If there was any doubt left about which local candidate for Congress national Democrats will back next year, that's gone.

Within an eight-day period in June, political action committees run by U.S. Sen. John Kerry, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Rahm Emanuel, the head of the party's House campaign team, sent checks to retired Sarasota banker Christine Jennings.

With those donations, Jennings reports that she now has more than $130,000 for her bid to win the seat representing the 13th Congressional District next year.

But the checks from Kerry, Pelosi and Emanuel are worth far more than their combined $5,000 cash value, political analysts say. The checks are a statement that the national party doesn't want to see another costly Democratic primary in the district between Jennings and Jan Schneider, who has said she will seek the Democratic nomination for the third straight time.

Sen. Bill Nelson, who has been targeted by Republicans as potentially vulnerable in next year's election, raised nearly $2.2 million in the past three months, according to reports filed this week with the Federal Election Commission. ...

Harris reported raising more than $402,000 in the most recent quarter and a total of nearly $858,000 for the election cycle. She had nearly $407,00 in cash. Individuals contributed more than $314,000 during the quarter; PACs gave $88,200. [Note: "Harris' money was raised in the name of her congressional campaign but could be shifted to a Senate campaign if she formally enters the race next year."]

In the highly contested District 22 congressional race, Rep. E. Clay Shaw, R-Fort Lauderdale, raised more than $388,000 from April through June for a total of more than $573,000 for the election cycle. Shaw had just over $1 million in cash.

Shaw raised nearly $204,000 from individuals and nearly $185,000 from PACs during the quarter.

Meanwhile, a Democratic challenger, state Sen. Ron Klein of Boca Raton, raised nearly $466,000 during the most recent quarter and $616,000 for the election cycle. Klein had just over $560,000 in cash.

Consent agendas improve efficiency and shorten meetings. But they can also be misused -- as a hiding place for bad decisions or a harbor from public controversy. Too often in recent months, local officials have buried items in their consent agendas rather than afford them appropriate discussion.

Case in point: The decision by the Flagler County Commission to purchase touch-screen vote tabulation systems for handicapped users. In Volusia County -- after one failed attempt to put the issue on a consent agenda -- the topic consumed four hours of one County Council meeting and two special hearings, with council members hearing from residents who feared the machines' inability to produce a paper record of votes. But on May 9 and then again on June 20, Flagler officials put the issue on their consent agenda. That move suggests that county officials wanted to avoid discussion on a potentially incendiary issue.

House Democrats want the Legislature to override Gov. Jeb Bush's veto of a bipartisan bill that would increase oversight of efforts to privatize state government jobs.

The Democrats announced Thursday that 20 of them have sent certificates to Secretary of State Glenda Hood asking for a special legislative session aimed at overriding the bill. If 32 certificates -- representing 20 percent of the Legislature -- are submitted, Hood would have to poll all legislators on whether they favor returning to Tallahassee.

Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher's campaign said Thursday it will return seven checks given by the owner of Penthouse Magazine. The checks, each for the maximum donation of $500, were given in the final week of June.

And Attorney General Charlie Crist, also a leading contender in the GOP primary, is refunding $1,000 to the Peek-A-Boo Lounge in Bradenton and its owner, Dean Bowley. The adult club gained fame for winning a court battle with Manatee County over an ordinance that, among other things, prohibited women from showing more than one-fourth of their breasts.

Meeting the demands of the class-size amendment just got tougher for Florida schools.

State education officials have decided that co-teaching - using two or more teachers in a single classroom, mostly to help disabled students - cannot be counted in determining whether a school district is complying with class-size caps.

The abrupt policy change could cost billions statewide. Removing the additional teachers from class-size ratios could force the construction of hundreds of new schools statewide, or require districts to add portables or double-time sessions.

Politics1 received a unexpected phone call today from a GOP Congressman from Florida who ... didn't want to be named here. What was interesting, however, was when the conversation turned to the '06 US Senate race. "We've got to get [Katherine] Harris out of the Senate race -- she's killing our chances in the race [against incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson]," he said. "She draws flies -- some Democrats are still very upset with her from the 2000 Presidential race -- and she could cause problems for other Republicans on the ballot." Don't you think that Harris is such a Republican folk hero that she'll defeat State House Speaker Allan Bense -- the White House's preferred candidate -- in the primary if the party leaders cannot convince her to quit the race? "I'd agree with that. Harris will win the primary if she stays in, and she's very stubborn, but we've got to get her to quit the race," he answered. If she stays in, he explained, the gubernatorial nominee would be the focal point of the statewide GOP campaign. Interesting.

According to a 41-page report FDLE issued last week, Harris and Palmiere ''developed personal relationships with, and accepted gifts and lodging'' from companies that were vying for contracts with the child welfare department.

But those relationships didn't necessarily break any laws.

FDLE concluded that while those exchanges ''may have given the perception of impropriety, there was no evidence that'' Regier, Harris, or Palmiere ''profited financially'' from them.

The senators criticized the agency for making Miami-Dade eligible for aid without first properly assessing damage.

A group opposed to Gov. Jeb Bush's takeover of higher education has renewed its legal fight to make the Board of Governors assert control of Florida's university system.

