I'll admit it - I'm still on the fence as far as who to support for the Democratic presidential nomination. (I'm going to have to decide in the next week if I'm going to apply to be a convention delegate...but I'm in Florida, another story...but I digress.....)

However, I've decided that this is NOT the place to come any longer for information to help me make up my mind.

This is a cautionary tale for the rest of you states out there. I don't need to tell you that there is a lot wrong with the state of Florida. Most of you know it already - we have been the butt of jokes because of our inability to run elections.

But there is a lot more than what meets the eye and as we approach reapportionment in 2012 it's time to understand what has happened in Florida and what it can mean to the rest of you.

Florida has no citizen initiative, so our only recourse is constitutional amendment. So every election cycle we have a frantic battle as the deadline approaches (February 1) to make the November ballot. And given that this is Florida and our elections are usually a Three Stooges sub-plot, things couldn't be more interesting.

And, with any sort of luck, there will be road kill as a result!

Besides the presidential primary in Florida on the ballot January 29 (the Republican primary half-counts, the Democratic primary doesn't count at all) is a constitutional amendment proposal to change Florida property tax system. As a result, voter turnout is expected to be high for both parties, despite the primary penalties that have been imposed.

The amendment proposal was placed on the ballot by the state legislature and tries to deal with the severe inequities in the current system. The emphasis here is on the word "tries". Since the Republican dominated legislature was unable to come up with comprehensive reform, they have put forth a band aid approach. Gov. Charlie Crist likens it to "not being able to hit a home run every time, but this time, at least we've hit a single." The opposition has countered that this is one time when hitting a home run is what is called for.

A couple of posts here in the last couple of days have got me thinking about being a delegate to the Democratic convention in Denver. As you know, we in Florida are being penalized for moving our primary to January 29 and have had our delegates taken away. Hell, we weren't even assigned any hotel accomodations in Denver.

However, we have worked hard in the past year in the GLBT community to develop procedures to insure our community is represented in our delegation. We made great inroads and have a commitment that 10% of our delegates will be GLBT. THis is a huge improvement from 2004 when most of our "GLBT" delegates were white straight males!

In one of the strangest twists in a state that is no stranger to election twists, the Florida Secretary of State announced last week that there appeared to be problems with their tabulation of petitions to place constitutional amendments on the ballot. Foremost of this group is the attempt by Florida4Marriage.org to place a constitutional amendment on the November ballot to outlaw same-sex marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships, anything that "mimics" 'straight' marriage.

The deadline for petitions to be validated to make the November 2008 ballot is February 1. Earlier this month, they were reporting that they had filed over 618,000 petitions (more than the 611,000+ required) and had qualified in 15 of Florida 25 congressional districts (they must also qualify in half of the congressional districts.)

Follow me below the fold for the rest of the story!

I know. Why should I be surprised? Why would I expect the Attorney General of Florida to be enlightened?

In a memo sent by the Attorney General recently to the Governor and other cabinet officers (you can read the story and comments here), our neanderthal attorney general, Bill McCollum, recommended they review a British DVD called "The Great Global Warming Swindle".

          11/17/2007  12/24/2007
Clinton      50%          0%
Obama         0%          0%
Edwards       0%         50%
Undecided    50%         50%

MOE: 99%

OK, so it's just my Mom & Dad poll, based upon my irregular (to quote my Mom) calls up to New Hampshire.

But since it seems you can find almost any poll to support almost any candidate position (well except for the Biden surge), I figured I might as well post these results, as any.

Especially since we're being ignored down here in Florida, it's about the closest I'm getting to having an impact on the decision making process.

Rumor has it that if I send my Dad a case of oranges, his vote can be bought as well.

Merry Christmas to you all.

OK, color me confused.

As you know, the Democratic presidential candidates have all signed an agreement not to campaign in the state of Florida because we moved our presidential primary to January 29, earlier than allowed by party rules.

They are, however, allowed to come to Florida for fundraising, which has only served to heighten the animosity towards the whole process from here in Florida.

Now, however, we learn there will be a Democratic presidential debate on January 27 on the campus of Florida Atlantic University. (link  here.)

Slipping quietly under the radar, Floridians have begun casting their ballots in our presidential primary.

The actual election day is January 29, which has caused Florida no end of grief for jumping ahead of the approved 4 early states, Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.

But Florida has a wide open absentee voting process, meaning you don't have to have a reason for voting absentee. In fact, we're beginning to call it "vote by mail" instead of "absentee" down here.

