But just as loudly as Gov. Bush and lawmakers praised themselves for last year's fiasco, they now are applauding their willingness to undo the harm they caused. "If something isn't working right," said Rep. Rene Garcia, R-Hialeah, who sponsored HB 569 to resume open enrollment, "you come back and change it." And if something is working right, you don't break it.

Ideology drove the Republican push for less KidCare, even as more children were in need and more money was available. But Rep. Garcia and other Republican leaders are suffering political amnesia. "We didn't know," Rep. Garcia said, "we were going to get into this logjam." House Speaker Allan Bense, R-Panama City, chimed in, "If folks fell through the cracks, I'm sorry."

Ignorance would be a poor excuse even if it were legitimate. In this case, it's not.

When lawmakers passed a sweeping package of election-law reforms in 1998, their intent was quite clear: Everyone wanted to prevent a repeat of the rampant voter fraud and absentee-ballot abuses that overturned the results of the Miami mayoral election.

But now it' s clear that State Attorney Brad King [and "Jeb!"'s FDLE} apparently never got the message. Appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush to examine allegations of voter fraud in Buddy Dyer's recent mayoral campaign, Mr. King used a very narrow interpretation of one law to indict Mr. Dyer and three others on charges they improperly paid for the collection of absentee ballots.

This year's budget has been inflated by a one-time infusion of cash, generated by a frenzy of home repairs and other purchases following an unprecedented four-hurricane year. Lawmakers could bank this money -- at last estimate, about $2.2 billion -- against future needs. They could use it to pay for nursing-home care, public schools or children's health insurance. They could pay down the state's historically high debt.

Instead, they plan to give it away -- but only to Floridians who already have a sizable surplus of their own. The deal announced this week would allocate about $180 million in this year's budget to reducing the state's so-called "intangibles" tax on stocks, bonds and other securities, and commit the state to tax cuts that would drain more than $300 million from each year's budget from now on.

The intangibles tax has long been a target for Florida's conservative Republicans, who sell the tax cut as a benefit to retirees. That's a crock. This cut doesn't help those who have traditional pensions, individual retirement accounts or 401(k) plans -- the average person who would benefit from this cut has over $1 million in taxable assets.

With just two weeks remaining in the regular legislative session, King, R-Jacksonville, had been scheduled to present his bill (SB 2) Thursday in the Senate Education Appropriations Committee, but it was not taken up. Now he's hoping to find some compromise with Gov. Jeb Bush's top education aide, Patricia Levesque, before the plan's next scheduled hearing on Tuesday. ...

King, whose first voucher accountability bill died in the last minutes of the 2004 session, said he's been unable to reach Levesque. Her support, he believes, will sway conservative senators to support the plan and quiet some protests from private school groups.

Levesque referred questions to Bush's press office. Bush spokesman Jacob DiPietre said.

Besides the budget, Bense and Lee each have one major priority left. They also hope to pass a slew of other bills before the session ends May 6. Bense wants to make it more difficult for people to sue businesses. Lee wants to see changes to state ethics laws; in particular, he wants lobbyists to disclose not only how much they spend on clients but also how much they are paid to lobby the Legislature.

All is back as it ought to be? Not so fast. The case had the marauding air of political trickery from the start.

An official who spoke at a news conference explained why the charges had been dubious all along. The 1998 law under which the charges were brought wasn't clear, which may explain why no one had been prosecuted under it before. Whatever Dyer and others did with ballots during the campaign, "there was no evil intent on these people's part," the official said, nor had any of them a criminal past. And what they did do was not exactly uncommon practice, judging from press reports -- and indifference -- about it in the past. In other words, charges probably shouldn't have been brought against Dyer and the others.

The official making such remarks was none other than special prosecutor Brad King of Ocala, whom Bush assigned to the case and who brought up the charges in the first place. Was he apologizing? Not at all. Which raises the question: What was King thinking in his haste to bring charges against the four? He's not saying, although circumstances speak of political motivation, and actions speak louder of irresponsibility on his part, if not outright abuse of the legal process. ...

