Bill sponsor J.D. Alexander
By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist
Who in the Florida Legislature voted to make water use approval easier to get and take away wetlands permitting from local officials by giving it to a five member statewide board while also eliminating any power from the public by having closed meetings? Why, everyone, that is who.
By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio
When Marco Rubio declared his candidacy for U.S. Senate earlier this month, he said his campaign wasn’t “against anyone or anything.” On the Spanish language Univision Network, however, his tone was as different as the idiom, saying he was interested in combating “the kind of American Socialism that they want to establish in the U.S.”
Last Friday night in Tampa, I asked the former House speaker, who will compete head to head against Gov. Charlie Crist for the nomination to succeed Mel Martinez in the Senate next year, what exactly did he mean by that?
By State Rep. Rick Kriseman, D-St. Petersburg
PoHo contributor
Kriseman is blogging throughout the Florida Legislature’s 60-day session.
There is certainly no shortage of blogworthy material in Tallahassee these days. The indictment of our former speaker, Rep. Ray Sansom, has been greeted by mostly silence in the Capitol, with even my Democratic colleagues preferring to focus on the business at hand rather than score easy political points. I had thought the strong language contained in the grand jury’s indictment and the damning assessment of our legislative process would temper the culture of secrecy, but that hasn’t been the case. Participation in the budget process has been restricted to just a few Republicans, a late-filed amendment to allow oil drilling in the Gulf just a few miles off our shores was heard with almost no notice given to the amendment’s likely opponents, and a broader energy package is expected to come before the full House without prior committee or council vetting.
There’s more.
Watching the Florida Channel tonight, the Florida House Republican Conference took the bold step to formally replace former Speaker Ray Sansom as the leader of the House of Representatives. Read the rest of this entry »
The karaoke killer? Police say Robert Farley killed his father then returned to a Plant City hotel to dance and sing the night away, caught on hotel video (click here if video doesn’t load on your browser):
Today’s top headlines:
He avoided talking about Ray Sansom’s ethical problems. He has refused to have the FDLE investigate the questionable hiring or the skirting-the-Sunshine meetings. But now that Sansom has quit, Gov. Charlie Crist has an opinion:
“I think the speaker did the right thing yesterday when he resigned the position at the college and I’m sure it was difficult,” Crist said today. “But I respect his decision.”
Now THAT is political courage!
Al Jazeera report shows carnage at UN shelter attacked in Gaza.
Headlines after the jump …
Oldie but goodie: Laura Ingraham had a rough time helming her own show:
The top headlines after the jump …
Watch kids kick a St. Petersburg Times reporter dressed in a bee costume with a *tbt helmet on:
Back when it was Christmas in America …
My political tie-in for this video trailer for the upcoming 10-DVD Neil Young Archives Vol. 1? There is, of course, a clip of Nixon:
Ray Sansom is the incoming speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, a gig that pays $42,000 a 
year, and yesterday it was learned he just got another new job: the Northwest Florida State College hired him as vice president of development and planning. That paycheck? $110,000 annually.
He got that job, in addition to being speaker, cuz (as the Palm Beach Post reported)
Sansom helped push through a bill to give the school its state college desgination this year, according to the Northwest Florida Daily Herald. He attended the school when it was known as Okaloosa-Walton Junior College.
Today we learn that Sansom, a Republican from Destin (near where the GOP legislators are having a posh getaway this week) did even more for his alma mater:
House Speaker Ray Sansom got $200,000 into the current fiscal year budget to help Northwest Florida State College, his new employer, build a “leadership institute.”
In an interview today, Sansom confirmed his involvement in the appropriation, which caused a behind-the-scenes stir with the Rubio administration since it was not discovered until late in the process.
Of course, that had noooooooothing to do with his getting the gig:
But Sansom said his involvement ended there. “None of that has anything to do with me or how I’m paid,” he told The Buzz.
