Author
Making sure everyone gets to vote
Voting rights advocates say there may be hundreds of thousands of people who could be eligible to vote in Florida, but can’t because they lack proper ID. Enter the group Spread the Vote, which opened its Tallahassee chapter this week, the group’s ninth in Florida since beginning operations this summer. The group is at work […]
Florida voters: Here’s your state Constitutional Amendment guide
Florida voters could face a whopping list of 12 different proposed Amendments to Florida’s Constitution at the polls Nov. 6 (though the Florida Supreme Court still must decide whether Amendments 7, 9 and 11 will go on the midterm ballot). To make things more challenging: Some of these Amendments “bundle” several different topics into one […]
Mason-Dixon poll shows U.S. Senate race in Florida is statistically tied
The last two major elections in Florida – the presidential race of 2016 and governor’s race of 2014 – were settled by slightly more than one percentage point, so it should be no surprise that a new poll on the U.S. Senate race between Democrat Bill Nelson and Republican Rick Scott shows the race similarly […]
Environmental group wants Ron DeSantis to ‘renounce’ big industry political action committee who has endorsed him
In laying out his environmental platform last month, GOP gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis said that he would push to ban fracking and offshore drilling within state waters, moves that the environmental community has been advocating for years in Florida. But now one of those groups, Food & Water Watch, is questioning if DeSantis would ever […]
Some of Florida’s biggest counties transitioning to electric buses
This week, the Miami-Dade County Commission voted unanimously to transition its transit fleet to 50 percent electric vehicles by 2035. Meanwhile in neighboring Broward County, environmental activists say they expect lawmakers there to officially support moving to a 100 percent electric transit fleet within the next week. And Pinellas County’s transit system will begin running […]
Andrew Gillum and Ron DeSantis are in a statistical tie, according to Mason-Dixon poll
Since they were nominated as Florida’s gubernatorial candidates in late August, Democrat Andrew Gillum has led Republican Ron DeSantis in every public polling survey, but that margin is shrinking, according to a new poll. A Mason-Dixon poll published Tuesday night shows Gillum with a one- point lead over DeSantis, 45 percent to 44 percent. The […]
The political battle for Florida’s Latino vote
Two events invoke the importance of capturing the Latino vote in Florida this election year – and specifically from the burgeoning Puerto Rican community. The first took place on May 1 in West Tampa, where a crowd of local Republicans squeezed into the main dining space of a local restaurant called La Casona. They were […]
Equality Florida goes to rule making process to try to enact nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ state workers
Two years ago, Governor Rick Scott promised to sign an executive order that would protect Floridians from discrimination on the basis of their for sexual orientation or gender identity, LGBTQ activists say. Scott never delivered on that promise, and now a civil rights group is going through the state rulemaking process to have the non-discrimination […]
League of Women Voters Warns Against Amendment 5
The Republican-led Legislature isn’t a big fan of raising taxes, and in fact the only time legislators have done it in recent years was in reaction to the Great Recession nearly a decade ago. Nevertheless, critics, including the League of Women Voters of Florida, say that passage of proposed Florida Constitutional Amendment 5 on this […]
Welcome to the election: More than 2.5 million vote-by-mail ballot go out to voters starting today
Although the general election doesn’t take place for five more weeks, voting in the Nov. 6 election effectively begins this week as more than 2.5 million vote-by- mail ballots are being sent out to registered voters up and down Florida. Overseas ballots were mailed out last week. The deadline to register to vote in the Nov. 6 election […]
Gillum and Nelson endorsed by Puerto Rico’s governor
With both political parties fighting hard for the Puerto Rican vote in Florida in the Nov. 6 election, the governor of Puerto Rico Monday endorsed two Florida Democrats: Andrew Gillum for governor and Bill Nelson for U.S. Senate. The Nelson endorsement was a blow to Gov. Rick Scott, who is running for the U.S. Senate. […]
Florida Dems note DeSantis vote 5 years ago to shut down federal government
It was five years ago today that a group of hardline House Republicans who opposed the Affordable Care Act were able to shut the federal government down for 16 days. The shutdown left nearly 800,000 federal employees out of work without pay and was extremely unpopular with the public. Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis was […]