Since 1971, 25 Floridians have been exonerated of crimes that put them on death row. Another four were executed despite evidence that they were probably innocent. Nobody knows how many more have been put to death on faked evidence, mistaken eyewitness testimony or attorneys' mistakes.

The do-nothing state representative from Apopka was named chairman of the House Finance and Tax Committee late last year as a political reward for backing Allan Bense's winning bid to be speaker. And true to form, Mr. Brummer has continued to do what he does best: scuttle the good ideas and hard work of others without apology or explanation.

Sen. Victor Crist has introduced one of the worst bills of the session. It would keep students from getting psychiatric treatment even when they need it.

The Tampa Republican has said he sponsored it because parents need to have control over their children's medications. But Floridians don't need legislation to maintain control of their children.

The bill is backed by an arm of the Church of Scientology called the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, and Scientologists have never been shy about their opposition to psychiatry or any mental health services.

After a spate of public criticism and humiliation, Sen. Mel Martinez vowed to sit down and talk about his mistakes and possible changes in how his staff operates.

But on Friday, a day after a new poll showed he has lost favor with voters, Florida's freshman senator said he won't talk about it, he just wants to get this episode behind him.

Gov. Jeb Bush's support for raising local taxes to deal with Florida's exploding growth seems to put him at odds with a previous pledge he made.

He strongly disagrees.

State Rep. Fred Brummer, the Grim Reaper of the 2005 state Legislature, has found a calling card this year to let legislators know when their bills are doomed.

"I want them to feel comfort in their time of need when their legislation has gone to the great beyond," says the Apopka Republican and chairman of the powerful state House Finance and Tax Committee, which he calls the "bone yard" and "final resting place" for many bills.

Baxley seized center stage with House passage of his bill to maintain the feeding tube in brain-damaged Terri Schiavo, despite a court order allowing it to be removed.

He sallied forth with the "castle doctrine" - signed into law by Gov. Jeb Bush - avowing the right to defend oneself and family with lethal force.

He assaulted "liberal bastions" in universities with an "academic freedom" measure prohibiting professors from espousing controversial or one-sided lessons or grading based on students' religious or political views.

"When he gets a hold of something, he's fearless," House Speaker Allan Bense, R-Panama City, said of the guy he encouraged to run for the Legislature. "He has strong Christian beliefs." ...

In the Florida Baptist Witness, Baxley is quoted as saying, "I'm here for Him. What I do must glorify and please Him. I see this job as a calling and believe my opportunity to serve here was providentially arranged."

The manatee, gopher tortoise and bald eagle are among imperiled wildlife species now facing a retooled protection process adopted by the state on Thursday.

The process determines whether species are classified as "endangered," "threatened" or "species of special concern."

Critics warned that the classification process, adopted in 1999, will lead to less protection for some wildlife. But Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials disagreed and said they'll be adopting plans that provide more protection than wildlife was given in the past.

Half of Florida voters thought Terri Schiavo should have been allowed to die but many more disagreed with efforts by politicians in Washington and Tallahassee to intervene in her case, a poll released Wednesday shows.

Although three out of five voters took issue with unsuccessful attempts by President Bush and his brother Gov. Jeb Bush to keep the severely brain-damaged woman alive, it appears to have had little impact on their already sinking popularity in Florida.

And the Schiavo case appears to have had little effect on the president's or the governor's approval ratings, which have been sinking in Florida recently. Forty-six percent of people said the president was doing a good job, up from 44 percent in February and down from 51 percent in September.

Fifty-one percent of people said the governor was doing a good job, down from 52 percent in February and 62 percent in September.

However, the actions of the Republican lawmakers in Washington and Tallahassee proved almost as popular as it was unpopular with GOP voters -- underscoring the logic behind a well-publicized [Martinez] "talking points" memo that noted the case was "a great political issue."

said Wednesday he will "put aside" one of his core principles and proposed asking voters to approve $9.5billion in bonds to relieve congested roads and give county governments the power to raise taxes without getting voter approval.

