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Former Rep. Matt Gaetz told a Turning Point USA conference in Phoenix Sunday that he might run for Sen. Marco Rubio’s vacated Senate seat in Florida. “We have been asked which perch I will be fighting from next, and some of you throughout this conference have even given me a few suggestions,” Gaetz began, noting that people have mentioned running for governor of Florida or perhaps being a “special counsel to go after the insider trading for my former colleagues in Congress.” “It seems I may not have had enough support in the United States Senate,” Gaetz said, referring to...

Despite pleas from two former state governors and at least 90 environmental and community groups and businesses, Gov. Ron DeDantis on Friday signed a multibillion-dollar plan to build long stretches of toll roads across undeveloped sections of the state. The legislation has been labeled “the worst environmental bill in twenty years.” And the Florida Sierra Club has warned of pristine areas becoming urban sprawl, where “subdivisions and strip malls will proliferate and the natural resources that bring visitors to the state will be overused and overrun.” DeSantis approved the bill anyway. The announcement came not from the governor’s press office...

Florida Democrats have declared war on women, but fortunately their attack on our freedoms was turned back by Republicans who represented America and voted against them. Anyone who isn’t certain that Democrats are devoted to destroying America need only take a look at their despicable conduct in the Florida Senate. In a vote that never should have had to be taken, every single Democrat voted to force Sharia Law on the people of Florida. By doing so they placed women and children in very real danger. The vote was 24 votes for America and 14 votes for al Qaeda and...

I met Senate President Don Gaetz after speaking to the Senate Committee on Healthcare Exchanges. I explained to him that I wanted to teach on nullification and why the Healthcare Act is unconstitutional. He mocked the Founders of the this nation to my face, implying they are irrelevant to the interpretation of the Constituion. He laughed at my support of Constitutional principles. He then shouted out to me as he left the room that he wouldn’t read anything that I sent him. This morning I sent him an email explaining the Founders’ position on State Sovereignty and nullificaion. After sending...

This little 30 second clip is fantastic! During the most recent Florida Senate Debate, Marc Rubio was attempting to answer a question posed to him by the moderator. Just as he was geared up to get to his point, Crist would constantly interrupt and impose his own opinion. Rubio, in obvious frustration and with quick wit responds, “I’ve never had a heckler AT the debate- I’ve always had them in the audience!” Major score for Rubio and huge deductions for the moderator for allowing that kind of behavior from Crist to continue as long as it did. VIDEO

Florida’s Senate race remains all about Republican-turned-independent Charlie Crist and likely GOP nominee Marco Rubio. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Florida finds the two candidates neck-and-neck again this month, with Rubio earning 36% support and Crist, the state’s current Republican governor, capturing 34% of the vote. Prospective Democratic candidate Kendrick Meek remains a distant third, picking up 15%. Fourteen percent (14%) of the state’s voters remain undecided. A month ago, Rubio, former speaker of the Florida House, and Crist were tied at 37% apiece. Meek, an African-American congressman from the North Miami area, again was...

A generation ago, a candidate like Florida Gov. Charlie Crist would be a lock for the Senate. As the white candidate in a three-way race with a black Democrat and a Hispanic Republican, Crist would be hard to beat. Remember that Florida has a racial history that combines all the worst elements of the American experience on the issue. In 1860, almost half of Florida's population was enslaved, and the state was the third to join the Confederacy. Florida was one of the last states to integrate its schools, and both of Florida's Democratic senators voted against the Civil Rights...

What the hell is Charlie Crist doing? This is insane. Two huge problems. One, Independents don't win elections to the US Senate in three-way contests. Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman are in office because one party or the other implicitly backed them. By my count, the last candidate to win election to the Senate as an Independent (other than Sanders and Lieberman) was Harry Byrd of Virginia. He won in 1976 because the Republicans did not run a candidate. This is not coincidental; true third party candidacies almost never work: -When it comes to Congress, there's no such thing as...

Had Charlie Crist announced abruptly, two months ago, that he was running as an independent, he would have taken a day or two of questions and moved on to his campaign. Instead, he's spent two months dancing around an issue which has at this point pretty much become his campaign. Reports the Herald: A day after vetoing a contentious teacher tenure bill in Tallahassee, Gov. Charlie Crist basked in the warm embrace of Miami-Dade educators and deflected questions about leaving the Republican party. "I'm not thinking about that today,'' Crist told reporters at Alonzo and Tracy Mourning Senior High School...