King could have decided at any point to stop the investigation. As a state attorney of 16 years he would have discovered quickly that the law being used against Dyer was flawed for being so broad and contradictory as to give fishing expeditions -- or witch hunts -- legal cover. Instead, King went fishing. Any evidence of fraud gathered by Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents would have provided some indication that taking the case to a grand jury was warranted. But the investigation uncovered no fraud. What evidence the indictment rested on is a mystery, although without fraud to go on, what's left, mostly, is King's persuasive powers as prosecutor -- the very same persuasiveness that proved essentially groundless, given his conclusion Wednesday that there was no reason to pursue the case. ...

That's where it all officially ends. But that's not where it should end, if Florida residents intend to prevent other political opportunists from making a travesty of the judicial process.

Sometimes the best thing you can say about an issue snaking its way through Florida's labyrinthine legislative process is this: It could have been worse. Such is the case with a handful of elections bills.

Florida will edge past New York state as the nation's third-largest in population in 2011, the Census Bureau said Thursday.

And its projections show a gain of 11-million residents in the state over the next 25 years from the current population of about 17.5-million.

The combined population growth in Florida and the No. 1 and No. 2 states, California and Texas, will constitute nearly 46 percent of the nation's growth between 2000 and 2030.

About 40 percent of the projected growth will come from people 65 and older. They will comprise 27.1 percent of Florida's population in 2030, up from 17.6 percent in 2000.

Florida will be one of 10 states where retirees will outnumber schoolchildren. In 2000, children outnumbered people 65 and older in the state by 840,000. But by 2030, there will be 2-million more older people than children younger than 18. Florida's youth will drop from 23 percent of the

push to water down Florida's class-size mandate has stalled in the state Senate, where some lawmakers worry about angering the voters who put it in the constitution and others oppose any change.

Senate leaders have turned thumbs down on Bush's call for a special election this year to let voters decide if they want to get rid of the class-by-class caps in exchange for a guaranteed minimum starting teacher salary of $35,000.

Now a growing number say they don't want to put it on the November 2006 general-election ballot.

Repealing the state's strict class-size mandate is one of Bush's priorities this session, despite polls showing that voters do not want to revise what they decided to do in 2002.

"I have not come with a set of demands," he said in a soft voice. "I have come with a burden."

The Ocala Republican told the presidents he has been humiliated for his conservative views. He showed them a cartoon published in the University of Florida student newspaper that depicted a naked Baxley crawling behind a monkey in the evolutionary chain.

Baxley's request: Protect conservatives like him from ridicule by the "liberal elite" on Florida campuses.

State Rep. Dennis Baxley, R- Rambo, is an Ocala huckster who has turned into something of a Lord Protector of the Apalachee Parkway this session, first trying (unsuccessfully) to inject Tallahassee into the Terri Schiavo tragedy.

Then Baxley, R-A Gun In Every Pot, introduced another piece of patently phony legislation promoting "academic freedom" on state campuses, which might otherwise be titled "The Florida Re-Education Camp Bill," that would stymie expression and dictate to professors how they would teach their classes.

It seems Baxley's "Manchurian Candidate" approach to higher education stemmed from an experience he had while a student at Florida State University, when a professor teaching an ANTHROPOLOGY course had the audacity to lecture on the science of evolution, rather than the young scholar's belief in creationism.

And since Baxley, R-Salem, lacked the intellectual cojones at the time to argue his case for creationism in class, he waited for 30 years until he made his way to the Florida House to bully his views on the public university system.

Why, the next thing you know, medical schools, in addition to teaching aspiring doctors how to perform coronary bypass procedures, will be legally required to give equal academic heft to the laying on of hands.

Alas, the Ocala Roundhead was only getting warmed up when it came to introducing Deadwood-esque legislation.

In essence, Baxley's emotionally manipulative measure merely gives Floridians protections they already possess - namely, that any individual certainly has every right to protect themselves should they find themselves attacked in their homes or on the streets.

The "Hang 'Em High Bill" stipulates anyone has a right to stand their ground and meet force with force should they feel threatened without fear of prosecution.

