Free Republic

<p>TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida's next governor will get to pick three new justices to the Florida Supreme Court, the high court ruled Monday in a rebuke to Gov. Rick Scott.</p> <p>Three justices appointed by the late Gov. Lawton Chiles will retire next January, the same day Scott leaves office.</p>

With the recent defeat of Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu — which leaves three Democratic Southern U.S. Senators — the common wisdom is that Democrats should bid farewell to the South. Even with favorable changing national demographics that benefit Democrats, an abandonment of the South and, on a larger scale, a viable moderate wing would be a mistake. Recently, writer Michael Tomasky argued that the South, a “reactionary, prejudice-infested” region, should be left to Republicans to create a “free market Jesus paradise.” Few sentiments better show what is wrong with Democrats today and why ironic Republican arguments that it is the...

Chiles Drops Out of Florida Governor Race Tuesday March 1, 2005 7:31 PM TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - The son and namesake of former Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles Jr. dropped out of the 2006 governor's race Tuesday because does not meet the state's residency requirement. Lawton ``Bud'' Chiles III, 51, said had not been aware the constitution requires a gubernatorial candidate to live in the state for the seven years before the election. He had announced his candidacy in January. ``I'm clearly a Floridian. Me and my family are Floridians and always have been and always will be. Yet there's this...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - The son and namesake of former Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles Jr. said Tuesday he will run for governor in 2006, hoping to capture the seat his father held for eight years before Gov. Jeb Bush took office. The younger Chiles, a Democrat, has never run for political office. "The primary reason I'm running in this campaign is because I feel like people's access to government is limited by money, power and politics," said Lawton "Bud" Chiles III. "The average Joe Citizen is pretty much disenfranchised from the system." Chiles, 51, lives in Orlando and runs a coastal...

It was 1997, and the tobacco companies were on the ropes. Facing a rash of lawsuits from state attorneys general seeking billions of dollars in reimbursement for what they claimed were the Medicaid costs of smoking-related diseases, the companies were about to agree to an unprecedented settlement with the states. Under that settlement, the major tobacco companies would pay the states more than $200 billion, accept sweeping restrictions on cigarette advertising and pay $1.5 billion for an antismoking campaign. While very few editorialists had much sympathy for the tobacco companies, many wondered what kind of precedents these lawsuits would...