Welcome to The Dean’s List — an Ed Dean-style look at who Florida’s political achievers were (and weren’t) in the last seven days. What you see here is strictly my opinion, not necessarily the editor’s or the rest of the staff at Sunshine State News.
U.S. Rep. David Jolly, R-Fla., came out swinging at former U.S. Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, the favorite for the Democratic presidential nomination, accusing her of downplaying the problems at the VA when she appeared on MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow's Show” on Friday night.
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VOTING-RIGHTS GROUPS FIRE BACK ON CONGRESSIONAL PLAN
Voting-rights groups filed a brief Friday urging the Florida Supreme Court to approve a congressional redistricting plan recommended by a circuit judge --- and fired back at arguments made last week by attorneys for the Legislature.
The Republican Party, like Sisyphus, is again putting its shoulder to a boulder, hoping to make modest but significant changes in the Electoral College arithmetic by winning perhaps 12 percent of the African- American vote. To this end, they need to hone a rhetoric of skepticism about, and an agenda for reform of, the criminal justice system. They can draw on the thinking of a federal appellate judge nominated by Ronald Reagan.
Businessman Donald Trump took his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination to Jacksonville on Saturday, saying his effort was about leading America to victories again, securing the border and taking shots at some of his primary opponents.
Nobody thought the Legislature's latest attempt at crafting new Senate districts was going to be easy.
But this week's intraparty Republican fighting at the opening of a special session --- in a year that sadly might best be characterized as the "Session That Never Ended" --- foreshadowed what could be another grim two weeks of drawing maps, chased by an equally foreboding regular session in a few months.
The contentiousness wasn't restricted to the Legislature's domain, however, even if another painful controversy did wind up inside the Capitol.
When James Carville rants that Rep. Trey Gowdy is a super-villain spawned by Rupert Murdoch, conservatives could reply by noting that Murdoch has much less of a financial connection to Gowdy than he does to gay leftist TV producer Ryan Murphy, who had one hit with "Glee" and an ugly garbage barge of other TV programs.
All of Florida’s state senators will have to run for reelection in 2016 as part of a new Senate map proposal passed by the Senate redistricting committee Friday. The vote was 4-3.
