Following complaints from the American Civil Liberties Union, the Brevard County Sheriff's Office has agreed to stop routinely keeping criminal intelligence files on political protesters. ...

Controversy erupted after a January anti-Bush rally attended by about three dozen protesters in front of Melbourne City Hall.

Public officials still like to do things in secret. Just this week Gov. Jeb Bush insisted on meeting in private with about 20 legislators. His staff insisted in advance that the breakfast meeting in his office at the Capitol on a Tuesday morning was purely social.

The governor was not apologetic and left us with the feeling that we can expect a lot more of this in his remaining year in office.

Three U.S. representatives, all Cuban-American Republicans from Miami, have challenged a proposal to strip the Florida Legislature of its redistricting power and hand that job to an independent commission.

Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and brothers Lincoln and Mario Díaz-Balart filed written arguments Thursday with the Florida Supreme Court against a proposed state constitutional amendment that would create a 15-member panel to reapportion legislative and congressional districts.

The Legislature still hasn't written the rules for casinos in Broward County, but four Florida lawmakers already have hit the jackpot.

Not that the four Republicans were participating in a game of chance. The payout was a certainty because rules for Broward casinos haven't been written.

[DCF head Lucy] Hadi bristled at a comment from one lawmaker that she had heard the contract requirements were "vague," ... .

While customers were paying higher and higher premiums, some of the people running Citizens allegedly were profiting from it. Last month, Chief Operating Officer R. Paul Hulsebusch resigned after a lawsuit accused him of taking kickbacks from insurers. Two Citizens financial officers quit after the St. Petersburg Times reported that they had opened a private insurance business but had been allowed to stay at Citizens as consultants.

Then, The Miami Herald reported problems with the outside counsel for Citizens. Michael Colodny's firm has represented start-up insurers that want to do business with Citizens. Private firms can ask Citizens for "takeout" business, meaning that the firm takes over a certain number of policies. Because the state wants fewer people in Citizens, those firms get a bonus and save on start-up costs.

Mr. Colodny and his partner, the Herald noted, have steered lots of campaign contributions to Republicans, among them Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher, who regulates insurers and appoints the board members who oversee Citizens. The new board chairman told Mr. Colodny that he could stay on only if his firm stopped representing insurers seeking Citizens business.

The report from the Council for Education Policy, Research and Improvement concluded that hiring a large quantity of teachers would decrease overall teacher quality; that the benefits of smaller class sizes are unclear; and that the requirements will make it more difficult to offer low-demand classes such as higher-level math and sciences as well as remedial classes.

Then there is the issue of finding enough money to hire teachers and build schools that will be needed, potentially a multibillion-dollar price tag.

The idea that "liberal hypocrisy gets a big, fat pass from the liberal press, which fails to subject prominent liberals to the kind of intense personal scrutiny that is commonly meted out to conservatives" is valid.

When politicians in ancient Rome wanted to look good, they asked their priests to consult the gods.

By an amazing coincidence, the gods always approved of whatever it was the rulers were doing.

Here in modern Florida, we have the same set-up. We have an outfit called the "Florida Commission on Ethics."

Never let it be said that the Bush family forgets its Florida fundraising friends. Jacksonville real estate investor and Bush-Cheney "Ranger" (raised at least $200,000) John Rood last year became ambassador to the Bahamas. Fort Myers-area developer Al Hoffman, another Ranger and former RNC finance chairman, will be sworn in as ambassador to Portugal in a few weeks.

This month, the nation's youngest Ranger, 30-year-old Palm Beach County resident Husein Cumber, started his new job at the U.S. Department of Transportation. The former public affairs executive for Florida East Coast Industries, is the new assistant to the secretary for policy.

Not everyone is enthused about this new direction for Florida's safety net program. AARP, the advocacy group for older Floridians, openly questioned the idea of giving more control to outside insurance companies and HMOs, citing recent reports of other state services not getting to recipients.

"Now, the administration wishes to trust big private insurance companies to handle this vital task," said Bentley Lipscomb, state director of AARP.

"Government cannot shirk its responsibility to ensure that Florida's most vulnerable citizens receive the care they need," Lipscomb said.

