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Doing Redistricting Over

This week will witness a rather unusual event in Florida government: an August special legislative session. A memo issued Monday announces that the Florida House and Senate are calling themselves into...

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Trimming the Serpent’s Tail

On day one of the Legislature’s special session to redraw the congressional district map for Florida, identical draft maps were presented to both chambers. Next step: committee hearings. I don’t...

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The Budget Train Wreck: Business Sense and the Low-Income Pool

Today and tomorrow, I’m digging into what appears to be the crux of the budget train wreck in Tallahassee: health care funding related to uninsured residents. My critique will be based on reading the...

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The Budget Train Wreck: The Coercive Power of Money

Yesterday, I started writing about the budget impasse in Tallahassee and its roots in the conflict over health care funding related to uninsured residents. Yesterday’s focus was Governor Scott’s claim...

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A Tale of Two Cities: Tallahassee, Medicaid and the Worst of Times

Among political reporters, there’s a way to talk about politicians who make mistakes, then compound them by their explanations of their behavior, then do it again. Such political actors are called “the...

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A Tale of Two Cities – Why Tallahassee Seems More Dysfunctional than D.C.

Last week, I told a tale of two capital cities, one exhibiting what fans of effective governance might see as the “worst of times”, one exhibiting at least some signs of what could pass for the “best...

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Who Should Pay (and What Must Be Paid) If the Government Shuts Down?

Being good with a budget means being good at seeing the glass half empty and leaking. It’s more than simply not counting one’s chickens before they’re hatched, more than not pretending one can pay...

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The Death Penalty in Nebraska, Medicaid in Florida, and the True Conservative

The recent budget debacle in Florida can be mined for numerous lessons, whether one is interested in the personal strengths and weaknesses of Florida’s leaders, their personal political and financial...

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The Florida Legislature’s Special Session: A Game of Cat and Lizard

Today, the towels are hung back on the rack and the Florida House and Senate begin a special session that must produce one piece of legislative fruit in order to avert chaos: a balanced budget for the...

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Week One of the Florida Special Legislative Session: The FHIX Is Out

Last Wednesday, the Florida Senate passed its updated program to provide health insurance options for hundreds of thousands of uninsured Floridians. The revised FHIX (Florida Health Insurance Exchange)...

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The Florida Budget Process: What a (Little) Difference 72 Hours Makes

It’s all over but for the voting. Florida’s three-day cooling off period before the budget can be adopted is one of those constitutional provisions that seems to enforce what most would call common...

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My Crystal Ball and the Florida Legislative Special Session: It’s a Great...

On June 1, as the special session was getting under way,  I made five predictions about how the session would turn out. Here’s how those predictions turned out: Each chamber will “entertain” some...

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Where Do We Go From Here? The Uncertain Future of Redistricting in Florida

August days Looking back on district maps That once gave us near certain chance We thought our plan would last through time. But it’s tougher now The litigation was oh so long And now the private chats...

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Redistricting: Lessons about Lines in the Sand

True confessions: My first reaction to the headline news that the Florida Legislature had failed to adopt a redrawn congressional district map was one of anger. The Legislature had failed to do the one...

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Tainting with a Muddy Brush: Democratic Contributions to Florida’s...

There’s this transition that occurs at some point in childhood, as Tinkerbell and her kind apparently die off because another child stops believing. First, we learn that the toys we see in ads exist,...

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Redistricting’s Extra Innings: Citizens May be the Ultimate Winners

The World Series of baseball ended last night with a come-from-behind ninth inning and a booming bats twelfth for the Kansas City Royals. Definitely a game for the record books. Meanwhile back in...

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The Legislature Fails (Again!) to Draw Maps: Respect and How We Earn It

I met with Shannon, a former student of mine, earlier this week. She has done very well, I’ll note with some pride and mostly admiration. But there was a time when that success was very much in doubt....

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A Pay Raise for Our State Legislators (?)

I found myself agreeing with Senator Arthenia Joyner (D-Tampa) this week. I also found myself shaking my head in disbelief that I did. The issue is the pay of our state legislators. The proposal is to...

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A Lesson from 2015

It’s that season of the year when everyone engages in retrospectives. So I’ve gone back over my blogs for 2015 to see what I could see. My first posts of 2015 focused on violent death. I addressed a...

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Public Records Requests and Attorney’s Fees: Exactly What Difference Does a...

As any reader of this blog must realize, I love language. Among the joys I experience with language are the cherished moments when the word chosen was . . . not quite right. Like one of my daughters...

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Talking Tax Cuts: Too Much Tax?

While there has been remarkable peace on the hill in Tallahassee since the legislative session opened last month, there are some reasons to anticipate intensifying conflict. Some of the most important...

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Talking Tax Cuts: Too Much from This Source?

I began a discussion of tax cuts earlier this week by noting that arguments for tax cuts tend to come in three varieties. The first and perhaps most common, that taxes are simply too high (period), I...

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Talking Tax Cuts: Cut Taxes to Increase Tax Revenue

Funny thing about money: one has to have it to spend it. This is as true of state and local government as it is of any organization. For a business, the money comes in as income from sales of products...

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The Art of the Legislative Deal

As most anyone watching national politics can see without reading the polls, there are a lot of angry folks living in these United States. Anger is a powerful, useful and dangerous emotion. If one can...

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It Ain’t Over till the Veto Pen Inks

Congratulations are in order for Florida’s Legislature. Barring something most unforeseen, a balanced budget will pass before the final gavel falls this Friday. A session that began with explicit...

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Do Fair Districts Make a Difference? Some Preliminary Data

I wrote yesterday about one amendment to Florida’s constitution that seems to have been deprived of its intended effect by the political maneuverings of our two major parties, some of their candidates,...

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