But citizens always had every right to defend themselves, hardly a revelation there, despite efforts by Baxley, R-Star Chamber, to act as if he had just discovered the concept of self-defense.

"If I'm attacked, I shouldn't have a duty to retreat," said the Harry Callahan of the Capitol - this from a chap who didn't have the chutzpah to take on an anthropology professor in class.

Special prosecutor Brad King dropped all charges against Dyer and three co-defendants -- campaign manager Patti Sharp, political consultant Ezzie Thomas and Circuit Judge Alan Apte.

Gov. Jeb Bush promptly lifted the suspension that barred Dyer, 46, from holding public office. City officials immediately scrapped plans for a special election two weeks from now, while candidates reacted with consternation at the newest twist in the increasingly surreal world of Orlando politics.

Secretary of State Glenda Hood and U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez are relieved because their campaigns did the same allegedly illegal things that Buddy's campaign did. And Buddy wasn't shy about bringing that up.

Bush looks like a doofus for putting a Republican prosecutor in charge of investigating Democrats, then booting a Democratic mayor out of office because of that investigation, then having to reinstate him.

[I]n a letter to Gov. Jeb Bush exonerating Mr. Dyer, Mr. King [the GOP prosecutor appointed by "Jeb!"] took pains to acknowledge that investigators failed to uncover a single instance of voter fraud.

Mr. King owes Mr. Dyer, his co-defendants and the entire city of Orlando an apology for perpetuating this legal travesty.

One-third of the schools studied by the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability rank "poor" on the measures of student performance, according to an audit released Monday. Many schools don't do a good job of documenting how well their students are doing, and their contracts don't require them to provide the data that would help districts and parents measure their success.

The analysis follows a report released in November showing that many charter schools fail to account properly for the public money they receive.

S en. Mel Martinez says he's ready to put his latest fiasco behind him and focus on the "business of the people of Florida." We wish him well but wonder if he has really learned from his blunders. ...

But rather than responding forcefully to the embarrassing episode, Martinez's reaction has been muted. No staff overhaul, no forceful directives, just promises to change ``office procedures.'' Maybe that will be enough. We hope so. Because the Mel Martinez that Floridians have been seeing doesn't wear well.

Last week, the state's manatees were hit with a double whammy. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission revised its rules, making it easier to change the sea cow's "endangered" status to a category that will offer less protection. The same day, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it will decide whether to remove the manatee from federal protection as an endangered species.

A bid by Gov. Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Glenda Hood to assume more elections control has crumbled in the wake of opposition by the Republican-controlled Senate.

Buddy Dyer is Orlando's mayor again after a special prosecutor dropped charges against Dyer and three others Wednesday for violating a state absentee-ballot law. Dyer had been removed from office and a special election to replace him was set for next month, but that won't be necessary. It is an appropriate ending to a questionable decision to charge Dyer in the first place. ...

Now, while the Legislature is working on other election-related matters, it should clean up the absentee-ballot law. Its original intent, according its author, former state Sen. Jack Latvala of Pinellas, was to stop people from exchanging their ballots for money. Over the years, however, the law has become so ambiguous that it gives little guidance to candidates on what is or is not allowed. Dyer ended up being charged for something nearly every political candidate does in every election.

As you may know, Jeb Bush was the one who decided to suspend Dyer. On Tuesday evening, I sent the following e-mail to Bush spokesman Jacob DiPietre.

Jacob,One question that I've been asked a lot in the last few weeks is whether the governor has any concern about Glenda Hood serving as secretary of state, seeing as how she used the same absentee-ballot broker that got Buddy Dyer indicted.

State Attorney Brad King correctly noted that Hood's 2000 campaign payments to the same guy (Ezzie Thomas, who has been open about specializing only in the activity that King now says is illegal) happened long enough ago that the statute of limitations would prevent him from prosecuting. But I thought I'd ask if Bush was concerned about any elections impropriety on her part -- seeing as how she's a top figure in terms of making sure elections are impropriety-free.

Thanks. Scott

DiPietre never responded -- maybe because the charges against Dyer were dropped the next morning.

