Arguing an omnibus elections bill signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis last week makes the case moot, lawyers for the state are asking a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit challenging how Florida elections officials handle mismatched signatures on mail-in and provisional ballots.

Lawyers representing former U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and Florida and national Democrats filed the lawsuit last fall in anticipation of a statewide recount in Nelson’s re-election campaign against former Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who eventually won the Senate race.

Three minutes and 51 seconds.

That’s how long it took Nikolas Cruz to kill 17 students and staff members and injure another 17 during last year’s shooting rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

And that’s the timeframe Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri repeated again and again during a presentation to law enforcement officers and educators in Havana Wednesday, as he warned that more school shootings are inevitable.

Reversing the state’s retroactive consideration of certain death-penalty cases would amount to “the most egregious judicial activism in the history of Florida,” a lawyer for a Death Row inmate argued in a brief filed Monday with the Florida Supreme Court.

The filing, in the case of convicted murderer Duane Eugene Owen, comes as a revamped Supreme Court is exploring whether to reverse course on decisions that allowed dozens of convicted murderers to have their death sentences reconsidered.

Gov. Ron DeSantis played the waiting game, at least as far as Capitol insiders were concerned, as speculation percolated throughout the week about when the Republican chief of state would uncap his red pen for the first time and veto items tucked into the new state budget.

The waiting might have been the hardest part for some, but the 90-minute notice given to Tallahassee reporters to cover Friday afternoon’s budget press conference may have been even more painful.

In his quest to get his old job back, Scott Israel spent hours jousting with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ lawyer Wednesday in a series of combative exchanges highlighting two deadly mass shootings in Broward County that led to the former sheriff’s suspension.

Israel’s seven hours of testimony Wednesday concluded a two-day hearing before a Senate special master in an appeal filed by the veteran law enforcement official after DeSantis stripped him of the sheriff’s post shortly after the Republican governor took office in January.

Blue tarps, bent trees, boarded windows and busted-up roads.

That’s the daily reality in parts of Florida’s Panhandle, 234 days since Hurricane Michael wreaked havoc.

And with the advent of the 2019 hurricane season Saturday, the anxiety is palpable.

For many in the conservative corner of the Sunshine State, angst has morphed into anger, after not one, not two, but three Republican congressmen blocked a $19 billion federal disaster-aid package that includes $1.2 billion to help rebuild heavily damaged Tyndall Air Force base, an economic driver in the area.

In a turnabout from a similar case last year, an administrative law judge Friday decided that state gambling regulators erred when they allowed South Florida’s Calder Race Course to keep its lucrative slot-machine license after demolishing a grandstand where bettors watched horses compete.

The Florida Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association challenged a state Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering renewal of Calder’s slots license after the grandstand was razed and a slot-machine facility was built near outside areas where patrons could view live races.

With a shock of white hair, a trademark bow tie and a soft, Southern drawl, Talbot “Sandy” D’Alemberte was a legal icon who influenced decades of Florida governance and was described Tuesday as a “force of nature.”

More than 100 inmates condemned to death could face a major upheaval, as a revamped Florida Supreme Court ponders whether to undo a 2016 ruling that allowed nearly half of the state’s Death Row prisoners to have their death sentences revisited.

With a conservative bloc of justices led by Chief Justice Charles Canady now in the majority, the court has begun the process of reconsidering whether changes to Florida’s death penalty-sentencing system should continue being applied retroactively to cases dating to 2002.

The Seminole Tribe of Florida made good on threats Tuesday by telling Gov. Ron DeSantis it is quitting a long-standing revenue-sharing agreement with the state after negotiations on a new gambling deal went nowhere this spring.