problem.

A sweeping internal audit by Florida State University found no impropriety in the way the university secured more than $4 million in state social service contracts, but the study uncovered a host of lapses in accounting, record-keeping, subcontracting and conflict-of-interest disclosures.

If the new rules are approved, Sullivan said the review process would start all over again for each of the five species now in question. That means it could be about two years before the commission votes on the status of any of the species.

A company under investigation by the state over how it won a multimillion-dollar technology contract has been rehired for another year.

During the newly awarded one-year contracts, the office will assess whether to launch a new bid process or to return it to a state-run enterprise ... .

This Legislature in recent years has voted in favor of polluting the aquifer, weakening public schools and doubling telephone rates on consumers. It has debated how many arms and legs you have to lose on the job before you are considered "catastrophically" disabled. (Hint: They wanted it to be more than one.) It has discussed taking away insurance coverage for mammograms, and from kids with cleft palates.

The people of Florida are bursting with frustration at a Legislature that does not represent their philosophy. Increasingly, they are turning to their power of petition drive to demand that Florida act like a real state. The Legislature's answer: a proposed crackdown on petitions.

No. Customer satisfaction does not explain the Imperial Legislature. Incumbents do not have to worry, because they cannot be defeated. And a Legislature that does not have to fear re-election is a Legislature that is not answerable to the citizens for bad public policy.

U.S. Sugar's mill near Pahokee was the top releaser of cancer-causing air pollution in Florida in 2002 and No. 5 in the nation, according to an environmental group's analysis of federal data.

Cities and counties have no authority to monitor the special taxing districts fueling Florida's suburban homebuilding boom. ...

In the past five years, the number of districts has surged from 94 to 295 in the state, tripling the number of people who are governed by private developers.

a little preview of the Florida Democratic Party's worst nightmare. It's the sort of thing we might see in 2006 as Sen. Bill Nelson, the party's sole survivor in statewide office, is one of at least six Democrats being targeted for defeat by the White House.

Florida ranked 47th among the 50 states and the District of Columbia in spending in 2001-02, the latest year in which data is available allowing national comparisons.

Adjusted for regional cost differences, Florida spent just under $6,500 per student — more than $1,200 short of the national average.

Education Week gave Florida a grade of A in the area of standards and accountability. Eleven other states earned an A in this area.

The publication gave Florida Cs for its efforts to improve teacher quality and for school climate, which includes measures ranging from absenteeism to physical conflicts to classroom and school size.

Last year, Florida earned an A in standards and accountability, a C plus in teacher quality, a C in school climate and a D plus in school spending.

Education Commissioner John Winn said Florida got its best mark in the most important area.

"Florida again ranks at the very top in standards and accountability, which we've always believed has been the basis for the remarkable student improvement that we've got in Florida," Winn said. "If you don't have standards from which teachers can rely on to guide teaching and instruction, then you're lost."

On the subject of Florida's low ranking in per-pupil spending, Winn said: "It's more about how you use your money than it is about the total amount of money."

A jury awarded $250,000 to the father of Ciara Floyd, 3. She was beaten to death by her mother's boyfriend.

Citizens Property Insurance, the state-created insurer that provides hurricane coverage to Floridians who can't get other coverage, acknowledged Wednesday that its response to last year's storms has been slow.

Republican Bev Kilmer, who gave up a safe legislative seat for a long-shot congressional race that helped President Bush win Florida's key electoral votes, has landed a $42,000-a-year policy-making job with the Department of Education.

Kilmer was elected to the Florida House from Gadsden County in 1998, representing a conservative Panhandle district that was heavily Democratic. She could have run for a fourth term last year but opted to challenge U.S. Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Monticello, in a long-shot bid for Congress.

Boyd won with about 62 percent of the vote, but Kilmer's heated and well-financed campaign - which featured fund-raising appearances by House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois and first lady Laura Bush - increased voter turnout in the 2nd Congressional District by about 99,000 over the 2000 election. Although she had little chance of unseating the noncontroversial incumbent, Kilmer carried the GOP strongholds of Walton and Okaloosa counties and split Bay County with Boyd, who kept his distance from the national Democratic ticket.

