Despite getting rave reviews for his handling of pre-landfall Hurricane Irma, some in the Capitol Press Corps remain unsatisfied with Gov. Rick Scott, accusing him of being less forthcoming than his predecessors during the worst weather threat in a generation.
With Republicans in control of all branches of state government for what is approaching nearly two decades, one check on their levers of power has been the Florida Supreme Court, which has at times has served as a safeguard to what some would call the Legislature’s worst excesses, such as redistricting and the death penalty. Until last month, Gov. Rick Scott hadnât been able to do a damn thing about the state’s highest court, but that changed when Justice James E.C. Perry was required to step…
Palm Beach Post capital reporter John Kennedy says he’s no longer working for the paper as the newspaper has shuttered its Tallahassee bureau. Kennedy, a Capitol Press Corps veteran who nonetheless kept an impressive head of hair, announced the news Friday on Facebookâ15 days before Christmas. “The paperâs future is local and digital, and coverage of the goings-on in the state Capitol donât meld as well with this direction,” he wrote. “The Post has been gracious. And weâre working on…
Florida’s new legislative class of 2017 is presumably back home for the holidays today after spending the first part of this week in Tallahassee. House Speaker Richard Corcoran and Senate President Joe Negron welcomed their troops by discussing their respective goals for the 2017 session. In the case of Corcoran, his proposals for lobbying reform have been well publicized in the past week. He also said repeated his pledge yesterday not to accept any spending projects that are not filed as House bills on the…
The Tampa Bay Times posted a timely story yesterday by Steve Bousquet about election-time misinformation. In the piece, âRumors, myths, and half-truths cloud Florida’s election,â Bousquet muses, âWhatever it is, people in Florida seem more suspicious than ever about the election.â The irony is that reporting by the Times, or at least some of its brethren, arenât helping peopleâs faith in the system. Yesterday, I bemoaned the Timesâ egregious front-page headline error. Quick recap: a story by Mary Ellen Klas bungled some math bigly, by inflating…
The head of a nonprofit that runs prisoner re-entry programs in the state said she had “no evidence” her group and others were being muscled out by private prison operator The GEO Group. But, Lori Costantino-Brown quickly added, there’s been a “lot of speculation” that the company has somehow been involved. Costantino-Brown, president and CEO of Orlando-based Bridges of America, held a press conference Thursday in Tallahassee with other care providers. The Department of Corrections has been targeting Bridges in particular as…
Democratic uber consultant (and frequent Uber customer) Steve Schale contends in a must-read, table-setting blog post about which Florida Senate races are worth watching that “Oscar Braynon is running the best Senate political operation I’ve seen in years.” Really? Technically, Schale is absolutely right. Braynon is running the best political shop in years because, when compared to previous Democratic efforts, O.B. looks like a black James Carville. Beyond Schale, there are other super-smart people in Tallahassee who think very highly of the Florida Democrats’ Senate political…