A 37-page revised petition in Leon County Circuit Court spells out the plaintiffs' contention that faculty members, students, administrators - even a member of the 1998 Constitution Revision Commission who specialized in education issues - no longer know who dictates budget and policy decisions affecting the 11 state campuses.

a "commentator" who claimed that the Democratic Party "supports killing, lying, adultery, thievery, envy"; who said of the idea that the American military were targeting journalists, "Would that it were so!"; who said President Clinton "was a very good rapist"; who insisted that "[l]iberals love America like O.J. loved Nicole"; who said that "I think a baseball bat is the most effective way these days" to talk to liberals; who said it was lucky for former senator Max Cleland's political career that he lost an arm and two legs in Vietnam; who has said her "only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building"; and who wrote that the only real question about Bill Clinton was "whether to impeach or assassinate."

Our Legislature and governor (who signed the bill) could not have taken more money out of the pockets of Floridians had they voted to create new taxes on sunshine, hot summers and thunderstorms.

With the industry's victory now complete, this is a fitting time to review the corruption that marked this process from the beginning.

Although few paid much attention when the governor trimmed $30,000 for a task force from the state's $63 billion budget in May, some women's health advocates say the veto threw up the first, long-expected roadblock to a promising vaccine that targets the virus that causes cervical cancer. ...

A spokesman for the governor cited financial reasons for turning down $30,000 in administrative costs for the cervical cancer elimination task force. But state Rep. Anne Gannon, D-Delray Beach, who asked for the money, said the veto had more to do with fear of criticism from the religious right wing of the Republican Party.

Even after Mrs. Schiavo died, many people questioned whether Mrs. Schiavo's husband, who got permission to remove the feeding tube, may have caused the severe brain injury that triggered this case. Mr. Bush was within his rights to ask prosecutors to look at that question.

When the federal government in April stopped funding a database that lets police quickly see public records and commercially collected information on Americans, privacy advocates celebrated what they saw as a victory against overzealousness in the fight against terrorism.

But a few states are pressing forward with a similar system, continuing to look for ways to quickly search through a trove of data - from driver's license photos to phone numbers to information about people's cars. Their argument in seeking to keep the Matrix database alive in some form: it's too important for solving crimes to give up on.

Florida, Ohio, Connecticut and Pennsylvania still use software that lets investigators quickly cull through much of the data about people that reside in cyberspace. However, without the federal grant for the Matrix data-sharing system, they won't be routinely searching through digital files from other states.

Privacy advocates still don't like the idea, saying government shouldn't have easy access to so much information about people who haven't done anything wrong.

The ethics of lifting a biography from a state-run, taxpayer-financed Web site for use in a campaign is, it seems safe to say, untested territory. Crist's campaign political director Arlene DiBenigno said there was no evidence taxpayer money paid for the bio being recycled on the campaign Web site.

As of last week, the Gallagher campaign Web site - www.tomgallagher.org - was listed online as being owned by the Republican Party of Florida.

No, the RPOF is not secretly favoring Gallagher by paying for his Web site, explained Gallagher spokesman Brett Doster.

The Web site for Scott Maddox, www.scottmaddox.com, touts his role as Florida Democratic Party chairman, saying his election in 2003 was greeted as a "new era of energy, unity and leadership." Maddox's site also brags about how the party "became solvent" during his tenure.

State lawmakers have slowly shifted the cost of paying for public education away from the state's sales tax toward an increased reliance on property taxes, a shift made easier by a real estate and construction boom.

While state spending on schools has increased, as has overall spending, the share paid by the state with mostly sales tax revenue has dropped from nearly 62 percent six years ago to about 56.5 percent this year. That 5 percent drop represents $800 million this year. That $800 million is part of the $7.1 billion being paid by property owners this year.

While the state has reduced the tax rate on homes, most tax bills are higher due to increased valuation. And this year Republican lawmakers required counties to raise one particular property tax in order to obtain state money - more than a $100 million hike statewide.

Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, says Republicans shouldn't crow about cutting taxes on the investments of millionaires while middle class homeowners pay more. "Just because somebody's home is valued more doesn't mean they have the money available" to pay the higher taxes, Gelber said.

I know and respect Gov. Bush from the days he was had responsibility for state tourism. At least I know and respect that Jeb Bush from once-upon-a-time. This Jeb Bush, however sadly, is a far, far cry from the business-oriented, straight-shooting, gimlet-eyed, no-nonsense Jeb Bush I knew then.

It is exactly what happened in the Schiavo matter, both several months ago and right now, that is turning a 40-year, died-in-the-wool, financially supporting Republican to the decision to change his political registration.

It is symptomatic of an increasing trend in the leadership of the Republican Party, yet I cannot conceive that a party that has given us the leadership of so many far-sighted politicians, pragmatists and presidents (yes, even Dick Nixon for his incredible understanding of geo-politics and geo-economics) could take such incredibly myopic stands when there are greater matters at hand.

No, I'm not changing to the Democratic Party; I'm having too much fun watching them implode.

But the name Libertarian keeps ringing in my mind and I think I'm bound to go there.