For more than fifteen years, Government and Politics in Florida has been the only book to offer authoritative information on the operations of government and nuances of politics in the Sunshine State. Published in two editions (1991 and 1998) under the editorship of Robert Huckshorn, the book has consistently featured contributions by Florida's most well-known and respected political scientists. Now edited by Edwin Benton, the third edition retains all of the chapters from the previous edition--though all have been revised and many rewritten by new authors. There are also entirely new chapters on the critical policy areas of education, public welfare, and health care, and one on intergovernmental relations. A chapter in the second edition on public opinion and interest groups has been divided into two chapters, one focusing on political culture and political attitudes, the other focusing on interest groups. A final, concluding chapter ties together the volume and speculates about the future of government and politics in Florida. From executive branch to legislature, from the court system to political parties, there is no other book that serves as a better introductory text for courses on Florida government.

Inside the reinvention of Florida politics Florida Book Awards, Bronze Medal for Florida Nonfiction Reubin Askew was swept into the governor's office in 1970 as part of a remarkable wave of progressive politics and legislative reform in Florida. A man of uncompromising principle and independence, he was elected primarily on a platform of tax reform. In the years that followed, Askew led a group of politicians from both parties who sought--and achieved--judicial reform, redistricting, busing and desegregation, the end of the Cross Florida Barge Canal, the Sunshine Amendment, and much more. This period was truly a golden age of Florida politics, and Martin Dyckman's narrative is well written, fast paced, and reads like a novel. Dyckman also reveals how the return of special interests, the rise of partisan politics, unlimited campaign spending, term limits, gerrymandering, and more have eroded the achievements of the Golden Age in subsequent decades.

A political biography of Kenneth "Buddy" MacKay who served as a Florida legislator, member of Congress, and lieutenant governor to the late Lawton Chiles.

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 “citizen” 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.

Despite Florida's current reputation as a swing state, there was a time when its Republicans were the underdogs against a Democratic powerhouse. This book tells the story of how the Republican Party of Florida became the influential force it is today. Republicans briefly came to power in Florida after the Civil War but were called "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags" by residents who resented pro-Union leadership. They were so unpopular that they didn't earn official party status in the state until 1928. Peter Dunbar and Mike Haridopolos show how, due largely to a population boom in the state and a schism in the Democratic Party, Republicans slowly started to see their ranks swell. This book chronicles the paths that led to a Republican majority in both the state Senate and House in the second half of the twentieth century and highlights successful campaigns of Florida Republicans for national positions. It explores the platforms and impact of Republican governors from Claude Kirk to Ron DeSantis. It also looks at how a robust two-party system opened up political opportunities for women and minorities and how Republicans affected pressing issues such as public education, environmental preservation, and criminal justice. As the Sunshine State enters its third decade under GOP control and partisan tensions continue to mount across the country, this book provides a timely history of the modern political era in Florida and a careful analysis of challenges the Republican Party faces in a state situated at the epicenter of the nation's politics.

"Adkins portrays a major turning point in the development of modern Florida and has done a great job of bringing to life so many of the people who achieved this massive rewrite of our constitution."--Talbot D'Alemberte, former president of the American Bar Association and author of The Florida State Constitution "Deftly captures the story of the politics and powerful personalities who created a more modern government structure for Florida."--Neil Skene, former editor and president of Congressional Quarterly, Inc. Mid-twentieth-century Florida was a state in flux. Changes exemplified by rapidly burgeoning cities and suburbs, the growth of the Kennedy Space Center during the space race, and the impending construction of Walt Disney World overwhelmed the outdated 1885 constitution. A small group of rural legislators known as the "Pork Chop Gang" controlled the state and thwarted several attempts to modernize the constitution. Through court-imposed redistribution of legislators and the hard work of state leaders, however, the executive branch was reorganized and the constitution was modernized. In Making Modern Florida, Mary Adkins goes behind the scenes to examine the history and impact of the 1966-68 revision of the Florida state constitution. With storytelling flair, Adkins uses interviews and detailed analysis of speeches and transcripts to vividly capture the moves, gambits, and backroom moments necessary to create and introduce a new state constitution. This carefully researched account brings to light the constitutional debates and political processes in the growth to maturity of what is now the nation's third largest state.

This exciting new book explores the role of government, politics, and policy in American lives. Full of real life applications and scenarios, this text encourages and enables political thinking. The second edition has been updated to include recent developments in U.S. politics and government. This includes the description and analysis of the 2016 elections as well as the early Trump administration. Chapters have expanded coverage of immigration policy, environmental policy, economic policy, and global affairs (including counterterrorism policy). The text also includes analysis of racial issues in contemporary American politics and law. It also addresses questions about the state of the economy, jobs, and wages.Hyperlinks and URLs provide ?deeper dives? into various topics and examples of comparative politics.

"A [book] rich in detail and analysis, which anyone wanting to understand the language debate in Puerto Rico will find essential."--Arlene Davila, Syracuse University This is the first book in English to analyze the controversial language policies passed by the Puerto Rican government in the 1990s. It is also the first to explore the connections between language and cultural identity and politics on the Caribbean island. Shortly after the U.S. invasion of Puerto Rico in 1898, both English and Spanish became official languages of the territory. In 1991, the Puerto Rican government abolished bilingualism, claiming that "Spanish only" was necessary to protect the culture from North American influences. A few years later bilingualism was restored and English was promoted in public schools, with supporters asserting that the dual languages symbolized the island’s commitment to live in harmony with the United States. While the islanders’ sense of ethnic pride was growing, economic dependency enticed them to maintain close ties to the United States. This book shows that officials in both San Juan and Washington, along with English-first groups, used the language laws as weapons in the battle over U.S.-Puerto Rican relations and the volatile debate over statehood. It will be of interest to linguists, political scientists, students of contemporary cultural politics, and political activists in discussions of nationalism in multilingual communities.

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 "Red" 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 "Gorgeous" 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 "liberal" 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 "hanging chad" to the national lexicon, the 2000 presidential election was merely the second most important national election to take place in the state. James C. Clark is a journalist, magazine editor, and a member of the history faculty at the University of Central Florida. He is the author of four books, including Faded Glory: Presidents Out of Power.