The historic Governors Inn in downtown Tallahassee will be holding its grand reopening on Wednesday and there will be governors galore in attendance. The inn will be naming rooms after four former governors who will all be in attendance. Former Governors Claude Kirk, Reubin Askew, Bob Graham and Bob Martinez will be present at the reopening. Gov. Charlie Crist is expected to attend.

Marathon Debate Not Long Enough for SP Times

By Kevin Derby

While the House of Representatives was in the middle of a roughly 9-hour debate on teacher performance pay, the St. Petersburg Times was jumping the gun with an editorial that called the deliberations, which lasted from 5 p.m. Thursday to 2:26 a.m. Friday, a "rush job." In an editorial titled "An arrogant attempt to reform schools" and released Thursday at 10:48 p.m, before the debate ended, the Times stated:

New Day, New Session?

By Kevin Derby

The Houses handling of teacher performance pay will continue even after the debate. The House leadership will attempt to adjourn and start a new legislative session in order to move the bill back to the Senate and send it to the governor as soon as possible. The Democrats promise to fight the measure to prove they will not roll over on the issue. This means the House will be in session (or is that sessions?) for the better part of 12 hours and possibly longer.

House Performance Pay Debate Drags into Friday

By Kevin Derby

The House is wrapping up its seventh hour of debate on the teacher perfomance pay bill with no end in sight. House Speaker Larry Cretul, R-Ocala, just announced that there were still 20 speakers wanting to debate the measure and, with each one having as long as 15 minutes to speak on the issue, this will go on for hours. Will the measure pass?It appears likelydespite at least nine Republicans breaking ranksto vote against it.

Sinking? Alex Sink Releases Campaign Manager and Finance Guru, Brings in New Staff

By Kevin Derby

Paul Dunn, we hardly knew ye. A day after posting its campaign finance figures for the first quarter of 2010 and revealing it was outraised by GOP frontrunner Bill McCollum, state CFO Alex Sinks gubernatorial campaign announced that campaign manager Dunn and finance director Joanna Belanger are off the team. Before his stint as Sinks campaign manager, Dunn was best known for leading the upset effort of Suzanne Kosmas to win a seat in Congress back in 2008.

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Disgraced Party Boss ...

Former Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer wants the state to stop investigating him. Rather, he wants the U.S. Attorney's Office to conduct the probe into alleged misappropriation of party funds. Gov. Charlie Crist, longtime friend of the disgraced RPOF boss, apparently sees things the same way, as he asked Thomas Kirwin, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Florida, to investigate.

Dockery Called Out on "Barely True" Claim About SB 6

By Kevin Derby

Sen. Paula Dockery, who's running for governor, is one of very few Republicans who is opposing SB 6 -- the performance pay bill. But it seems she might be making claims that don't hold a lot of water. PolitiFact.com summarizes it like this: "Dockery said, 'teachers will not be able to return to work after raising their children.' We find there is a provision in SB 6 to prevent this scenario, but because the rules won't be written until after the bill becomes law, we can't definitely say what will happen. We rule Dockery's claim Barely True."

Florida Politicians Following an Old Game Plan

By Kevin Derby

As the House prepares to take up teacher performance pay, I was reminded of a political advertisement that I came across last night. The politician promised to alter the salaries of Floridas teachers, offer more transparency in government, make our public universities a priority and do it all without raising taxes. Bill McCollum? Alex Sink? Paula Dockery? Jeff Kottkamp? Dan Gelber? Jeff Atwater? Keep guessing. The ad was actually from Fuller Warrens gubernatorial campaign back in 1948. The more things change...

Dockery keeps up her attacks ... on Republicans

Paula Dockery kept up her anti-establishment campaign this week by blasting her party's leaders' "slush funds." Dockery, who is challenging Attorney General Bill McCollum for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, praised Gov. Charlie Crists veto of the Leadership Fund bill. I congratulate Gov. Charlie Crist for standing up to legislative leaders and vetoing a bill that would have allowed them to create slush funds for influencing elections across the state," the senator from Lakeland said in a release.

Sink Pulls in $1.1 Million

By Kevin Derby

State CFO Alex Sink announced today that she has raised $1.1 million in the first quarter of 2010 for her gubernatorial bid. While GOP frontrunner Attorney General Bill McCollum pulled in $1.4 million during that same time, Sink now has raised more than $6.2 million for the campaign and has more than $5 million cash in hand -- a considerable advantage over McCollum, who has raised a total of $4.7 million and has around $4 million cash in hand.

Load more