Bloomberg.com • 17th October 2026

The Big Surprise in the Federal School Voucher Program

Whether on purpose or by accident, the Trump administration’s new voucher program could do something it never promised to do: help public schools. It’s a bit of a surprise from the White House that promised to abolish the Department of Education and then dismantled large parts of it. But under rules released this month by the US Treasury Department, the program authorizing the first Federal Scholarship Tax Credit allows kids to receive a voucher even if they stay in their public school.

Bloomberg.com • 7th October 2026

Latino Voters Are the New Swing Voters

Almost as soon as next month’s elections are over, arguments will begin about the lessons and implications for 2028. But one conclusion is already undeniable: Latinos are America’s new swing voters.

Bloomberg.com • 26th September 2026

The Supreme Court Is Inviting More Election Chaos

The US Supreme Court did it again. In an unsigned ruling from its emergency docket, the Court gave the Trump administration another tool it can use to raise doubts about the integrity of the November elections.On Friday, the conservative majority greenlit the use of a flawed federal database to verify voters’ citizenship; noncitizen voting, although a miniscule problem, is one of President Donald Trump’s obsessions.

Bloomberg.com • 4th September 2026

The Fight Over Food Prices Won’t End Soon

Food prices play an outsized role in how Americans view affordability. When you’re bombarded with bigger price tags and shrinking product sizes on every trip to the grocery store, it’s an in-your-face reminder that we’re losing purchasing power. And 2028 could shape up the same way: According to forecasts, eating is going to get more expensive for at least another year.

Bloomberg.com • 1st September 2026

Welcome to the ‘You Can’t Trust Your Own Eyes’ Election

Artificial intelligence has become ubiquitous, inexpensive and convincing. But when the public believes that vast amounts of political speech may be AI-generated, people start to distrust everything they see and voters could disengage from the democratic system. We need more safeguards.

Bloomberg.com • 31st August 2026

Florida Is the Epicenter of the GOP’s Vaccine Problem

Republicans have painted themselves into a corner by undermining vaccines. Nowhere is this clearer than Florida, where the outgoing Republican governor and his potential successor have tried to use vaccine mandates to align themselves with President Donald Trump’s politically risky position.

Bloomberg.com • 18th November 2025

The Property Tax Fight Is a Power Grab in Texas and Florida

As affordability politics take center stage across America, at least 18 states are attempting to lower or eliminate property taxes to offset the dramatic rise in property values. It’s a worthy debate, but wiping out property taxes, or dramatically limiting them, is dangerous. It not only strips local communities of an economically efficient tax , it also erodes their autonomy, making them more susceptible to any authoritarian-leaning lawmakers at the state level. There’s littl...

Bloomberg.com • 12th April 2025

The Florida Entrepreneur Suing Over Tariffs Is Right

When Emily Ley started her stationery business 17 years ago in Florida, she felt like it was the embodiment of the American dream. Today, she’s the unlikely face of opposition to a trade war against China instigated by the American president. Those tariffs threaten to extinguish Ley’s business and the operations of millions of companies like hers.

Bloomberg.com • 23rd February 2025

What Declaring War on the AP Really Means

President Donald Trump’s standoff with the Associated Press over its refusal to abide by his executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico isn’t a benign dust-up between a global media institution and a stubborn president. It’s a deliberate and carefully targeted strategy of media intimidation.

Miami Herald • 18th February 2023

Florida’s a battleground over the civil rights left vs. anti-woke right

As protesters marched to the Florida Capitol on Wednesday for the second rally in three weeks to oppose what they say is Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “assault” on Black history, the state’s battle over the future of education started to take shape as a war over the future of civil rights in America.

Miami Herald • 9th February 2023

Florida’s struggle to teach Black history has become a battle over who controls the past

As Gov. Ron DeSantis mounts a political attack on what he calls the “woke mob,” he claims that certain instruction of Black history is the equivalent of political indoctrination. And educators and advocates who pushed for the Black history standards say the governor’s policies are threatening to reverse the modest progress they have made.

Florida's favorite paper, Tampa Bay's favorite local news site • 6th March 2017

Florida's legislative session begins Tuesday. Here's what to expect

Florida lawmakers open their annual 60-day session on Tuesday fresh off one of the most bitter political seasons in years and for Republicans, who control both chambers and the governor's office, the feuding has already begun.

Miami Herald • 12th March 2016

Election-year worries cooled Florida legislators’ feuding

In the last 60 days, immigrants from Miami, Orlando and Tampa traveled overnight by bus with their children and elders and made passionate and personal appeals to lawmakers to reject a bill that would punish police for failing to arrest their family members. College professors broke their silence and decried a bill to allow guns on campus. And environmentalists joined with city officials across the state and demanded lawmakers not strip them of the ability to keep oil and gas fracking out of their communities.

Nieman Reports • 12th January 2020

Less Local News Means Less Democracy

The decline in local journalism is having an insidious impact on democracy: diminished government accountability, reduced access to accurate information, and a decline in public trust. In this Nieman Reports piece, I explain how I've watched it play out in Tallahassee -- and how it's not unique to Florida.

Miami Herald • 1st December 2019

New head of Florida prisons sees dire warning signs. ‘Status quo is not sustainable’

Florida's new secretary of the Department of Corrections has a sober warning: Florida prisons are on the brink of collapse. They cannot sustain the understaffed, inexperienced crew of corrections officers in command of a penal system stripped of educational programs and housed in crumbling facilities. As I explain, years of budget cuts and legislative indifference have led to this problem.

Florida's favorite paper, Tampa Bay's favorite local news site • 7th March 2018

‘Toxic’ gun fight opens emotional and political wounds in Legislature

Florida legislators listened to the Parkland families and moved a bill to respond to the Feb. 14 shooting with unprecedented speed, but the process was not without pain or political risk for many legislators.

Miami Herald • 29th August 2019

State Supreme Court to decide fate of plan to open electricity market to competition

The colossal fight to open electricity generation to competition in Florida — which is being led by a Gainesville-based natural gas marketing company — made its way before the new-look Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday and it became clear the constitutional amendment drive is no David v. Goliath battle. It looked more like David versus the world.

Miami Herald • 23rd August 2019

This secretive group is trying to create barriers to amending Florida’s Constitution

A secretive organization with the goal of thwarting amendments approved by voters after the 2020 election cycle has spent more than $800,000 on paid petition gatherers in the last four months, using funds from undisclosed sources and raising the specter of another high stakes fight over the future of energy regulation in Florida. The organization calls itself Keep Our Constitution Clean and says its purpose is to keep the state’s premier legal document uncluttered by special interest measures.

Bradenton Herald • 1st December 2018

Florida immigration feud reflects GOP divide

Florida's Republican presiding officers for 2012-14 were a reflection of the generational and ideological differences that divide the Republican Party. In 2016, those differences were manifest in Florida in the debate over immigration, particularly whether to extend in-state tuition to the children of undocumented immigrants.

Miami Herald • 1st December 2018

Courtroom clash pits Democrats, Republicans in epic redistricting battle

The redistricting reform fight that is playing out across the country came early to Florida, where for four years the party in control worked behind the scenes to defy the new rules and tilt the outcome in their favor. It worked, until they got caught and, in 2015, the courts drew the Senate and congressional maps.