Category Archives: Florida

This song, Sunshine State, should have been a contender for state song instead of the horrors we got.

But at least you can enjoy the video.

(via Eye on Miami)

The Florida Democratic party had caucuses last weekend; as far as I know these don't count any more than anything else Florida Democrats do.

The numerical results were determined by the voting in the Florida primary. The issue at the caucus was who would get to be the actual delegates.

How are the district-level caucuses run? Who chooses the delegates? The selection of district-level delegates will be in 25 post-primary district-level caucuses around the state on March 1, 2008. The highest vote-getters slotted under each presidential candidate are elected. (The numbers each presidential candidate gets in each district is dependent on the Presidential Primary results in that district.) In order to participate as a voter in the caucus, a voter must establish that he or she is a registered Democrat within the Caucus' Congressional District. Voters must present a voter registration card and photo I.D. The voter will then be required to fill out a statement of support for the presidential candidate whom he or she supports. Delegates and alternates will be elected only by those participants at the caucus who have declared support for the same candidate to whom the delegate or alternates are pledged. Each participating voter must vote for exactly the number of delegate candidates to which the presidential candidate is entitled. Undervotes and overvotes will result in that ballot becoming invalid and will not count.

See the unofficial results, if you want to know who won in south Florida.

Think Progress was where I saw it first: Florida lawmaker seeks Confederate flag specialty plate.

Florida state Rep. Donald Brown (R) introduced a bill last week to create a “Confederate Heritage” license plate for the state. Saying “it would give motorists a way to show pride in their heritage,” Brown proposes a $25 charge for motorists to purchase a plate with “a shield displaying the rebel battle flag symbol surrounded by several flags from the Civil War era.” The money would benefit “educational programs run by Sons of Confederate Veterans,” which considers the Civil War to be “the Second American Revolution.”

And they even have a picture:

Florida has more specialty license plates than you can imagine. Some are very nice.

According to the Wall St. Journal's Objection! Funny Legal Ads Draw Censure, Florida leads the nation in restrictions on the use of animals in lawyer advertising.

Tigers are OK. Lions probably. But no sharks or pit bulls. Go figure.

The article is limited only to animals and TV ads; had they mentioned advertising rules more generally, and especially the evolving rules relating to law firm web pages, they'd have had to mention New York state's increasingly restrictive policies, quite possibly worse than Florida's.

Haven't voted yet, but this is how I'm leaning:

Presidential beauty contest: John Edwards.

Several times I've thought of voting tactically for Obama since he's my favorite of the two leading candidates. But he has done just enough progressive-bashing, and his health plan has a big enough hole that I think I'm sticking with voting for Edwards.

State Amendment 1 (starve localities, decimate services, and discriminate against young people and immigrants from out of state by further limiting property tax increase on housing appreciation): NO!

County proposition 1 (technical change on election rules to save millions of dollars): Yes

County proposition 2 (elect the county property assessor): No?

This is the one vote I'm least certain about — I don't know who is behind it, or what they hope to achieve. Nor does this seem the sort of post all that well suited to election, even if other counties do it.

Country proposition 3 (2nd try at legalizing slot machine gambling at dog races & frontons): NO!

On balance I think we don't need to feed gambling addictions; the claims of jobs and revenue from out-of-state tourists are bogus; the claim that revenue will help schools is also belied by experience of lottery money being offset by decreased spending. And it's been sad to see teachers and cops pressed into service arguing for dog track gambling.