Paula Bono Dockery

TALLAHASSEE — A prison privatization bill pushed by Senate leadership may be in trouble, with Senate President Mike Haridopolos cutting off debate Tuesday and not saying when the bill would come up for a final vote. The proposal would privatize 28...

By Michael Peltier, The News Service of Florida TALLAHASSEE — A federal judge on Friday ruled that four senators and two staff members do not have to testify as part of lawsuit challenging a new Florida election law that opponents say makes it...

TALLAHASSEE — With the Florida Senate poised today to return to a contentious prison-privatization debate, one critic of the proposal to outsource prisons in 18 southern counties says the Department of Corrections' own calculations on...

Central Florida News 13's "Political Connections" also looks at the Florida Legislature and such issues as prison privatization. News 13's Ybeth Bruzual talks about the defeat of privatization with state Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland. Dockery also...

TALLAHASSEE — Senators are taking up the budget, and the Republican leadership is already fending off pointed questions about whether they plan to try and ram through dozens of substantive policy changes in the final hours of session — a...

TALLAHASSEE – Last spring, on the last night of session, relations between the House and Senate totally broke down over budget talks. The Senate had voted down a House bill that accompanied the budget deregulating several professions, including...

TALLAHASSEE — In her latest Florida Voices column, Sen. Paula Dockery attempts to shed some light on why intra-party Republican leadership fights are so magnetic for the swarm of reporters, lobbyists and politicos that flood the Capitol. The gist:...

TALLAHASSEE — Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, one of Senate President Mike Haridopolos’ top lieutenants said he has not counted votes to see whether parent trigger will pass the 40-member senate. “The Senate is about ideas,”...

Gee, it was almost like the Old Days, when legislators voted on personal conviction instead of straight party lines. Almost. The 20-20 tie this afternoon in the Florida Senate that at least for now killed the Parent Trigger bill saw local senators split,...

From casino gambling to mutant animals, we're covering a lot of ground in today's Friday Files — including an offer from the Maxwell family to share one of our more coveted possessions: our "Celebrate plate." •We start with Florida's troubling...

TALLAHASSEE — A Senate committee gave a lashing Tuesday to Gov Rick Scott's elder affairs secretary over the firing of the state's top nursing home watchdog and a subsequent federal report that determined Florida had violated the law by “...