Part of the House leadership as deputy majority whip, U.S. Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Fla., scored a win on Tuesday as the House passed his Private Investment in Housing Act of 2015. The bill gives the U.S.  Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) authorization to create a “demonstration project that will encourage private-sector entities to retrofit and modernize a limited number of HUD multi-family housing units at absolutely no cost to taxpayer dollars.”

Alachua County Sheriff Sadie Darnell is the new president of the  Florida Sheriffs Association (FSA), the second woman to hold that position. 

Vowing to be “part of the solution, not part of the problem," Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera launched a bid on Wednesday for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by his ally U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. Rubio is not running for a second term as he aims for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. 

From his perch as chairman of the U.S. Senate Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said the U.S. needed to hold Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman if he is caught again. Guzman has now made his second escape from a Mexican prison. 

President Barack Obama will have a hard time getting his deal with Iran over its nuclear program though Congress and he did not get a ringing endorsement from U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

Former Florida Rep. Joe Pickens, now the president of St. Johns River State College, announced on Monday he was backing Bobby Payne for the Republican nomination to replace term-limited Rep. Charlie Van Zant, R-Keystone Heights. 

Former U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., now the president and CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), took off the gloves and tore into former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s economic plan. Clinton, the favorite for the Democratic presidential nomination, unveiled her economic plan on Monday. 

U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Fla., running for the Democratic nomination in the 2016 U.S. Senate race in Florida, said he had concerns with President Barack Obama’s deal with Iran on that nation’s nuclear program. 

Currently running for the Republican nomination to replace U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., in 2016, U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., the chairman of the House National Security Subcommittee and a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, ripped President Barack Obama’s deal with Iran over its nuclear program. 

On Friday, Red Alert Politics released the first part of its “30 Under 30” profiles of rising young conservatives and a Florida Republican activist is on the list.