State wildlife officials are tinkering with their process for classifying animals as endangered, threatened and species of special concern. And some scientists say the state has been misusing the terms and is threatening the survival of manatees and other imperiled species.

"There is no talking to them (wildlife officials)," said Patti Thompson, director of science and conservation with the Save the Manatee Club in Maitland. "They are hellbent on doing this." ...

Many scientists are lining up to oppose the commission's move today to update the classification process.

The process will result in less protection for imperiled species in Florida, said Russell Lande, biology professor and MacArthur Foundation fellow at the University of California-San Diego. He served on an IUCN panel that helped develop the criteria.

A U.S. official, asking not to be identified, said that although no criminal charges are pending against Posada, he would be "excludable" from the United States because of his alleged involvement in the 1976 Cubana Airlines bombing in which 73 people died.

Florida's universal pre-kindergarten plan has undergone an extreme makeover in the long trip from concept to reality, and not for the better. The "high quality" program that voters demanded via a constitutional amendment has been watered down in every way imaginable, from the number of class hours to the requirements for teachers.

The Legislature even ignored key recommendations of a bipartisan council headed by Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings, a former teacher. Now, public and private providers say the proposed $2,500-per-pupil allotment from the state won't be enough.

The Legislature's penchant for being unfriendly to constitutional amendments approved by citizen initiative is on display again this year. Proposals to restrict citizens' right to put initiatives on the ballot are on the table. Lawmakers' reluctance to adopt enabling legislation that truly reflects voters' intent on some new amendments is obvious, too. Yet the fact is, many initiatives come about because lawmakers sometimes avoid difficult issues, forcing exasperated constituents to go the signature-petition route.

In the fewer than 100 days that Mel Martinez has been in office, he has made quite a name for himself. Too bad Florida's freshman senator apparently is looked upon as a sideshow attraction to be viewed with pity, wonder, fear or amazement.

In just more than three months, Martinez has turned his office-holding abilities into a candidate for a political version of America's Funniest Home Videos.

The latest Sideshow Mel gaffe evidently has some of his fellow Republicans concerned that his pratfalls may knock them off balance, too.

Why did Martinez tell The Washington Post in late March that his office had nothing to do with the memo? He told The Post last week: "I never did an investigation, as such. I just took it for granted that we wouldn't be that stupid."

said he is not usually one for criticizing fellow Floridians, but Martinez crossed a line with the memo.

"I see him as someone with very few scruples: Say anything, do anything as long as it advances his political interests," Wexler said. "He's humiliated himself and our state."

"I'm not here as a wholly owned subsidiary," Martinez said of his ties to the president. "I'm not beholden to the philosophy of any one corner of the party or certainly the White House."

Almost overnight, following the late Monday announcement that Florida has $2.2 billion of unexpected revenues, the biggest items on the governor's 2005 legislative agenda and the top priorities of Republican leaders started gaining headway.

More uncertain now is the governor's top legislative priority: reconfiguration of the state's $15-billion-year Medicaid program into a system in which the poor and disabled will be treated by managed care networks.

new secretary in charge of many of his outsourcing initiatives won unanimous approval Tuesday from the Senate committee that has most aggressively criticized outsourcing problems.

More Florida children could get private tutoring from companies such as Sylvan, all paid for with taxpayer dollars under two proposals in the Legislature.

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, is right on target when she talks about lifting the ban on gays and lesbians who serve in the U.S. military. ...

Congressmen Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, and Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton also are cosponsoring the bill. Sadly there isn't a similar bill in the Senate.

On this issue, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen diverges from the GOP party line. We commend her for this principled stand.

But Jacob DiPietre, Gov. Jeb Bush's spokesman, applauded the ruling.

"This was a decisive ruling. The court ruled that Florida's process is a fair and good one and felons have the ability to get their rights restored through a deliberative and fair review," DiPietre said.

arguing that the process has become riddled with fraud and misrepresentation, state lawmakers have started moving forward with a controversial plan that would place potentially far-reaching restrictions on petition gathering.

