Bøger i Florida Government and Politics serien

"e;Addresses fascinating aspects of obtaining justice in Florida: both historical court systems before Florida became a state and alternative courts operating within Florida now. Anyone with an interest in the diversity of Florida's legal past and present will find this book invaluable."e;--Mary E. Adkins, author of Making Modern Florida: How the Spirit of Reform Shaped a New State ConstitutionPushing past the standard federal-state narrative, the essays in Florida's Other Courts examine eight little-known Florida courts. In doing so, they fill a longstanding gap in the state's legal literature.In part one, the contributors profile Florida's courts under the Spanish and British empires and during its existence as a U.S. territory and a member of the Confederate States of America. In part two, they describe four modern-era courts: those governing military personnel stationed in Florida; adherents of specific religious faiths in Florida; residents of Miami's black neighborhoods during the waning days of Jim Crow segregation; and members of the Miccosukee and Seminole Indian tribes.Including extensive notes, a detailed index, and a complete table of cases, this volume offers a new and compelling look at the development of justice in Florida.

In 1992, Florida voters approved an amendment to the state's Constitution creating eight-year term limits for legislators-making Florida the second-largest state, after California, to implement such a law. Eight years later, sixty-eight term-limited senators and representatives were forced to retire, and the state saw the highest number of freshman legislators since the first legislative session in 1845.Proponents view term limits as part of a battle against the rising political class and argue that limits will foster a more honest and creative body with ideal "e;citizen"e; legislators. However, in this comprehensive twenty-year study, the first of its kind to examine the effects of term limits in Florida, Kathryn DePalo shows nothing could be further from the truth. Instead, these limits created a more powerful governor, legislative staffers, and lobbyists. Because incumbency is now certain, leadership races-especially for Speaker-are sometimes completed before members have even cast a single vote. Furthermore, legislators rarely leave public office; they simply return to local offices, where they continue to exert influence.The Failure of Term Limits in Florida is a tour de force examination of the unintended and surprising consequences of the new incumbency advantage in the Sunshine State.

For nearly a century in Florida and throughout the South, election to the United States Senate virtually guaranteed a lifetime position, especially if you were a Democrat. Certainly no Republican candidate stood a chance in the general election, and it was nearly unthinkable to imagine a serious challenger emerging in the primary.Claude "e;Red"e; Pepper first ran for the U.S. Senate in 1934. Though unsuccessful, despite allegations of voter fraud, he won a special election two years later after both senators from Florida died in office. Reelected to full terms in 1938 and 1944 as a vigorous supporter of the New Deal, he had every reason to suspect the seat was his indefinitely--or at least until he decided it was time to seek higher office.Pepper saw himself as the national heir to Roosevelt's foreign policy; he encouraged cooperation with the Soviet Union, our World War II ally, and actively worked to defeat Truman's presidential nomination in 1948. After nearly fourteen years in office, Pepper had earned the enmity of the president, alienated most of his colleagues in the senate, and aligned himself with the ultra-left-wing politics of Henry Wallace. Still, in the entire history of the state, no sitting Florida Senator had ever been voted out of office. However, the political world was changing, and it was the right-leaning "e;Gorgeous"e; George Smathers, not Pepper, who recognized and took advantage of this fact.Smathers fought a vicious, bare-knuckled campaign, employing ferocious and divisive attacks against Pepper. He helped make "e;iberal"e; anathema to aspiring southern politics, and was the first of a new breed of conservative politicians--though not yet Republican--to rise to power. Eventually the era would be named for a junior senator from Wisconsin, but it was Smathers who first successfully employed the strategies of McCarthyism to unseat an incumbent.He was so successful, in fact, that before the general election Smathers had to reassure President Truman and other potential supporters that his loyalties did, in fact, lie with the Democractic Party. His resounding victory inspired others--including Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater--to adopt similar tactics in their senatorial campaigns. It also helped set the stage for the complete reversal of the political power structure that had ruled the South since the end of Reconstruction.Red Pepper and Gorgeous George is a fascinating look at the campaign that changed everything in Florida--and the South. It is also a shocking, sobering reminder that, despite introducing the phrase "e;hanging chad"e; to the national lexicon, the 2000 presidential election was merely the second most important national election to take place in the state.

Against the backdrop of the Tea Party-dominated GOP, former Florida governor Jeb Bush may appear comparatively moderate, but his record tells a different story. In Conservative Hurricane, Matthew Corrigan probes beyond the mild veneer, the sound bites, and the photo ops to examine the real evidence of Bush's political leanings-his policies, politics, and legacy as the state's most powerful governor.After remaking himself from a strident ideologue into a restrained conservative policy wonk, Bush became Florida's first two-term Republican governor. The small-government conservative-who in his second inaugural address dreamed of an idyllic Tallahassee free of government employees-was unstoppable. He presided over the largest accumulation of executive branch authority in the state's history and advanced a multitude of social and economic reforms, the effects of which are still felt in the Sunshine State today. It was the beginning of a new kind of conservative activism, one that has only gained strength in the years since Bush left office.From the culture wars to the management of state government, Corrigan examines the governor's indelible mark on Florida. He demonstrates how the issues most closely associated with Bush's leadership, including education reform, end-of-life decisions, and gun rights, would guide Republican governors in other states as they rode the rising tide of conservative populism.For anyone curious about a potential Jeb Bush presidency, this book is required reading.