Free Republic

TALLAHASSEE - Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris revealed Thursday she didn't resign her office before qualifying to run for Congress, an apparent violation of state election law. Harris sent her resignation letter to Gov. Jeb Bush Thursday, but said it was effective July 15, the day she qualified to fun for the 13th Congressional District seat. Harris said she has been the ``de facto''' secretary of state since then. Bush was out of town on a campaign trip. His office said he accepted Harris' resignation but had no further reaction. The oversight is embarrassing because the secretary of state...

The Sarasota Cobras were out of gas after playing four games on one day at the Florida Amateur Athletic Union state baseball championship in Clearwater. This was their fifth game, on a Sunday in May. Five games starting at 7:45 in the morning and ending at 9 at night. The Cobras, an amalgam of the finest 13-year-olds Sarasota has to offer, whipped eight other teams over three days to get to the deciding game. Cobras players had beaten two teams that had pounded them earlier in the year. Now they faced a team called the Elite, a group of All-Star...

SARASOTA -- Republican congressional candidate Chester Flake dropped out of the 13th District race Wednesday because of a paperwork error that he says was engineered by his opponent, Katherine Harris. Flake, 27, a computer consultant who has never held elected office, was on his way to the Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections office Wednesday morning to deliver a stack of 2,400 petition signatures when he ran into a friend. Seeing the pile of petitions, Flake's friend asked him if he'd also remembered to turn in his "alternative method affidavit," required for candidates who seek to get on the ballot by...