Don Gaetz

So, how does Florida commemorate the anniversary of the tragic shooting death of Trayvon Martin, whose death following a confrontation with an armed and overzealous neighborhood watch volunteer prompted national outrage over one of our more...

TALLAHASSEE – You have to forgive Florida's reform-minded lawmakers if they don't want to preclude all their current colleagues from cashing in as lobbyists. This week, the Senate amended its sweeping ethics reform bill (SB 2) to allow current...

Today we're talking about party-switchers, salary-raisers, teacher-trashers and more. We start with Democrats, who are titillated at the prospect of Change-up Charlie Crist running for governor. The former Republican-turned-independent says he now...

Dear Mr. Lenny Curry, I don't want to play the cynic here, but your friends over at the Capitol made one heck of a mess last November. As chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, I hope you can help them out. Gov. Rick Scott, the rest of the Cabinet...

TALLAHASSEE — Drink up, wayward partisans. Florida lawmakers may be striking a bipartisan tone as of late, but there are too many points of ideological contention for this camaraderie to survive intact beyond the holidays. Democrats are clamoring...

TALLAHASSEE – It's the season for fattening up, and Florida politics is fueling the expansion of some well-placed operatives' wallets. Although the Florida Legislature may tackle campaign-finance reform in the 2013 session, these dollars aren't...

Florida is back in a familiar place – the national laughingstock. This time Florida's votes didn't count. President Obama easily won re-election and was well on the way to brokering deals on the fiscal cliff, the Middle East crisis and perhaps...

TALLAHASSEE – Florida's economic-development strategy for years has been a taxpayer-financed piggy bank handing out big bucks to companies that made grand job-creation promises and were seldom held accountable for their flops. That's been...

TALLAHASSEE — Cockroaches hide from the light. And so do some of Florida's highest-paid elections lawyers and consultants, who have done their darnedest this year to cover up the financing behind their election advertising. This election, we've...

TALLAHASSEE – Florida education interest-groups are waging a multi-front fight this fall over traditional public-school alternatives like charters and voucher programs. Gov. Rick Scott's 2013 "college and career first" education agenda unveiled...

TALLAHASSEE – Florida policymakers are facing a multibillion-dollar dice-roll over whether to capitulate to President Barack Obama and dramatically swell the size of the Medicaid health-care program. But they'll be in a unique position this...

If you've lived in Florida for any length of time — like prior to noon yesterday — you probably know that our state is an ethical cesspool. Special interests funnel money to legislators. Legislators write the laws the way the interests ask....