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Ryan Ray has 632 articles published.

Ryan Ray writes about campaigns and public policy in Tampa Bay and across the state. A contributor to FloridaPolitics.com and before that, The Florida Squeeze, he covers the Legislature as a member of the Florida Capitol Press Corps and has worked as a staffer on several campaigns. He can be reached at [email protected]

Cabinet aides tee up land deals for Tuesday vote

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A plan for the state of Florida to buy $6.6 million in new state land easements took another step toward approval this week. Aides to Gov. Rick Scott and Cabinet officers heard plans to buy two huge swaths of land in Osceola County, south of St. Cloud, for conservation purposes. Such land is set aside to help stave off development and preserve biodiversity. John Brown of the Florida Forest Service presented the plan at the Wednesday morning meeting, held in the Capitol’s Lower…

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Ahead of Mother’s Day, Gwen Graham makes congressional visit to Afghanistan

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U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham paid a surprise visit to Afghanistan to visit American mothers serving overseas and Afghan women working towards gender equality this week. The visit was part of a bipartisan Congressional delegation to the war-torn nation, where a series of foreign occupiers and long-term civil strife has made life difficult for all Afghans, particularly women. Graham saluted those women, as well as the American women in uniform who she said were fighting for a just cause. “It’s difficult for anyone in…

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Supreme Court hears arguments on overturning death sentences

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The Florida Supreme Court weighed arguments on whether the state will execute a convicted murderer or overturn his death sentence on Thursday. Timothy Hurst‘s legal counsel argued errors in the sentencing process should invalidate his sentence in light of a recent U.S. Supreme Court court ruling that briefly invalidated Florida’s death penalty regime. Attorneys for the state, on the other hand, said procedural problems — including too much deference to judges rather than juries and relatively low jury vote thresholds for…

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Tampa Bay is like America, but more so

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Many red state politicians — and even POLITICO co-founder Jim VandeHei in a recent op-ed — often talk of a “real America,” a nation apart from the latte liberal denizens of our urban, coastal cities. But new research has found one of the most “normal” cities in America is right here in Florida — the greater Tampa Bay area. FiveThirtyEight’s Jed Kolko recently compared each major U.S. metropolitan area to the U.S. overall, based on age, educational attainment, and race and ethnicity, and discovered none…

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Public affairs show ‘Facing Florida’ ends after five-year run

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After 300 hundred episodes and five years on the air, the Sunday morning public affairs program Facing Florida called it quits last month. Host and producer Mike Vasilinda told FloridaPolitics.com Monday that though he loved doing the show and felt it contributed to the political discourse around Tallahassee, the show was taking away too much from his other Capitol news and video production business. “Every business has limited resources. In our case, Facing Florida was taking away time, energy and resources from rate…

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Florida Chamber endorses legislative Republicans

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The Florida Chamber of Commerce lent their substantial clout to four statehouse Republicans on Monday. Groveland Rep. Larry Metz, Auburndale Rep. Neil Combee, Maitland Rep. Bob Cortes, and Saint Cloud Rep. Mike De La Rosa were among those who got the nod from the pro-business interest group. The lawmakers all received “A” grades from the Chamber’s annual legislative report card, which assigns members marks based on their votes on the group’s priorities, which according to their criteria aim to make “Florida more competitive through private-sector job…

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Rick Scott’s makes almost-endorsement of Mary Thomas

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Gov. Rick Scott came about as a pol can get to endorsing another without pulling the trigger. At a private fundraiser hosted by the conservative Club for Growth, writes POLITICO Florida’s Matt Dixon, Scott singled out Thomas for special praise. “Mary came aboard with me right after I got elected back in 2010 and worked in my general counsel office, and to give her bragging rights, everything she touched, it worked,” Scott said, according to audio from the meeting provided to POLITICO Florida. “So…

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