Not a single incumbent in Florida's State Legislature or in Florida's U.S. Congressional delegation was defeated in 2004. In that cycle, 72.5% of state legislative races had only one major party candidate. Of the 142 seats up for re-election, 103 were uncontested by a major party. That made Florida the second least competitive state behind Arkansas.

How could this be? The answer is redistricting.

As anyone who has taken a plane since 2001 can attest, the federal government enforces its laws down to your socks when it wants to. When it comes to some immigration laws, especially those dealing with the living and working conditions of illegal immigrants, it chooses not to. That's why taking a nail clipper on board a plane can be a federal case, but contending with 10 million illegal immigrants inside the nation's borders -- 850,000 of whom are in Florida -- isn't. That's why employers can get away with hiring and housing illegal immigrants under appalling circumstances, and why local authorities let them.

In matters of race and gender, colleges practice affirmative action to get more minority and female teachers and attract more students with these characteristics. Why won't they do the same for conservative professors and students in the name of diversity, pluralism and academic freedom?

Suspended Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer had good reason to be stunned by his third-degree felony indictment for having a campaign worker collect absentee ballots. In contrast, former Orlando Mayor Glenda Hood, who supervises election law as Florida secretary of state, shouldn't be surprised to be among the first witnesses called by the defense. Nor should U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, another one-time local candidate. Others, too, were successful thanks in part to a political consultant widely known for harvesting absentee ballots in the African-American community. ...

Unless prosecutors have more [and they don't*], the indictments should embarrass them.. Mr. Thomas is accused of taking payment and the others of paying to collect absentee ballots, but there's no apparent parallel to the Miami mayoral election scandal that prompted the 1998 law. It was aimed at people paid for each absentee ballot they delivered for a particular candidate. That the law wasn't meant to indict anyone who comes near an absentee ballot is shown in the fact that Mr. Thomas' routine is the same as that of interest groups and parties in every election. Nor do the indictments or the special election required in less than two months explain away FDLE's alleged intimidation of black voters during the investigation. That's another case in which judgment might have been absent.

Miami-Dade Elections Supervisor Constance Kaplan, who was recruited to help the county erase embarrassing memories of the 2000 presidential election, has resigned amid revelations of voting problems in six recent elections.

She says glitches would not have changed the outcome of the slot machine vote, but the industry wants a new election.

Gov. Jeb Bush's proposal to shift 2.2 million poor people on Medicaid to privately run managed-care health plans got a pat on the back from Washington.

Gov. Jeb Bush, who stopped short of defying a judge's order ...

Gov. Jeb Bush, who due to intervention by local police, was prevented from using armed FDLE agents to forcibly abduct Schiavo with from the hospice stopped short of defying a judge's order ...

the Discrepancies between the Official Election Results and the Exit Polls [in the 2004 election]?

Several methods have been used to estimate the probability that the national exit poll results would be as different as they were from the national popular vote by random chance. These estimates range from 1 in 959,000 to 1 in 1,240. No matter how one calculates it, the discrepancy cannot be attributed to chance.

Despite the anger and emotion sparked by the Terri Schiavo debate, observers on both sides said Thursday there should be no partisan fallout in the 2006 elections.

"There's no payback time," said Gov. Jeb Bush. "None of that's going to happen around here."

Why not just take a direct and constitutional approach, and make it illegal for government officials to hire journalists? Apparently it makes more sense politically for Mr. Keller to target the press than to even imply that the Bush administration shares the blame.

The Florida Senate advanced its $62.1 billion version of the state budget Thursday through its Ways and Means Committee, its final stop before the floor, with the House planning to follow suit today.

And as is typical with the Senate, the process of dispensing with the 40 modifications to the actual budget took a mere 20 minutes, with most changes worked out beforehand and behind closed doors.

Assuming Clary's bill passes and runoffs are gone for good, it will make a huge difference next year. Both parties figure to have three-way races for governor, and there will probably be two open Cabinet seats.

Scrapping the runoff probably makes good financial and political sense, but it takes away some drama and intrigue. It's hard to get excited that your candidate is "the people's choice" with maybe 35 percent of the primary vote.

