Debate on the future of the tea party includes First Coast leader

The Heritage Foundation just wrapped up a panel discussion called “Where Does the Tea Party Go from Here?” Panelists included Billie Tucker, executive director of the First Coast Tea Party in Florida, Ed Morrissey from Hot Air and Byron…

With voting rights groups reeling, new registrations decline

In Florida, the number of new voter registrations is down 26.7 percent from 2006.

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee starts cutting struggling candidates loose

Yesterday came the news that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has begun practicing some tough love, canceling all remaining ad reservations in eight districts in order to save money for more competitive ones.
Six of the districts — including those…

How the American Legislative Exchange Council turned health care repeal into a national wave

The secret world of ALEC’s hacks.

Broken Federal Election Commission fails to enforce campaign finance laws

“I do not think that most citizens know that, for all practical purposes, we do not have a campaign finance enforcement agency,” says Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21. “We have a set of laws on the books, but we have an agency that basically refuses to enforce them, or misinterprets the laws in ways that cripples their impact.”

GOP gambles with its ‘Pledge to America’

After following a long road to completion, the GOP’s “Pledge to America” is finally being announced today in Sterling, Virginia, and almost everybody thinks it’s a bad idea. That’s because the document, while it proposes a seemingly…

Crist begins dogging Rubio

The ad wars continue to run hot in Florida’s three-way Senate race, but the lines of attack keep shifting. Gov. Charlie Christ, running as an independent, seems to have exhausted his ability to steal Democrats away from Democratic Rep. Kendrick…

Catholic groups spent millions supporting anti-gay marriage efforts

The Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal society founded in New Haven, Conn. in 1881, does a lot of good work. In a report detailing its charitable giving during 2009, the organization noted that while the “Knights and their families are hardly immune to the economic downturn,” they had once again furthered their proud 128-year tradition of service — a tradition including “helping the widows and orphans of the late 19th century” and “providing coats to poor, cold children.”

Add to that list a donation of a whopping $1.4 million in 2009 to the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), a nonprofit group dedicated to fighting same-sex marriage through the ballot initiative system in California, Maine and other states. While NOM hasn’t yet made public its 2009 fundraising numbers, the amount of charitable contributions it received in 2008 totaled approximately $2.9 million.

Two more nonprofits attack House Democrats, including Boyd, Grayson, Kosmas

The Associated Press reports that two additional nonprofits that support conservative causes — Americans for Job Security and the 60 Plus Association — have joined the election spending fray in a big way, buying $5 million in advertisements attacking Democrats in…

Crist comments on health care, gay marriage may drive votes to Meek

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist continues to walk an increasingly fine line in his Senate bid as an independent, making a few statements this weekend on CNN’s State of the Union that are sure to roil some of his Democratic…