Four Republicans --- two lawmakers, a former lawmaker and a palm-tree farmer --- are competing to replace Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, who is term-limited in the Cabinet office and running for governor.
As students across Florida start the new school year, incoming Senate President Bill Galvano wants lawmakers to think about expanding the school-safety efforts approved during the 2018 legislative session after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
In a series of tweets Tuesday, the Bradenton Republican implored senators to look more at school safety.
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson is sticking to his comment that “Russians are in Florida’s election records,” as Gov. Rick Scott pushes for more information and questions the veracity of the claim.
With the two set to square off in the November general election for the Senate seat, Nelson’s office said Tuesday the focus needs to be on election security not personal political gain and that “it would just be wrong, shortsighted and foolish to think that Russia is not doing in Florida what it did in 2016.”
Nearly $450,000 was spread to seven statewide candidates in the second round of public matching funds, raising the total for the 2018 elections to $3.9 million, according to Florida Division of Elections numbers.
A handcuffed man shot twice after being put into the back of a patrol car in Pinellas County and a bicyclist hit by a school bus in Miami-Dade County are among the subjects of “claim” bills filed Wednesday in the state Senate.
The bills are the first to be filed for the 2019 legislative session, which begins March 5.
As of 5 p.m., senators had filed at least 16 bills, seeking more than $28.9 million, for incidents in which state or local government agencies played a role in people dying or getting harmed, according to measures posted on the Senate website.
Nearly $3.5 million in public matching funds were distributed to seven candidates --- including three gubernatorial candidates who drew a combined $2.6 million --- when the first checks went out Friday.
Facebook said this week it mistakenly banned an ad by Republican Matt Caldwell, but not before the candidate for Florida agriculture commissioner was able to score plenty of statewide free media on the issue.
Caldwell, a state House member from North Fort Myers, couldn’t have asked for better pre-primary publicity than for Facebook --- under fire from conservatives for its perceived liberal advertising rules --- to reject a 15-second ad in which an armed Caldwell brags of his National Rifle Association endorsement.
Florida continues to heat up, despite daily rains that have renewed discharges from polluted Lake Okeechobee into algae-filled waters on both coasts.
Pre-election grades from the National Rifle Association drew praise from candidates on both sides of the political spectrum.
Florida is halting payments to a company upgrading the SunPass toll-collection system until all the changes in the $287 million project are deemed “fully operational.”