The combination of energized Republican turnout for Kilmer and conservative Democratic support for Boyd was a political windfall for Bush, who carried Florida by about 381,000 votes.

A sexual harassment scandal prompted Gov. Jeb Bush to fire the head of the agency for elder services.

Bush fired White after at least three women employees alleged he asked them for oral sex.

White took over the troubled agency after Gema Hernandez, a Democrat and an outspoken critic of how contracts were handled, was forced out by Bush in 2002 [more specifically, as Bill Cotterell reminds us, "she was forced out because she ran afoul of politically well-connected companies that do business with senior-service agencies".]

A Republican from Ohio who was a prominent figure in Florida's hurricane recovery efforts, White was criticized by agency employees and others, including Hernandez, for not being aggressive enough in protecting the state's nearly 3 million elders.

Details of the harassment allegations were not revealed. Citing an exemption to state public records law, the governor's office said the complaints would not be released.

Faraj, the governor's communications director, said additional details will not be released to protect the victims. She said details of the investigation were not written down and that state public records law does not require the release of records when an alleged victim chooses not to make a complaint of employment discrimination.

Along with $15 million annually for an Alzheimer's center at the University of South Florida, named for the father of then-House Speaker Johnnie Byrd, R-Plant City, the chiropractic school was among the latest favors last year to fellow lawmakers. Earlier came two redundant law schools, and the unneeded medical school at former House Speaker John Thrasher's alma mater, again FSU, expensive favors from a Legislature used to practicing politics as higher education.

Florida ranks 47th in the nation in per-student spending for public schools, according to a report issued today by Education Week, a national education newspaper.

The report, however, did give Florida good marks for its school accountability system ....

A judge has ruled that the Department of Corrections can charge a $4 monthly bank fee to Florida's 80,000 prison inmates.

Gov. Jeb Bush today fired the head of his Department of Elder Affairs, who has been under investigation on a sexual harassment complaint.

As a new member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, [Sen. Mel Martinez] will travel to Israel this week to look for ways to jump-start the Middle East peace process.

Jeb[!] Bush's high-profile trip to South Asia is once again prompting speculation that he may take a shot at the presidency in 2008.

"You get things done by reaching for the middle," said Martinez. His emphasis on moderation was a sharp departure from his Senate campaign, which never missed a chance to remind voters he was the conservative candidate.

His recent experience at handling natural disasters qualifies him in ways the average public figure can't fathom. There are simply no parallels.

Our state's four hurricanes, which were horrible and deadly, pale compared to the massive horror half a world away. But they were undoubtedly experience-building for Mr. Bush, whose instincts guided him wisely during even the important political weeks leading up to his brother's re-election as president. Floridians are proud that their governor stayed home even from the GOP national convention to do the difficult work his job demanded in ravaged Florida.

On his watch in our state, Mr. Bush has been abundantly trained in tragedy.

sen[t] a mass mailing that called McCollum "the new darling of homosexual extremists," pointing out that McCollum had sponsored hate crimes legislation while a member of the House of Representatives. The tactic caused Martinez's support to rise dramatically in socially conservative areas of Florida, most notably in the Florida Panhandle, which had previously been firmly in the McCollum camp.

Martinez wasted no time before wielding his newfound political clout. Minutes after being sworn in, he entered a lunch meeting with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State nominee, who gave him a diplomatic message to send to the Israeli and Palestinian governments when he visits the Middle East later this week. Martinez declined to describe the nature of the message.

Florida's constitutionally mandated pre-kindergarten program that lawmakers launched last month is a little like a "handyman's special." It needs a lot of work.

When the outcome of [the 2000] presidential election in Florida was cast in doubt and Secretary of State Katherine Harris' role as the state's top elections official came under scrutiny, Harris didn't go looking for outside help from experts in the mechanics and legal technicalities of ballot-counting. Instead, she sought out the most effective partisan fixers she could find.

J.M. "Mac" Stipanovich is Florida's most famous -- or notorious, depending on your point of view -- Republican political consultant. He has run campaigns for Harris, Gov. Jeb Bush and former Gov. Bob Martinez, and he has been an influential behind-the-scenes GOP strategist for decades. For all his mastery of partisan campaigns, Stipanovich, by his own admission, knows very little about the professional operation of elections. Yet Stipanovich virtually moved into Harris' office after Election Day, serving, in his words, as Harris' "personal attorney" during the recounts.