The heated battle about the fate of Terri Schiavo opened rifts within the Republican Party and between GOP leaders and the public.

But any lasting political damage to the party in the case of the brain-damaged Florida woman is likely to be less than the current passion and strife would indicate, according to political observers.

Some Florida juvenile offenders will be able to opt into the nation's first federally funded faith-based mentor program for young criminals, Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings announced Thursday. Participation will require the consent of the youth and his or her parents. Children and volunteer mentors of any faith can sign up, but the administration will be Christian-based.

Troubled by the Legislature's zeal for helping the wealthy by repealing the intangibles tax on stocks and bonds, several South Florida Democrats on Thursday tried to convert the tax break to a windfall for the working class.

A proposal by Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Dania, would impose a more modest cut to the intangibles tax. An amendment by Rep. Ken Gottlieb, D-Hollywood, would provide modest savings to a broader array of Floridians by reducing property taxes.

But rather than going along with those plans, the Republican-run House tentatively approved a major tax bill (CS-HB963) that rolls back the intangibles tax at a financial hit to the state of $236 million this year and $301 million next year.

Democrats decried the decision as another sharp jab to the poor and middle class who don't typically have the financial investments that require any intangibles tax payments.

House Republicans warded off an attempt Thursday to weaken a bill that allows law-abiding people to use deadly force against an attacker in any place they have the "right to be."

swiftly moving through the Florida Legislature, people who think their lives are in danger outside their home will be immune from prosecution if they fight back.

Critics say if the law becomes reality Florida could become reminiscent of the Wild West.

The law would allow people who feel they are under attack to "meet force with force" under immunity from prosecution or civil lawsuits. Under the provision you could punch someone who punches you or even kill someone you think is about to kill you.

U.S. Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo, has been among the harshest critics, condemning the "imperial judiciary" for its Schiavo rulings.

"The minute they put on those robes, some of them become arrogant, supremacist ideologues who substitute their own biases and prejudices for representative government," Feeney said.

"You have to give the voters what they want," said Rep. Susan Goldstein, a Weston Republican. "They didn't ask for bingo machines, they asked for slot machines."

"assuming he [Dyer] did know" about how his absentee-ballot program worked.

Two weeks ago, Greer's pastor asked him to reconsider his membership at Calvary Baptist Church, one of Clearwater's largest and best known Southern Baptist congregations.

Greer severed ties with the theologically conservative congregation within days of the request.

the state's pool of manufacturing jobs has fallen by almost 30 percent in the past five years. That's a setback for efforts to diversify the economy away from agriculture and tourism.

Electronic voting machines tossed out hundreds of ballots [in Dade County] during this month's special election on slot machines -- and elections workers have traced the same computer error to five other municipal elections in the past 12 months.

Raising the red flag: An alarmingly high number of so-called "undervotes" in the March 8 election -- which only had one item on the ballot.

In a strongly worded opinion, Judge Stanley F. Birch Jr. of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta said the law passed and signed on the Schindlers' behalf by Congress and President Bush earlier this month was unconstitutional.

The law gave them access to the federal courts. ...

And the generally conservative judge, appointed by President George H.W. Bush in 1990, struck back at what he characterized as intrusions by the legislative and executive branches into the judiciary's constitutional role.
"When the fervor of political passions moves the Executive and the Legislative branches to act in ways inimical to basic constitutional principles, it is the duty of the judiciary to intervene," Birch wrote.

"If sacrifices to the independence of the judiciary are permitted today, precedent is established for the constitutional transgressions of tomorrow."

Writing with a touch of finality, he said:

"In resolving the Schiavo controversy, it is my judgment that, despite sincere and altruistic motivation, the Legislative and Executive branches of our government have acted in a manner demonstrably at odds with our Founding Fathers' blueprint for the governance of a free people -- our Constitution."

In addition to Edison's failure in Miami, the nation's largest for-profit school operator is controversial for another reason: The state of Florida's public-employees pension fund has bought most of the company's stock, giving it a big stake in the company's success.