One of those political insiders, Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, says the 13th Congressional District is one of the races that all of a sudden requires more review than previously thought. That's the seat Katherine Harris has said she won't seek re-election to, and instead plans to run for the U.S. Senate. The district includes all of Sarasota, DeSoto and Hardee counties, plus most of Manatee and a portion of Charlotte. ...

Four Republicans are running to replace Harris. They are: Longboat Key businessman Vern Buchanan, State Rep. Donna Clarke, R-Sarasota; State Rep. Nancy Detert, R-Venice; and former Sarasota County Republican Party chairman Tramm Hudson. On the Democratic side, Sarasota banker Christine Jennings and Sarasota attorney Jan Schneider are running.

The campaign of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rod Smith announced the endorsement of former state party chairman Charlie Whitehead of Panama City Wednesday afternoon.

About 30 minutes later, the Jim Davis gubernatorial campaign touted endorsements from some prominent Broward County Democratic leaders and members of the Broward Congressional delegation: U.S. Reps. Alcee Hastings, Robert Wexler, and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz; County commissioners and former Scott Maddox supporters Commissioner Ilene Lieberman and Diana Wasserman-Rubin; City of Sunrise Mayor Steve Feren; and former state party chairman and current Broward Democratic chairman Mitch Caesar and state party vice chairman Diane Glasser.

Lawmakers gave a mixed reception on Tuesday to a bipartisan study by the private Constitutional Accountability Commission urging Florida to measure its school system against those of other states, not just its own past performance.

Former Florida Comptroller Bob Milligan, a Republican, and former Attorney General Bob Butterworth, a Democrat, co-chair the commission. They received mostly praise from the House Democratic Caucus and said they had a positive meeting with Senate President Tom Lee, R-Brandon.

"When you are comparing yourself to yourself, it doesn't tell you how you are doing," Milligan said. "We are competing on a national and international basis and that's what you need to compare yourself to."

The study, however, shows Florida trailing most other states in 12 of 14 performance and funding categories, and that drew sharp criticism from House Majority Leader Andy Gardiner. The Orlando Republican interpreted the findings as an attack on education policies of the GOP-controlled Legislature and Gov. Jeb Bush.

Although polls have shown her support slipping since she announced her candidacy and she's been slow in raising campaign money, Harris said no one on her campaign team is talking about her demise.

that Harris raised less than $500,000 over the last three months, far short of expectations of many political observers. Sen. Bill Nelson, the Democrat she is trying to unseat, raised almost $2 million in the same time period.

While her moxie during debates over Terri Schiavo and Hurricane Katrina has earned kudos, it has also gotten the 39-year-old rookie into some trouble. She has rankled the longest-serving and most powerful congressman from South Florida, Republican Clay Shaw, by openly supporting his Democratic challenger.

Shaw's staff said he tried to welcome her to the Capitol by offering advice and temporary office space and was upset to learn that she was helping state Sen. Ron Klein raise money and meet party leaders.

"For decades, the Broward congressional delegation has worked hand-in-hand on issues of concern regardless of party," said Shaw's chief of staff, Eric Eikenberg. "It's unfortunate that that unity is now broken."

Did man evolve from monkeys or did some higher being create us? And which idea belongs in Florida classrooms?

said in a statement released to the media last week that he knows the national question of intelligent design versus evolution will play a big part in the curriculum review.

Florida's parental notification law went into effect in July, about nine girls a month in Palm Beach County have received a judge's permission to have an abortion without their parents' knowledge.

That's a higher average than in any of the few other counties that have reported their numbers to the state Supreme Court. All counties are required to report the number of waivers under the parental notification law, but many have not. And the Supreme Court has numbers only for July and August.

Charter schools, which are privately run schools financed largely with public taxes, were created in Florida in 1997 to provide Florida students with "innovative learning opportunities" and give parents a tuition-free option aside from public schools. While the program has been popular with parents — nearly 100,000 students enrolled in charter schools this year, up from 82,000 last year — critics say the system siphons money from school districts that cannot pick and choose their students.