At 2:45 today the Florida Democratic Party will officially announce that they have no intention of following party rules governing delegate selection to the 2008 national convention. (You can read the announcement here and also see the website they've set up to try and legitimatize their decision, MakeItCountFlorida.com.)

Their logic? We can't disenfranchise 4 million Florida Democratic voters.

Somehow their logic escapes me, so follow me below the fold.

Much has been written and will be written about Sen. Larry Craig. I'm not going to try and debate the merits of his crime and punishment. But I would like to use it to compare and contrast to two other recent events and ask, "when does law enforcement cross the line and infringe upon the rights of individuals?"

Follow me below the fold, if you will.

For those of you following the saga of Rep. Bob Allen (R-Merritt Island FL) you really have to marvel at the cajones on this Republican. He was arrested on July 11 for propositioning a police officer for oral sex.

Well now we've heard his defense and it really takes the cake. (Story here). (If you want to read the sorry details of the police report, click here).

But what is really amazing (or not, I guess) is that the Republican leadership in the Florida House of Representatives has done nothing about this embarrasment in our legistlature.

So much for the party of values! When in doubt make it about the race of the police officer involved.

Local activists have been demanding the resignation of our right-wing, bigoted, homophobic mayor in Fort Lauderdale. (see my previous diary here.).

Our local paper, the Sun Sentinel, has been running a poll, asking readers if he should resign. We'd like to hold him to his quote yesterday,

I've been in office for 22 years, I love my job and if I ever felt the majority of the residents didn't want me I would resign.

For a progressive city, Fort Lauderdale suffers under the leadership of a right-wing bigoted mayor (who fortunately is term limited, but has another 18 months in office.) He recently said that he refers to gays and lesbians as "homosexual" because they obviously are not happy. He tried to justify spending $250,000 for a beach toilet by saying it would keep gay men from having sex at the beach. A few months ago he said that if people were willing to work harder they could afford to live here. See this previous diary here.

We've had enough and have asked for him to resign. He's said he would if a majority of the people said they wanted him to.

So here's your chance to help us. Go to the local Sun-Sentinel web site, scroll down to their poll and help us tell our Mayor we have had enough. Maybe he will live to eat his own words and resign. You can click here to go to their web site.

All citizens of Fort Lauderdale will thank you!

Today the Broward County (FL) Humans Rights Board at it's monthly meeting was dealing with an attempt to delay their recommendation to add transgender protection to the county's civil right ordinance. At a previous meeting, the Board had unanimously voted to make the change, forwarded it to the county attorney to draft the legislation, which is expected to pass the County Commmission unanimously.

Before the public was allowed to speak, it was clear that the Board was unlikely to change their position.

But an individual had asked the Board to consider delaying their action and they were given an opportunity to present their opinion at today's meeting. After she and her colleague spoke, it was time for public comment.

Follow me below the fold....

In Fort Lauderdale our Mayor (it's a non-partisan position, but he's always actively supported Republicans from Bush on down to recently defeated Clay Shaw) has draw a lot of heat for trying to justify spending $250,000 on an automated toilet at the beach because it will keep unhappy (he refuses to use the word gay) men from having illicit sex in the restrooms. This despite a police department statement that this is not a problem in Fort Lauderdale. Facts be damned, he thinks it's a problem, so it must be.

Well today comes the news report that indeed, in Merritt Island, up the coast a bit from Fort Lauderdale, that an undercover police officer arrested a man for offering to perform oral sex inside a park restrooom....wait for it.....wait for it...the man was.....

Republican State Representative (District 32) Bob Allen, married, father of one.

Who knew? It's actually married Republican men that we need protection from at the restrooms at our beaches.

I would have to say that the Fort Lauderdale mayor definitely owes the gay and lesbian community an apology!

Sometimes you just have to laugh at the sense of humor the universe has.

Florida is facing a possible constitutional amendment battle on the November 08 ballot, trying to bring the same-sex marriage fight to Florida.

And who has been the financial backing for this so far? Surprise! Of the $439,000 raised so far, $300,000 has come from the Florida Republican Party.

But there is good news. First, they are still short on the number of signatures needed. Second, they don't have any money and haven't raised much in the past year.

And third, and most importantly, a group has organized in the past three months to fight this effort and in their quarterly filing just released, announced they raised $1,014,604.44 in the first 3 months. The group, Florida Red & Blue is a bi-partisan effort to keep this out of the Florida constitution.

There's a long way to go in this fight. But a line has been drawn in the sand. If the Republican Party wants to push this in Florida, it's going to be a very expensive battle for them.