The proposal's supporters, including some of Florida's most-powerful business groups, say the plan is needed to clean up a system that has run amok as special-interest groups pay workers to collect signatures. The plan, in part, would beef up criminal penalties for fraud and would restrict who can gather signatures and how they are paid.

if investigators think that suspended Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer broke the law by hiring Ezzie Thomas to handle absentee ballots, shouldn't they have indicted every other politician who hired Thomas to do the same thing -- as well as politicians in every other Florida city who hired consultants for similar activities?

But that hasn't happened.

Even though the Sentinel wrote a lengthy article in 2002 that explained prominent politicians such as Glenda Hood and Mel Martinez had paid Thomas, Orange-Osceola State Attorney Lawson Lamar indicted no one. Nor did the Florida Department of Law Enforcement push for any indictments then.

Why not?

"You're assuming that people in our office read the newspaper," said local FDLE office attorney Steve Brady.

State Attorney Brad King, the Marion County prosecutor who Gov. Jeb Bush brought in to handle the Dyer case, acknowledged Monday that the 2002 article, coupled with Ezzie Thomas's candor about what he specialized in doing, could raise questions about why certain politicians are only being prosecuted now. But he stopped short of criticizing local investigators and prosecutors of failing to do their jobs three years ago, saying, "I can't speak for them."

King said he can only do the job he was asked to do and noted that regardless, the three-year statute of limitations prevents prosecuting Hood and Martinez.

"How do you spell witch hunt?" he asked, referring primarily to the complaint against him, which he describes as bogus, involving the transportation-tax campaign he helped promote. "How do you spell political terrorism?"

Senate Republicans want to spend $18.5 million in taxpayer dollars on a September special election aimed at repealing the class-size amendment that taxpayers approved in 2002.

Faced with finding enough classrooms and teachers for 154,000 children who may show up for free pre-kindergarten in August, Florida's education chief donned his thinking cap.

He decided to loosen the rules that limit who can provide the program.

Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings barnstormed the state last week, talking up Gov. Jeb Bush's growth-management plan, she had a chance to see first-hand the need for better management of development: The crowded and inadequate road system, the massive housing communities springing up in place of orange groves and woodlands, the rows of portables behind most public schools.

The fix she pushed has promise. But it falls short.

You expect Florida lawmakers to play politics with nearly every issue, though not with the very foundation of democracy. Yet here they go again. It's not just the Legislature that is tinkering with your right to vote, but Secretary of State Glenda Hood is leading the way.

"Campaign records show that you, like indicted Mayor Buddy Dyer, paid Ezzie Thomas to work on your last campaign. Did Ezzie Thomas perform the same services for you as he did for Dyer? And, if so, and Dyer has been indicted, should you not resign as Florida's chief elections officer?"

Since the mid-1990s, state and local governments in Florida have given hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks, cash and other incentives to companies that promise to create jobs here, but the benefits to workers can be short-lived or hard to track, a newspaper reported Sunday.

This fiscal year, Florida's economic development efforts could cost state government more than $900 million, according to an examination by The St. Petersburg Times. That money could pay for nearly 11,000 new teachers and next year's tuition increase for more than 250,000 university students, the newspaper found.

Gov. Jeb Bush's office said incentives are needed to overcome bids from other states and countries that spend even more than Florida. Incentives generate tens of thousands of high-wage jobs, billions of dollars in state investment, a business-friendly image and a higher living standard for Floridians, officials said.

• Thousands of jobs created with the help of incentives materialize briefly, then disappear. Some are wiped out by cost-cutting moves, bankruptcies or mergers. Other jobs go overseas.

State and local governments paid or promised the financial services company now known as JPMorgan Chase more than $21 million in benefits, plus a tax break of up to $74.5 million over 20 years, to create more than 2,800 jobs in Tampa. In January, the company announced it would lay off 1,900 employees.

• A decade after the Legislature began increasing corporate benefits under then-Gov. Lawton Chiles, Florida's average wage in 2003 was $34,520, which still trails the national average of $38,490.