"I wonder if this is a conflict of interest,'' said former state Rep. Doug Wiles of St. Augustine, who criticized the Edison stock purchase two years ago. ``If they do poorly, are we going to fire them at the jeopardy of our stock? If they win the bid, what have we gotten ourselves into?"

A Senate committee passes bills to apply constitutional amendments related to medical malpractice and parental notification, but critics say legislators are gutting the will of the people.

The state House Judiciary Committee chairman [David Simmons, R-Longwood] said Tuesday he will consider starting an impeachment investigation of the state judge in the Terri Schiavo case, but said he thought it unlikely that the judge would be impeached.

Christian conservatives and advocates of the disabled have launched an Internet campaign and collected more than 28,000 electronic signatures in favor of impeaching Pinellas County Circuit Judge George Greer, who has presided for seven years over the legal battle between Schiavo's husband, Michael Schiavo, and her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler.

Elected officials -- particularly Republicans -- love to pontificate about the virtues of a free-market economy, how competition theoretically offers consumers a wide range of services for the best possible price. We couldn't agree more.

That's why a measure moving through the Florida House of Representatives, limiting competition in the emerging telecommunications field, is so utterly perplexing. The proposal effectively would give private companies a lock on providing services such as high-speed wireless Internet access and fiber-optic communication links by restricting the ability of municipal governments to offer similar services. That's just nuts.

48 percent of respondents said they thought the charges against [Dyer] were politically motivated; [and only] 31 percent did not think so

43 percent of those polled said they think he should resign the office [and] Forty-seven percent of respondents say they would not vote for Dyer if he were allowed to run for mayor again, the opinion survey shows. Just 28 percent say they would.

When Gov. Jeb Bush held a news conference last week to announce his administration's last-ditch legal appeal in the Terri Schiavo case, the state's chief lawyer, Attorney General Charlie Crist, was not there.
Crist, who is widely considered the early front-runner in Florida's 2006 gubernatorial race to replace Bush, has been conspicuously absent from involvement in the case.

That illustrates the political strain that stances taken by the governor and President Bush have put on candidates, particularly Republicans, hoping to run for statewide offices next year in Florida.

Bush's most ambitious privatization project reminds you of those old films of early aviation - comical whirly-gigs trying to hop aloft, contraptions that looked like Venetian blinds collapsing on themselves.

Things have gotten so bad in Tallahassee that lawmakers are plotting how to launder tax receipts so they can give the money to their supporters.

Florida's Constitution says the state can't give public money to any church or religious group. The Legislature and Gov. Bush have been doing it anyway, handing out vouchers to schools that teach a religious curriculum. The practice has continued while the state appeals multiple court rulings that the practice is unconstitutional. But as The Post reported last week, voucher fans expect the state Supreme Court to agree with the lower courts. So as Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville, puts it, they're looking for ways to "circumvent" the constitution.

Political-science professor Susan MacManus of the University of South Florida said Saturday she believes neither the governor nor his brother, President Bush, are trying to benefit politically from the Schiavo controversy.

University of South Florida professor Susan MacManus has been quoted in over 1,000 stories that mention Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Bob Norman writes: "Problem: MacManus has served as an adviser to the governor and was a member of his transition team. ... That's right, she's a Bushie. Nothing wrong with that, as long as it's disclosed in the stories. But it almost never is. Instead, reporters routinely identify her only as USF political scientist or professor, which implies an Ivory Tower neutrality."

Florida taxpayers are subsidizing the discount retailer, which has more workers eligible for Medicaid than any employer in the state. ...

Taxpayers are getting a bad deal, but no one seems concerned. Thanks to a lack of interest by the governor and state leaders, not enough scrutiny is given to what Florida actually reaps from companies that take our corporate welfare. Why should any employer qualify for job-creation incentives when thousands of its employees have to rely on the state to pay for their medical care? Florida should follow the lead of states that require companies, before qualifying for incentives, to provide health benefits for their employees and pay a fair share of the cost. (Wal-Mart offers health coverage but many employees can't afford it.)

A Florida Department of Law Enforcement team was standing ready in Clearwater a few days ago to transport Terri Schiavo to a hospital, an FDLE agent said.

