Last year, the U.S. House passed the “Student, Teachers, and Officers Preventing (STOP) School Violence Act” from two congressmen from the Sunshine State--and now another member of the Florida delegation is using it to help secure schools in his district.
Introduced by U.S. Rep. John Rutherford, R-Fla., with U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., as the main cosponsor, the bill got through the House on a 407-10 vote last year.
U.S. Rep. Brian Mast joined Gov. Ron DeSantis in announcing he had received, but will return, campaign contributions from two Soviet-born South Florida businessmen arrested last week on federal campaign finance charges.
According to their indictments, Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian-born resident of Boca Raton, and Igor Fruman, a naturalized citizen from Belarus and Sunny Isles Beach resident, used wire transfers from shell corporations to illegally funnel $325,000 in foreign “straw donations” to the pro-Trump super PAC America First Action committee in 2018.
With two looming ballot proposals that would legalize recreational marijuana in Florida, state House leaders are going on offense on the issue.
The House Health & Human Services Committee on Tuesday heard an hour-long presentation from Harvard Medical School psychobiologist Bertha Madras, who issued dire warnings about the dangers of marijuana use, particularly for youngsters.
“Marijuana is not benign. It is not safe. It is addictive. … It interferes with learning and memory,” cautioned Madras, who specializes in substance use disorders.
U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., has teamed up with congressmen from both sides of the aisle to bring out a bill to call for a diplomatic solution to the Libyan conflict.
Deutch, the chairman of the U.S. House Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee, paired up with U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-SC, U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., and U.S. Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-NJ, to introduce a proposal “to clarify and strengthen American policy in support of a peaceful diplomatic resolution to the Libyan conflict and to deter foreign interference in Libya” at the end of last week.
A South Florida congresswoman is pairing up with a presidential candidate on a bill to help social and emotional learning (SEL) in classrooms.
Last week, U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, D-Fla., paired up with U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, on the “Social and Emotional Learning for Families (SELF) Act.” Ryan introduced the bill at the start of last week and he and Mucarsel-Powell weighed in on the bill on Friday.
After the loss of roughly $350 million a year in payments from the Seminole Tribe of Florida, House and Senate leaders are rethinking the state’s approach to gambling, one of the Legislature’s most-complicated and elusive issues.
The shift in direction could be good news for the state’s pari-mutuel operators.
“What we need to start doing is looking at what’s available to us on the private side of the equation, versus just the compact,” Senate President Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, told The News Service of Florida.
If Florida Democrats could sum up the state party’s early 2020 strategy in three words, they would be registration, registration, registration.
During the party’s convention this weekend in Orlando, leaders stressed they have fixed past errors in their voter-registration strategy and are busy building a more Democratic-friendly electorate more than a year from Election Day.
“I think we are going to win by putting our head down and doing the work,” said Juan Peñalosa, executive director of the Florida Democratic Party.
In a case involving questions about First Amendment rights and allegations of malice, a prominent South Florida environmentalist has gone to the state Supreme Court in a battle stemming from her opposition to a project that included limerock mining.
Attorneys for Maggy Hurchalla filed a notice that she will ask the Supreme Court to overturn a 4th District Court of Appeal ruling that upheld a $4.4 million verdict against her, according to documents posted Friday on the Supreme Court website.
Florida Senate President Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, announced Friday the appointment of Sen. Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, as a Florida member of the Southern States Energy Board. Galvano appointed Sen. Debbie Mayfield, R-Melbourne, chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, the Environment, and General Government as an alternate Florida member.
A new voucher program approved during the 2019 legislative session that dramatically expanded Florida’s school choice program but is being challenged in court has reached its first-year enrollment cap of 18,000 students, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Friday.
The Family Empowerment Scholarship Program, adopted as Senate Bill 7070 in party-line votes, is the state’s fifth school-choice voucher program but the first to use public money to pay for private school tuition and to be directly administered by the state’s Department of Education (DOE).