Most rank-and-file Republicans I know are in favor of good public schools, protecting the environment, paying the bills on time and striking the right balance over the role of government. Obviously they disagree with Democrats, but they do not despise them, nor do they accuse anyone who disagrees with them of "hating America" or "helping the terrorists."

But those Republicans are not the party leadership. The party leadership is Tom DeLay, raking in cash while dodging ethics charges and grandstanding on the Terri Schiavo case. The party leadership is Bill Frist, saying that if Democrats oppose Republican judicial appointments, then they are attacking "people of faith."

The special prosecutor who brought a case against ousted Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and three others for violating state election law will dismiss all the charges this morning, according to attorneys involved.

Dyer's attorney, Robert Leventhal, said today that State Attorney Brad King will drop charges brought by the grand jury last month against Dyer, campaign manager Patti Sharp, absentee ballot coordinator Ezzie Thomas and Circuit Judge Alan Apte.

King could not immediately be reached for comment.

The dismissal is expected to lift a suspension imposed by Gov. Jeb Bush, allowing Dyer to return to the mayor's office and heading off a special election scheduled for May 3 to pick his temporarily replacement.

"There's no plea -- he's not pleading to anything," Leventhal said of Dyer. "This case is being dismissed this morning."

Allegations that Terri Schiavo had been abused or mistreated were international news in the final days of her life. Now the truth is being revealed about those baseless charges, but nobody is paying attention.

"There were two sets of law enforcement officers facing off, waiting for the other to blink," said one official with knowledge of Thursday morning's activities. ...

"It was kind of a showdown on the part of the locals and the state police," the official said.

The developments that set Thursday morning's events in motion [the aborted "rescue"] began the previous afternoon, when the governor and DCF chief Lucy Hadi held an impromptu news conference to announce they were considering sheltering Schiavo under the state's adult protection law. DCF has been besieged, officials say, by thousands of calls alleging Schiavo is the victim of abuse or neglect.

State legislators are poised to fund a universal, voluntary preschool program that would provide schools with less money per student per hour than most high-school babysitters earn.

The proposal, unanimously approved in its first Senate committee Tuesday, includes little of the business-orientated proposals lobbyists sought this year in the House when they argued the constitutional amendment was so vague it would require significant a new law to implement. They also had pushed to make it harder for hourly workers who were denied the new state minimum wage from pursuing class-action lawsuits.

But such proposals largely fell out of favor last week after a pair of senators - one a Republican citrus grower, the other a Democratic labor organizer - invited business and representatives of ACORN, the worker group that had pushed the minimum wage, to a meeting to hash out a compromise.

[W]orkers who are denied the state's minimum wage must complain in writing to a supervisor, outlining about how much money they feel they are owed.

If the employer doesn't respond within 15 days with the unpaid wages, the worker has the right to sue or complain to the Florida Attorney General's Office.

71 percent of voters approved the measure, despite strong opposition from the Florida Chamber of Commerce, most business groups and most Republican state officials, including Gov. Jeb Bush.

Florida's $2.2-billion windfall has stalled work on the state budget as legislative leaders trade proposals for using the extra money.

The House and Senate spent two days exchanging proposals. The House wants more tax cuts than the Senate and favors spending cash on programs for which the Senate would borrow money. The Senate wants to spend a lot more than the House for highways, schools and water systems.

The House's enthusiasm for tax cuts, particularly for eliminating taxes on stocks and bonds, is matched only by the Senate's passion to pour money into managing growth.

[F]or the second year, the state's Republican leaders, backed by the influential business lobby, are trying to make it more difficult for citizens to amend the state Constitution, a right since 1968.

In a surprise move, a Senate committee backed a bill to end Florida's 137-year prohibition against released felons voting.

A similar bill in the House died last week when Rep. Yolly Roberson, D-Miami, agreed to allow a committee to study the issue instead of voting on it.

Since Gov. Jeb Bush took office in 1999, The [Miami] Herald found, the Clemency Board has rejected more than 200,000 civil rights applications, the highest rejection rate in at least 16 years.

who wants state lawmakers to send the controversial class-size amendment back to voters, is now pledging to spend more than $1 billion extra on public schools in 2006 as a way to get reluctant legislators to endorse his proposal.