• Florida's incentive laws contain vague language and loopholes that allow businesses to collect for low-paying jobs. For example, a company that promises jobs with a certain average salary can hire a few highly paid executives, skewing the average wage upward.

• Florida's incentives include dozens of tax breaks that are embedded in the tax code rather than paid outright. Because businesses claim them as credits, deductions or exemptions on their tax returns, which are confidential, these tax breaks often fall outside the scrutiny of the public and even state legislators.

• Although the Legislature keeps adding incentives, it rarely checks to see if they are paying off. And by law, the state doesn't have to release information, including the wages and taxes that companies getting incentives pay.

But the idea is, if you spend a big part of your working life in public service, you ought to be able to retire with enough to get by, especially with some state subsidy of health insurance benefits. It's assumed the house is paid for and the kids have left home, that you've got some Social Security and savings.

neither "25-and-out" bill got a committee hearing in the House or Senate and the budget is now headed for joint negotiations. So Lawson and Richardson will have to wait for next year, when they won't be so optimistic about the idea.

Legislators were accused of betraying voters as they proposed ways to soften voter-approved amendments and make it harder for citizens and special-interest groups to change the Constitution

Legislation moving through the House and introduced in the Senate last week embraces an experiment with fully privatizing Medicaid by handing patients a managed-care health policy. HMOs or other provider networks would be paid a fixed price per client, based on factors such as age and health, and they would set the level of benefits. Patients would choose their plan.

Eight of America's 58 most congested urban areas are in Florida: Miami-Hialeah, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood-Pompano Beach, Orlando, Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Delray Beach, Fort Myers-Cape Coral, Jacksonville and Pensacola.

The group that did the study that produced the list, the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University, also found that drivers in Orlando wasted more time in traffic than drivers in New York City.

The state has a shortfall for road-construction projects over the next 10 years of $23 billion.

No one is immune to an occasional bad break. But when bad breaks happen repeatedly, and with the same pattern, it's time to stop blaming bad luck and take personal responsibility.

who has made privatization a hallmark of his governorship, might chafe at the additional oversight that would be required. But budgetary authority should rest with the Legislature. More important, this legislation would help ensure that contracts are awarded fairly and executed efficiently. Taxpayers deserve nothing less.

If the Florida House of Representatives wants the public to allow longer term limits for legislators, it ought to provide some incentive. There is none now.

The House voted 92-24 last week to extend the term limits set by the Florida Constitution from eight years to 12. If approved by the Senate, it would go to the voters in 2006. ...

On its own, this is not the kind of issue that's likely to ignite a great deal of public support. But the public might be more inclined to stretch the legislative terms if the change were accompanied by some real reform in the way legislators are elected. That would involve taking the responsibility for drawing legislative district lines away from the lawmakers themselves and giving it to a disinterested panel of distinguished citizens.

It's a move that is being spearheaded in California by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who says it's undemocratic to allow legislators to draw their own districts, thus pretty much ensuring they cannot be defeated at the polls. Gov. Jeb Bush has been silent on the issue in Florida, although both Bush and Schwarzenegger are Republicans.

The reason is obvious. Democrats control the legislature and the redistricting process in California, while Republicans are in full control in Florida. Partisan gain trumps the instinct for reform every time.

Having slashed taxes by billions in recent years, Florida's Republican state leaders are in a quandary over how to raise taxes to build more schools, roads and water supplies throughout the state -- without looking as if they're doing the tax-raising.

In broad terms, Gov. Jeb Bush and the leaders of the House and Senate believe government needs to plan and pay for growth in a better way, as the fourth-largest U.S. state population is sprawling across wilderness, sucking up water and clogging streets and classrooms.

But agreement on the finer -- and expensive -- details are taxing Republican ideology itself.

No one wants to "lead with our chin," a boxing reference used by Senate President Tom Lee and a home-builders group when they explain why everyone's so guarded in proposing how to pay for an estimated $23 billion backlog in road, school and water-system construction.

The subject is so touchy that they used words such as "funds" and "revenue" more often than the more blunt "tax."

this is at least the third time (and some of his political enemies could add a few more examples) in which the former Bush Cabinet member has come off as either clueless or, worse, cynical -- a puppet of right-wing political hacks or a devious partisan plotter himself.