But Gov. Jeb Bush never intended to act without judicial approval, spokeswoman Alia Faraj said.

Jeb Bush is well known for his disdain of the judiciary. But his last-minute ploy to "save" brain-dead Terri Schiavo borders on contempt of court. ...

Gov. Bush and President George Bush, as well as other politicians and religious activists who have gone to extremes to run rough- shod over several years of consistent court rulings in the Schiavo case.

They have taken a dispute among family members that should have been settled long ago on the basis of medical evidence and legal merit and turned it into a three-ring media circus with the Bush brothers presiding as ring masters.

regularly inserted himself into ongoing investigations of political or particularly sensitive natures while I worked with FDLE by requesting continuous updates and tacitly pressuring the agency at every level.

A veteran Capitol broadcast journalist has earned thousands of dollars from contracts with government agencies, a newspaper reported Saturday.

Mike Vasilinda has covered state government for 30 years. His stories reach millions of viewers through Capitol News Service, the television wire service he founded and runs in Tallahassee.

It doesn't take a lot of thinking to predict problems with Florida's fast-tracked Make My Day Law. The Legislature didn't notice potential problems because, as usual when the National Rifle Association wants something, the Legislature didn't do a lot of thinking. ...

Aside from home and vehicle, the law extends to "any place" where the person "has a right to be." Any attack can be met with deadly force. What if the shooter says he was attacked but police aren't sure? A law-enforcement agency "may not arrest the person for using force unless it determines that there is probable cause that the force used was unlawful." Call it the right-to-escape clause.

The law has overwhelming support in both the House and Senate. Never mind that this, like other NRA schemes — such as ending the assault-weapons ban and preventing police from keeping lists of pawned guns — will give the judicial system fits. When Make My Day is in force, individuals will practice the racial profiling police forces have tried to eliminate. More innocent people will get shot. Prosecutors and courts are going to have their hands tied. All of which, apparently, will make the NRA's day.

In the past two weeks, President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Gov. Bush and every other politician draping himself or herself across Ms. Schiavo's body have cast themselves as defenders of the "culture of life." In too many cases, their understanding of that culture, as demonstrated by their other political actions, is so narrow as to nullify their claims to revere life.

While they are vociferous on two or three issues — Terri Schiavo, abortion and perhaps stem-cell research — other issues of vital importance to life are ignored or denigrated by these supposed crusaders in the culture of life.

Do they really think that if they pass misguided laws to require extraordinary medical care for Terri Schiavo, no one will notice their attempts to gut medical programs for the nation's needy? Medicaid, which provides for Terri Schiavo's care, is facing cuts from both Washington and Tallahassee.

Do they think that if they pledge to overturn Roe vs. Wade, no one will notice their lack of concern for the well-being of children once born into this world? President Bush has proposed serious cuts in education programs. Gov. Bush and the Legislature made changes in KidCare, which provides health care to low-income children, that drove 100,000 children out of the program.

If a politician is opposed to stem-cell research and equally opposed to a ban on assault weapons or mandatory safety devices on handguns, how pure is that commitment to life? The most obvious contradiction is that so many people who have cast themselves as central to the culture of life have played such central roles in the culture of war. The rush to prevent the removal of Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube is as hasty as the rush to a war of choice in Iraq.

Imagine securing $3 billion in contracts with the state, no competitive bidding required.

That sweet deal exists today for health-maintenance organizations caring for 761,000 Florida Medicaid patients. And it's likely no-bid HMO contracts will get even bigger under Gov. Jeb Bush's proposed Medicaid overhaul.

are irked this year with what they view as too much university autonomy, which must mean all is well in academia. More than two years after voters created a separate Board of Governors to prevent political meddling in higher education, that board is beginning to behave as though it were actually in charge. So, like clockwork, the Legislature is trying to pull rank

With back-to-back refusals by federal judges to reinsert a feeding tube into the severely brain-damaged woman, religious conservatives are portraying Schiavo as a potent symbol in their drive for more socially conservative judges and for a socially conservative majority on the Supreme Court.