Six years into all-Republican, anti-tax, statehouse control, the resolution of this year's legislative session could rest on one Republican's insistence that Florida identify a tax source to pay for billions of dollars of roads and schools.

House Speaker Allan Bense and Gov. Jeb Bush both want to repeal the remaining $300 million intangibles tax on stocks and bonds portfolios and also pass laws protecting businesses from lawsuits.

Lee has said the intangibles tax cut is directly contingent on a new money source for growth management. Other senators believe that Lee's willingness to go along with lawsuit limits will also depend on Bense's and Bush's willingness to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars per year for roads, schools and water projects.

The issue today before the Florida Public Service Commission is simple: Florida Power & Light believes that the state's largest utility should be able to recover $533 million in hurricane-related repair costs from consumers, while the Office of Public Counsel — which represents consumers — believes that the company should be able to bill only $128 million. ...

Even after two public hearings last week, FPL has not made its case. The utility may claim that since so few consumers spoke against the surcharge, public sentiment is on its side. In fact, consumers — noting that the PSC refused to block the record phone-rate increase — cynically may believe that FPL will get no hard questions. Here's a thought for commissioners: Surprise those consumers.

A year ago, when I was blasting stupid state tricks to "reform" KidCare as no solution at all, Gov. Jeb Bush countered that I was wrong and the program would "bankrupt the system by 2006" unless changes were made.

Turns out Florida could lose $150 million in federal money by June 30 unless the Legislature acts quickly to open enrollment year-round. (The feds contribute almost three-fourths of KidCare's budget, and the state uses part of the settlement with Big Tobacco to fund another portion.)

The chairman of the House Growth Management Committee dug in his heels Monday in opposition to new taxes for infrastructure, setting up a potential showdown over the high-profile, high-dollar issue with the Senate and Gov. Jeb Bush.

"There is no passion at all to raise taxes or to make it easier to raise taxes in the House," said Rep. Randy Johnson, R- Celebration.

has yet to explain how a self-proclaimed centrist senator is best served by a staff of 30-somethings with connections to some of Washington's most conservative groups. ...

Martinez seems unwilling to admit the obvious about the top staff he has chosen. Darling, for example, was a former lobbyist for the Alexander Strategy Group, a firm with direct ties to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Martinez's chief of staff came from an Alabama senator, his legislative director worked for the Heritage Foundation, and his state director was a former protege of White House operative Karl Rove. These are not people a senator "reaching for the middle" and "looking to serve Floridians" would normally hire.

Martinez showed a flash of anger on Friday when, after a speech about National Hispanic Heritage Month, reporters again asked about the Schiavo memo.

An audit [by the state's Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability] found many state charter schools failed to comply with state and federal accountability standards -- and evaluated student performance as 'poor' in a third of them.

As states across the country struggle to balance budgets and keep their Medicaid programs in check, data from Florida and 12 other states show Wal-Mart to be a top corporate beneficiary of state-run, taxpayer-funded programs like Medicaid. ...

In Florida, Wal-Mart has 91,000 employees. Every time an uninsured Wal-Mart worker goes to the ER and can't afford to pay for treatments, all Floridians are picking up the bill. Meanwhile, our Medicaid system is in crisis. ...

Five employers in Florida account for 29,000 Medicaid-eligible individuals (employees or dependents). Wal-Mart's share represents 42 percent of that group. In Georgia, children of Wal-Mart employees made up over 10,000 of those on Georgia's health-care program for uninsured kids, the PeachCare for Kids program. The next largest employer, Publix, had only 700. ...

Wal-Mart poured $250,000 into the Florida Republican Party coffers last year.

Call it "hush money": Wal-Mart keeps lining its pockets with taxpayer money, and the governors agree to keep quiet about it. It's about time someone stood up to them.

When voters approved a constitutional amendment two years ago for universal prekindergarten, they envisioned programs that would improve educational standards in Florida schools. The idea: provide high-quality preschool instruction that, ultimately, would elevate overall education achievement. That lofty goal is still within reach today, only four months before the preschool program starts -- but it needs a final push from the Legislature. State lawmakers need to decide the optimum amount of money to allot for vouchers that will produce the broadest participation among income groups and among public and private schools.

