Space Coast Republican Steve Crisafulli will find himself unexpectedly as the next in line to be House speaker after the GOP caucus unanimously chose him to replace the defeated Rep. Chris Dorworth in the line of succession.

Crisafulli, of Merritt Island, was chosen Monday by the caucus to be speaker-designate in the coming two years, which means he'll follow incoming House Speaker Will Weatherford in November of 2014, assuming Crisafulli remains in office and Republicans, as expected, keep control of the chamber.

>With Florida going into Thursday as the only state in the union that hadn't determined which presidential candidate won, criticism of the voting system again began to mount and calls arose for a new look at voting procedures.

The state's Democratic Party chairman blamed Gov. Rick Scott's administration and said moves to curtail early voting were part of what caused delays at the polls on Election Day.

Florida will report in December that it has significantly reduced its outstanding debt for the second year in a row, and that continued refinancing of outstanding debt will save more than $1 billion on future interest payments, the state's top bond finance official said Tuesday.

A second year of lower debt appears to portend a reversal of a long trend. Two years of reductions follow about a decade of increasing debt loads and represent the first year-over-year drops in 20 years.

In the second to last week before voting starts, Florida this past week played its usual role as a state where presidential candidates go to make or break their fortunes. But the state also may have emerged as a place where other elections are also competitive.

The state highway safety agency is pushing for a new license plate that's easier for cameras to read to save money on lost tolls and fines.

In its proposed budget for the coming year, released Monday and set for approval by Gov. Rick Scott and the Cabinet later this month, the agency says it wants lawmakers to approve the use of more than $23 million in various existing fees to buy new plates with a goal of replacing all plates within two years.

Every dog has his day in court.

Or at least two Florida drug sniffing dogs, Franky and Aldo, will.

On Halloween, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in two separate Florida cases involving the smells picked up by drug sniffing canines.

One case involves whether a warrant is needed before a police dog goes sniffing around the door of a possible drug house. The other deals with the reliability of drug dogs and how much their skill is relevant to the admissibility of evidence.

When Gov. Rick Scott sought the governor's office, he ran as the ultimate outsider and campaigned against all that is Tallahassee, a winning strategy in the tea party year of 2010.

And since his election, some Tallahassee insiders often privately have complained that the governor wouldn't meet with representatives of some of the traditional interest groups that in the past enjoyed more access to state officials.

This time four years ago, there was a lot of talk of "hope and change." This week, President Obama exhorted Americans to continue to hope rather than to make a change.

And a Florida politician had his own kind of change on display. Charlie Crists change of heart, from "Ronald Reagan and Jeb Bush Republican" to an Obama-backing speaker at the Democratic National Convention, brought the expected calls of derision from his former Republican brethren who said he really hasn't changed and is just the same old opportunistic Charlie.

For years, Medicare was part of the "third rail" of Florida politics the untouchable subject in a state with so many elderly voters.

For the Romney-Ryan ticket, it apparently won't be.