Stipanovich was joined in service to Harris by Tampa political media consultant Adam Goodman, known for his slash-and-burn ads on behalf of Republican candidates. Stipanovich and Goodman acknowledge that they took the lead in crafting Harris' public statements -- and, in the process, setting policy for the state's top elections official.

Florida's faith-based programs received $67 million of the $1 billion the government gave to social service groups nationwide, an Associated Press study found.

are in hot water for their latest foray into the "values" quagmire:Clear Channel Communications Inc. is being criticized by women's health advocates [including those "witches" at NOW] over a Christmas contest which granted breast enlargement surgeries to women in four cities.

Florida's dormant runoff election is scheduled to make a comeback in 2006, but opponents already are taking a stand against it.

Mel Martinez, the U.S. Senate's first Cuban-American member, will be officially sworn in to his new office at noon today, instantly becoming a GOP star.

A trial judge agreed Monday to remove 15 county elections supervisors as defendants in a lawsuit filed by opponents of the South Florida slot machines amendment that voters approved Nov. 2.

Circuit Judge Nikki Ann Clark agreed with the county officials that they did not belong in the lawsuit because the election was over and they had no part in the process anymore. That leaves the slots campaign and Secretary of State Glenda Hood as defendants.

This year for a change, lawmakers must work on behalf of beleaguered residents and get tougher on insurers.

I know that our governor and Legislature do not believe that constitutional amendments passed by the people actually count. So I look forward to FSU, the Board of Governors and the courts being, you will excuse the expression, a pain in the Legislature's neck.

One of the Florida Legislature's most commendable accomplishments in 2004 was reforming the "Baker Act," the informal name of the state's mental health law. But the reform will be worthless if the new law is not implemented effectively.

This week's trip is part fact-finding mission, part photo opportunity. Bush said there would be meetings with political leaders in Bangkok and Jakarta as well as tours of "impacted areas," to see relief workers and victims at a remote hospital.

Bush said he will be back in Washington on Thursday -- in time to make a personal report to his brother and to attend the 60th wedding anniversary party of his parents, George and Barbara Bush, at the White House.

It is not his first trip to South Asia. He said he visited the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, in the late 1980s or early 1990s as a businessman. An aide in Tallahassee could not provide details of Bush's previous activities there, saying they predated his time in the governor's office.

Ignoring objections from critics and looming court battles, Gov. Jeb Bush is expanding his quest to hand over state dollars to faith-based organizations to care for Florida's neediest citizens.

Just six months after he scuttled a similar proposal because "it did not go far enough," Gov. Jeb Bush on Sunday signed into law a measure that creates a new free pre-kindergarten program for Florida's 4-year-olds.

Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings defended the legislation Sunday, saying lawmakers recognized that the program could not happen without significant participation by private providers, many of whom could not meet higher standards right now.

Two-thirds of all provisional ballots submitted in the general election were rejected, according to a Tallahassee Democrat analysis of reports provided by the state's 67 county supervisors of elections. Most ballots were thrown out because the voter was not registered in that county.

More than 11 percent of the ballots were tossed aside because the voter was in the wrong precinct.

Another 7.2 percent were cast out because the voter had been purged from the voting rolls, because either the voter hadn't voted lately or was deemed a felon. Most counties did not separate those two categories, but for the 20 counties that did, purged felons accounted for 4 percent and inactive voters accounted for 7.3 percent.

Despite officialdom's tiresome rhetoric to the contrary, Florida has rarely been considered cutting edge in most things educational. In past decades and under a wide range of state and local leaders from all political persuasions, mediocrity has been the rule rather than the exception.

But there's a problem. This year, the program is being offered on a first-come, first-serve basis. Once the slots are full, there will be no more room -- and no statewide record of who was turned away. Children shouldn't be denied coverage without the state knowing how many there are -- and how to contact them if coverage becomes available.

