Gov. Rick Scott, Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Allen West have been invited to attend this year’s Values Voters Summit — one of the biggest conservative and religious right summits in the country.
A stipulated order and consent judgment in an FEC investigation into a former business partner of Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Sarasota, was filed yesterday, a sign that the case may be nearing its end. According to the filing, Buchanan’s one-time business partner, Sam Kazran, must pay $5,000 for “a non-knowing and non-willful violation of” an ethics rule against knowingly helping or assisting any person in making a campaign contribution in the name of another.
A U.S. District judge on Saturday ruled that limits on sewage, manure and fertilizer contamination in state waters must take effect by March 6. Judge Robert Hinkle supported a set of federally mandated criteria for Florida waterways in his ruling, but argued that two portions of the EPA-drafted rules are “arbitrary and capricious.”
State Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, appeared on Democracy Now! yesterday to discuss the defeat of a bill that would have privatized 27 Florida prisons. The bill would have essentially created the biggest corporate prison system in the country.
The National Stonewall Democrats, the “national voice of LGBT Democrats” have launched a campaign urging gay and lesbian Republicans to not support “anti-LGBT GOP presidential candidates.”
A right-wing group has announced it will “pressure states and localities” through lawsuits, if necessary, “to clean up voter registration rolls pursuant to Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).” The group claims that several states, including Florida, have voters on their registration rolls that are ineligible to vote.
A bill created to privatize 27 Florida prisons died on the state Senate floor today in a 19-21 vote.
This morning, the Huffington Post reported that a private prison company had approached 48 states — of which Florida is one — to trade cash in exchange for contracts to run state prisons.
The legal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has asked the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Sarasota, over allegations contained in a new Office of Congressional Ethics report.
The NAACP and employees with the Department of Corrections spoke out against the Legislature’s renewed efforts to privatize state prisons during a press conference at the capitol today.
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