Has Martinez's loyalty to Bush and White House political guru Karl Rove, who encouraged him to run for the Senate, so blinded him to partisan bullying that he doesn't see the unethical muck that's sinking his past reputation as a straight-shooter?

When I spoke to him over coffee a couple weeks ago -- when the memo was all the Washington buzz -- he seemed disgusted that anyone would use Schiavo's suffering as a political strategy.

Well, someone did, and if Martinez didn't know what his lawyer was up to, then the question begs: Who's really running things?

It's one thing to surround yourself with political operatives sent by the White House during a hard-fought Senate campaign in a presidential election year. (Ask Bill Clinton -- both parties do it.) But once elected, Martinez promised to be his own man and seek bipartisan solutions, particularly on issues that affect Florida. So why the memo?

A look at Martinez's staff reads like a who's who of political operatives and ideologues.

Matthew Hunter, the personable former White House associate political director who worked for Rove, now heads Martinez's Florida offices as state director. Is Hunter's role to oversee constituent service -- the traditional job of a state director -- or to strategize how to unseat Nelson in next year's election? If not for Memogate, we wouldn't have to wonder.

Martinez's legislative director is Tripp Baird, who ran Senate relations for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. He plotted GOP strategy with lobbyists and congressional staff members as part of the Conservative Working Group. The senator's chief of staff, John Little, came from an Alabama senator's office. [And then there's Mr. Darling]

South Florida pari-mutuels stand to make hundreds of millions off slot machines and they've hired dozens of lobbyists to make sure they get the best deal possible from the state Legislature.

But while the battle over how to regulate and tax slots has turned into an economic boon for Florida's lobbying corps, the public will never know how much the lobbyists were paid or how much they spent to sway public policy and legislators.

Many politicians have to work hard for years, even an entire career, to earn a reputation as an extremist. The question now is: Did Mel Martinez manage to do so in less than four months in the U.S. Senate? ...

But now some are wondering if this isn't New Mel, but rather Real Mel.

The fundamental issues are justice and fairness. After a person convicted of crime has fully paid for the offense with a prison sentence, his civil rights should be restored automatically. That's how nearly every state except Florida does it. Now it's time to erase this vestige of repulsive Jim Crow laws that leaves at least 500,000 Floridians without voting rights and diminished job prospects.

The Legislature should put a measure on the ballot that would automatically restore civil rights when an ex-felon has completed his sentence. ...

Florida has the largest number of disfranchised people of any state, a group that is also disproportionately black. That alone should make legislators seek remedies. Yet halfway through the session, no clemency related bill has gotten any traction.

Senate majority leader Alex Villalobos, R-Miami, and Sen. Stephen Wise, the Criminal Justice Committee chairman, now remain silent on the issue although they said earlier that they would pursue a constitutional amendment to repeal the state's automatic ban on civil rights for ex-felons.

That's unacceptable. Too many Floridians unfairly are being deprived of civil rights. The Legislature's indifference doesn't excuse this injustice.

Based on the breadth and depth of the public's reaction, I'd say politicians are kidding themselves if they think the Schiavo travesty will be forgotten by the time the next election comes around. This kind of government meddling hits close to home for every family.

In particular, Gov. Jeb Bush has damaged his national reputation. Floridians already knew Jeb well, but millions of people in the other 49 states had only a vague image of him as another Bush. Now he is widely seen as a moralistic interloper who kept trying to push his authority in the Schiavo case even after his brother had the good sense to back off. Many people also noticed that Jeb pointedly excluded Michael Schiavo from his condolendences to the family.

Copeland is a Miami-Dade lawyer who specializes in property tax appeals, and has donated to assorted Democratic campaigns over the years.

He brings at least one intriguing trait to the table: apparently deep pockets and a willingness to spend it on his campaign. The 40-year-old Copeland said he doesn't plan to accept public financing because it would limit him to spending just $25,000 of his own money.