Category Florida Legislature
Zest of the Day: Florida adding mostly low wage jobs
No question that Florida’s economy has been growing but it has been mostly low wage jobs according to Wells Fargo. Full report here.
Despite high hopes House returned to culture of entitlement and arrogance
Despite lofty, feel good rhetoric the Florida House never changes. Entering 2013 hopes were high that a kinder, gentler Speaker in Will Weatherford would steer the House away from partisan confrontation and towards consensus oriented solutions. However, the opposite occurred with more partisan fighting and ideological saber rattling from the new House leadership. In our […]
TFS Legislative Scorecard release schedule
Ryan Ray and I have been hard at work compiling votes and scoring our legislators. Thanks to all our reader suggestions for bills and amendments to place in the scorecard. Our release schedule is as follows: Sunday May 12 – House Scorecard & analysis Sunday May 19 – Senate Scorecard & analysis Thanks again to […]
Zest of the Day: Weatherford’s Veer to the right
Michael Van Sickler whose recent work has been fantastic continues post session coverage today on the Tampa Bay Times with this gem nicely wrapping up a theme we have covered extensively on this site over the past two months.
Governor Rick Scott should veto HB 655
Governor Scott made an effort publicly to expand Medicaid coverage in Florida but as we learned recently he made little effort to push the House to his position on this issue. Now HB 655, a bill which strips local governments of significant control over such issues as earned sick time is in front you. It […]
Seeking reader input on legislative scorecard
In the coming weeks, the Florida Squeeze will issue our first ever legislative scorecard which is rating based on floor votes for each 0f the 160 legislators. We’d like to get reader input on which specific issue or votes to score in this survey. Leave comments in the thread below.
House Democrats stood tall on tax breaks; Senate Democrats did not
We spent a lot of time on this website over the past few weeks discussing the manufacturing tax breaks pushed by Governor Scott. As I have stated regularly, these tax breaks have not worked in the past and Florida despite being the 4th most populated state ranks 43rd in manufacturing. Our low ranking exists in […]
How hard did Rick Scott push for Medicaid expansion? Let’s ask the Speaker Designee!
Video of Speaker Designee Crisafulli at Sine Die stating that Governor Scott never reached out to him on Medicaid expansion. Video courtesy of Amy Ritter and Florida Watch Action.
The Florida Squeeze Post-Session Awards; Looking for reader input
The Florida Squeeze will be issuing a progressive scorecard based exclusively on votes we “score” in the upcoming weeks. Additionally, we’d like to take reader nominations for the following awards: 1- Best progressive in House 2- Best progressive in Senate 3- Most bi-partisan Republican in House 4- Most bi-partisan Republican in Senate 5- Most effective […]
Video: Senator Simmons Home Rule Hypocrisy
For many years Republicans claimed “government closer to the people is the best government of all.” But today’s power grabbing, self-entitled Florida Republican legislative majority think the best government is the one they control. Watch Senator David Simmons, long considered a reasonable moderate when compared to many of his GOP colleagues discuss the need for […]
The Florida Squeeze 