Florida's newly drawn 10th Congressional District includes Disney World, but Democrats are stuck in Fantasy Land if they think they can beat GOP Rep. Daniel Webster, Republicans say.

The district, previously represented by Democrat Alan Grayson, turned redder with redistricting. Voters in the district, which includes portions of Orange, Lake and Polk counties, voted for John McCain over Barack Obama by a margin of 52 percent to 47 percent and went for Republican Rick Scott over Alex Sink 52 percent to 44 percent in the 2010 gubernatorial election.

Rising inequality "is the defining issue of our time," said President Obama in his Osawatomie speech that echoed the "New Nationalism" address Theodore Roosevelt delivered in that same Kansas town a century ago.

With much ado over intemperate and ill-thought remarks by a prominent radio personality recently, it is even more critical than ever to raise a loud call for increased civility in public discourse.

The failure of a single bill to reach the Senate floor -- a controversial one that Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty claimed would lower workers compensation costs for businesses -- doomed the parent trigger for school choice in the final days of the 2012 session.

Sen. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, one of the original supporters of the Parent Empowerment Act, cast his vote against the act in the waning hours of the regular session on March 9, causing the bill, better known as the parent trigger act, to die in a 20-20 vote.

While Republicans have little hopes of stealing Barack Obamas home state in November, with 69 delegates, the Land of Lincoln will hold a prominent spot at the Republican convention in Tampa. As Republicans across the state hit the polls on Tuesday to vote in the primary, a poll released on Monday finds Mitt Romney has a large lead in Illinois.

The 2012 congressional redistricting cycle following the 2010 Census is just about over and done with. And it seems likely to make much less difference than many of us expected.

Conservative authorities claim President Barack Obama should not be entertaining ideas of releasing oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).

And though the president says hes doing no such thing, a British official with knowledge of the discussion confirmed Obama raised the issue during a broad bilateral meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron last week.

In fact, Obama called for that solution as a candidate in 2008 when gasoline prices neared $4 per gallon.

The circuit judge's ruling invalidating the state's 3 percent employee pension contribution requirement will be decided directly by the Florida Supreme Court.

In a short memo, the 1st District Court of Appeal said it would not rule on the decision by Circuit Judge Jackie Fulford that invalidated a state law passed last year that requires employees to pay 3 percent of their salaries toward their retirement plans.

WASHINGTON -- Sallie James was born in Australia on July 4, 1976, which suggests that Providence planned what happened 30 years later: She moved to Washington.

Sharkey's restaurant had just gone back to regular hours in the Capitol when lawmakers returned again this week to redraw political boundaries stricken a week earlier by the state's highest court.

Though not likely to draw the crowds that kept the 10th floor coffee bar pumping espresso at a Neapolitan clip, the special session on reapportionment did its part to extend the capitol's busy season, assuring another week of more people in suits than kids in school groups.