Census estimates released last week show that 14 of the nation's 100 fastest-growing counties are in Florida, the most of any state. Flagler led the country — 10 percent in one year.

The state would borrow $8.5 billion over 10 years and put up $1 billion now out of a $2.2 billion revenue windfall to help finance roads, water systems, parks and other needs created by rapid growth. The governor would seek voter approval this year to issue bonds. He hasn't said what revenues would be tapped to pay off the bonds.

Face it, the touch-screen electronic voting machines used by Broward and Miami-Dade counties are more trouble than they're worth, which is a lot. Miami-Dade paid $24.5 million for the iVotronic system. But both counties should face the hard truth and replace the electronic machines with optical scanners. The latter provide what the former cannot: a paper trail, voter-error prevention and more reassurance that all votes will be counted.

It took just nine minutes for a Republican-controlled committee in the Florida House of Representatives last week to kill a bill that would have given voters a chance to end the state's 137-year-old felon voting ban.

But Republicans say they are not to blame.

has long favored limits on government spending. But now that he holds Florida's checkbook, he's finding it's easier to spend than to save.

The Stuart Republican calls himself a fiscal conservative, but the $63-billion House budget he assembled is 6 percent more than last year's and $1-billion more than the Senate's.

Gov. Jeb Bush has said over and over again that he will not run for president in 2008.

Now, an overwhelming majority of Floridians think that's great, a poll released last week shows. ...

A new survey of 1,044 Florida voters by Quinnipiac University Polling Institute in Connecticut shows that 69 percent do not want Bush to run for president, compared with 21 percent who think he should. Nine percent weren't sure, according to the survey, which has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Though she remains the most popular Republican candidate to challenge Nelson next year, her support appears to be slipping. In February, 37 percent of Republican voters said they wanted her to challenge him. Last week, only 31 percent said they did.

For conservative activists anxious to bring their religious views to bear on state politics, these are heady days.

"We have rather high expectations," says Bill Stephens, director of the Florida Christian Coalition -- an organization that's against gay rights, abortion, pornography and gambling, and in favor of lower taxes, among other things.

"This is the first time we've made up any ground in a long time," he says in a recent interview.

In the aftermath of an election season that some say affirmed the political clout of the religious right, springtime in Tallahassee is a hopeful time for lobbyists like Stephens.

The Florida Legislature is overwhelmingly Republican -- not to mention mostly Baptist and Catholic. And while some lawmakers attest that they draw a line between their own personal faith and their role in crafting public policy, others are quite comfortable wearing their beliefs on their sleeves.

Which, in the current climate, could be viewed as a politically prudent thing to do.

A business that threw around millions of dollars as haphazardly as the state of Florida does for economic development would not be in business very long. A hodgepodge of tax breaks and special incentives has produced at best mixed results over the past decade, and no one in Tallahassee keeps close track of whether taxpayers are getting enough bang for their buck. If government is going to give away public money to private businesses, the least it can do is set better ground rules and hold itself more accountable.

Promises for insurance relief came fast and furious from politicians last year after four hurricanes left homeowners with climbing rates, inadequate coverage and, in some cases, poor service.

But for homeowners who hoped to see a price break, the news out of Tallahassee is bleak.

The Florida Democratic Party raised $273,000 the first three months of 2005 (barely half of what it spent); the state GOP raised more than $3-million. It was the Democrats' worst financial report since at least 1996.

Miami-Dade party chairman Jimmy Morales has dropped out of the running, leaving former U.S. Rep. Karen Thurman of Dunnellon, party fundraiser Jeff Ryan of Tallahassee, state party vice chairwoman Diane Glasser of Tamarac and state committeeman Doug Courtney of Flagler County as the contenders.

By most estimates, the race is between Thurman and Ryan. But with Broward holding a mother lode of votes, Glasser is a serious player. She sent state committee members a letter last week denying rumors she had agreed to deliver Broward's votes to Thurman. Some think she'll deliver votes to Ryan.