To anyone who works with -- or has -- children in this state, the need is obvious. Florida KidCare, the umbrella organization for children's health programs, encompasses Medicaid as well as Children's Medical Services, which provides coverage for very sick children. Healthy Kids allows parents to buy subsidized insurance for school-aged children, while Medikids, the final component, covers infants and preschoolers. The four programs combined serve nearly 353,000 children.

Rush Limbaugh on the Abu Ghraib photos: "I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of need to blow some steam off?"

Ann Coulter: "[Senator John] Kerry will improve the economy in the emergency services and body bag industry."

Tony Blankley called philanthropist George Soros "a Jew who figured out a way to survive the Holocaust."

Michael Savage: "When you hear 'human rights,' think gays. ... [T]hink only one thing: someone who wants to rape your son."

Oliver North: "Every terrorist out there is hoping John Kerry is the next president of the United States."

Pat Robertson on gays and lesbians: "[S]elf-absorbed hedonists ... that want to impose their particular sexuality on the rest of America."

Pat Buchanan: "[H]omosexuality is an affliction, like alcoholism."

Bill O'Reilly to Jewish caller: "[I]f you are really offended, you gotta go to Israel."

Bill Cunningham (Clear Channel radio host who appeared as a guest on The Sean Hannity Show): The election is over because "Elizabeth Edwards has now sung."

Jerry Falwell: "And we're going to invite PETA [to "wild game night"] as our special guest, P-E-T-A -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. We want you to come, we're going to give you a top seat there, so you can sit there and suffer. This is one of my special groups, another one's the ACLU, another is the NOW -- the National Order of Witches [sic]. We've got -- I've got a lot of special groups."

In his latest privatization venture, Gov. Jeb Bush is now looking to lay off 6,440 state workers and hand a five-year, $701-million contract to a company to do the same job. But a review committee he created has offered an unusual assessment: The conversion may not save taxpayers a dime.

So why pursue it?

- Katherine Harris, Florida's best-known U.S. House member, will (a) get a presidential appointment of some kind to keep her from running for U.S. Senate (b) reject the White House's bribe and run anyway (c) be attacked by a crocodile (d) retire from public life. ...

- The Florida Legislature will (a) graciously decide to let citizens petition for new laws, not just constitutional amendments (b) crack down on citizens being able to petition at all (c) set out a big block of cheese in the Capitol courtyard for visitors (d) be indicted en masse. ...

- By the end of 2005, the leading candidate to be the next governor of Florida will be (a) Attorney General Charlie Crist (b) Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher (c) me (d) Betty Castor. ...

- After aw-shucksing and golly-geeing for another few months, U.S. Rep. Jim Davis, D-Tampa, will (a) launch an impassioned campaign for governor that blows away all competition with its fiery intensity (b) form an exploratory committee and then bow out (c) switch parties (d) end up with a think-tanky or academic kind of gig.

[Troxler's answers: 1. (b),(b), (a, just for variety), (and b)]

Graham's 38-year career comes to a close Tuesday when Republican Mel Martinez is sworn in to succeed him in the office he has held for three terms. Having never lost an election, the Miamian is Florida's most successful living political figure - and the last survivor of a reform wave that swept into the Legislature in the 1960s.

The trip will be one of the most high profile for Gov. Bush, who has two years left in office. He's traveled abroad on trade missions many times, but has repeatedly rejected any notion that he's interested in a bigger platform, including frequent assurances that he won't run in 2008 to succeed his brother in the White House.

"I intend to close strong ... and then I'll go back to Miami and I'll figure out what I'm going to do," Bush said just before Christmas. "But it isn't going to be running for president, I promise."

From China to South Africa, Broward County commissioners have begun to travel the world in hopes of attracting new business, and taxpayers have been footing the bill for airline tickets, elegant dinners and luxury hotels.

Dennis Jones may have cause to question the animus of some medical professors toward a proposed chiropractic school at Florida State University, but his indignance just gets in the way. When a powerful state senator characterizes the objections of faculty members as "professional bigotry" and invites them to resign, he is coarsening an already brutish debate.

That Jones is also a chiropractor only makes it that much more personal.

The real controversy over an FSU chiropractic school is less about medical bigotry than it is political coercion.

Tens of thousands of 4-year-olds will be ready to enter Florida's new, free pre-kindergarten program in the fall, but there may not be room for all of them.