    A new poll has Marco Rubio ahead of Charlie Crist in the Florida GOP Senate primary. The trajectory here is pretty obvious: Crist built an early lead based on name recognition, but Rubio is obviously the candidate Florida Republicans prefer and are going to nominate. As I've said before, I don't even expect Crist to be running in the primary when it happens. He has no chance. The question is, what will Crist do next? As I see it, he has two options. First, he can bow out of the primary, campaign energetically for Rubio in November, and...

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has rolled out a succession of endorsements from national Republicans since announcing his entrance into the 2010 Senate race. Now his Republican primary rival, former Florida House speaker Marco Rubio, has a national endorsement of his own from a conservative heavyweight: Mike Huckabee. The former Arkansas governor will formally endorse Rubio in about two weeks, according to a Florida Republican familiar with the plans. The details of where the endorsement will take place have not been decided.

I recently informed a reporter that I am an "Old School" Republican. She immediately sought clarification regarding the basis of my statement: "Did I envision myself to be a disciple of President Reagan or was I referring to years prior to the 1980's?" she asked. Though I categorically identify with the unifying demeanor and unwavering patriotism of President Reagan, my "Old School" statement readily aligns me with the founding fathers of the Republican Party. Simply stated, when I inform people that I am an "Old School" Republican, I am referring to the principles, morals, and goodwill that led to the...

Florida’s Former Chief Medical Officer and Only Announced Republican Candidate for US Senate Launches Health Care Solutions Listening Tour Gov. Jeb Bush’s Chief Medical Officer and advisor on HMO reform is running for the United States Senate to fix what he describes as a “national disaster that will limit care for all and likely bankrupt the system.” The cornerstone of his philosophy: If we continue to wait for people to get sick before treating them, the system will soon run out of resources.

TALLAHASSEE - The debate over Florida's public campaign financing program turned ugly Thursday when Republican Sen. Ronda Storms mocked President Barack Obama as "The Messiah" and a Democratic colleague made a vulgar retort. It didn't escalate beyond that, and they agreed that voters should be able to decide whether to get rid of the program that gave statewide candidates more than $11 million in taxpayer money during 2006 elections. The Senate Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations Committee unanimously approved putting a proposal to repeal the public campaign financing program on the 2010 ballot.

WASHINGTON, July 25 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Executive Director of The National Pro-Life Action Center, the nation's only pro-life initiative located on Capitol Hill, has responded to the expected endorsement of Jim King for Florida State Senate by Gov. Jeb Bush. Dr. Paul Chaim Schenck, the Executive Director of the Center, which is a joint project of Catholics United for Life, Priests for Life and Faith and Action (with a combined membership of over 250,000), issued the following statement - "Shame, shame on Jeb Bush for betraying the memory of Terri Schindler Schiavo by endorsing Jim King. As Senate president,...

VENICE, Fla. — Undaunted by a run of horrific poll numbers, staff turmoil and public doubts from leaders of her party, Representative Katherine Harris is thinking confidently beyond November. Once Ms. Harris wins her race for a Senate seat, she says, she plans to travel everywhere with a guide dog. "Before I hire anyone to work for me in the Senate, I tell them I'm going to do this," said Ms. Harris, the former Florida secretary of state best — or worst — remembered for her role in the state's election recount of 2000. Ms. Harris explains that she intends...

Harris Needs Image Change to Win Seat By BRENDAN FARRINGTON, Associated Press Writer Sat Sep 17, 2005 TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - If Katherine Harris has any hope of beating U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (news, bio, voting record), she may need an extreme makeover. The Republican congresswoman's poll numbers are poor; her appearance is a distracting issue; and many non-Republican voters see her as a flirty, vacant, beauty-queen wannabe who used her role in the 2000 presidential recount to get to Capitol Hill. Most political observers think that she can make the race competitive, though, as long as she can shed that...

TALLAHASSEE -- The parents of girls under 18 would have to be notified when their daughters are seeking an abortion under one of two abortion measures approved Wednesday by legislative committees. The other would spell out an array of regulations that abortion clinics would have to abide by, from rules dealing with sterilizing equipment and the training of employees to requirements for having certain rooms and equipment. Sponsors of that bill said it's aimed at making sure abortion clinics are safe, noting they're not regulated as thoroughly as other health care facilities. But opponents said the bill simply singles out...

Does anyone know if their website has crashed or intentionally shut down?

I returned home last night from Tallahassee, where I helped to lobby the Florida Senate to try to convince them to save Terri. I’ve not been registered at FreeRep for very long, so please try to bear with me as I try to tell you what I saw there. When the vote came up, several Senators pushed for debate. In several very long winded speeches, they argued. It seemed to me that every opponent has pulled a feeding tube on a loved one, and watched them die, and it wasn’t so bad for them, so we should just shut up....