Don Gaetz

TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Rick Scott this week is rattling sabers over his priorities for manufacturing tax-cuts and bigger teacher pay-raises. But House Speaker Will Weatherford told reporters Tuesday that he had faith the House and Senate would come...

Gov. Rick Scott sent a message Tuesday to House Speaker Will Weatherford and Senate President Don Gaetz that his priorities need to get more attention.  “I’m sure that the speaker of the house and the senate president would like to have a...

Backed by the president of the state Senate, a small Florida county is challenging the state’s tourism industry over how it can spend its hotel taxes. Okaloosa County, a coastal Panhandle community whose economy relies on tourists visiting its...

Some high school students should have an easier time earning diplomas under a sweeping education bill Gov. Rick Scott signed Monday. The bill (SB 1076) scales back some of the tougher requirements the Florida Legislature put in place in 2010 for students...

TALLAHASSEE — Taking on two of Tallahassee's most influential interest groups, the Florida Senate is advancing plans this spring to eliminate a pair of decades-old tax breaks for banks and insurance companies. One measure would repeal a tax...

TALLAHASSEE – A week after delaying a vote, a House committee advanced an ethics reform on Tuesday that would make it harder for ex-lawmakers to score high-paying jobs thanks to their political contacts. The House State Affairs Committee OK'd the...

International Speedway Corp. is trying to win millions of dollars in tax breaks from the Florida Legislature this spring for an expansion of Daytona International Speedway. And the company found a perfect way to show off the racetrack: Free tickets to the...

TALLAHASSEE – A decades-long battle between the optometrists and the ophthalmologists nicknamed the “eyeball wars” may be at an end. The Senate sent a measure to the governor Thursday that effectively ended a long battle between two...

TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Legislature's much-ballyhooed marriage between campaign-finance and ethics reforms may be heading for a rocky patch. On Tuesday, the Senate moved away from the House on its campaign-finance bill (SB 1382) when the chamber's...

  TALLAHASSEE — Halfway through a legislative session that has seen a rebounding economy, replenished coffers and a spirit of cooperation between chambers and parties, the gravitational pull of politics is taking hold. Put 160 elected...

A year after the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, proposals to change the controversial Stand Your Ground law are dead in the state Legislature. “Repeal of Stand Your Ground or major modifications of Stand Your Ground I don’t think get past...

TALLAHASSEE — Senate President Don Gaetz said Wednesday that the Senate will not pursue legislation this spring to create a state-run health insurance exchange in the future. “I appreciate the Committee’s thorough consideration of this...