Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat who as a little-known state senator cleaned stables and waited on tables in a clever populist strategy that helped to boost him into the governorship, the United States Senate and a run for the presidency, died on Tuesday at his home in Gainesville, Fla. He was 87.

His death was announced in a family statement sent by Chris Hand, a family spokesman who is a former aide to Senator Graham and his co-author on books about effective citizenship in democracy. Mr. Graham was disabled by a stroke in May 2020.

The son of a Florida state senator, Mr. Graham had gained little political traction after 13 years in the State Legislature. He seemed destined to rise no higher than his father. Then he had an idea.

The 5-2 decision on Monday could open up a recreational marijuana market.

Eight years after Florida voters approved medical marijuana, they will have a chance to weigh in on recreational adult use.

The Florida Supreme Court gave its approval Monday to theAdult Personal Use of Marijuana citizen initiative, which could expand the current retail model beyond medical necessity, allowing visitors to the state and residents without qualifying conditions access to the product.

League of Women Voters focusing on younger voters ORLANDO, Fla. – We are just one month away from Florida’s Presidential Preference Primary. The deadline to register to vote in the March presidential primary is Feb. 20. There will only be a Republican Party primary, there will not be a Democratic Party primary. The last day to request a vote-by-mail ballot is March 7. The primary is on March 19. Coincidentally, that’s when Central Florida schools are on spring break. The presidential primary is the first of three major elections in Florida this year, with the statewide primary coming in August and the general election in November. Tiffany Hughes is President of the League of Women Voters of Orange County. She and her organization have been working now to get voting results, including reaching people where they are.

The disagreement has kept potentially 26,000 kids from getting state-subsidized health insurance. Gov. Ron DeSantis is suing to toss new federal guidelines that require kids to keep their state-subsidized health care insurance even if their parents skip premium payments. If parents don’t pay premiums and kids are allowed to stay on the state-subsidized insurance, as the feds are requiring, the new rules would be costly, the state contends. Estimates are that it could add up to nearly $30 million in unpaid premiums under the current system and nearly $50 million under the state’s expansion of Florida KidCareapproved last year, according to a 411-page complaint the state filed in federal court.

The disagreement has kept potentially 26,000 kids from getting state-subsidized health insurance. Gov. Ron DeSantis is suing to toss new federal guidelines that require kids to keep their state-subsidized health care insurance even if their parents skip premium payments. If parents don’t pay premiums and kids are allowed to stay on the state-subsidized insurance, as the feds are requiring, the new rules would be costly, the state contends. Estimates are that it could add up to nearly $30 million in unpaid premiums under the current system and nearly $50 million under the state’s expansion of Florida KidCareapproved last year, according to a 411-page complaint the state filed in federal court.

TALLAHASSEE – With Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature continuing its decade-long opposition to Medicaid expansion, advocacy groups now have launched an effort to get the idea before voters in two years.  Raising at least $12 million to collect the almost 1 million signatures needed to qualify for the November 2026 ballot is a goal of Florida Decides Healthcare, whose organizers say it could bring health care to some 1.4 million lower-income residents.  If approved for the ballot and passed by no less than 60% of voters statewide, the measure would create an amendment to the state’s constitution.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A federal appeals court on Tuesday declined to reconsider its decision that would prevent private groups from suing under a key section of the Voting Rights Act, prompting a potential fight before the U.S. Supreme Court over a ruling that civil rights groups say erodes the law aimed at prohibiting racial discrimination in voting. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals denied the request for the case to go before the full 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after a panel ruled 2-1 last year that only the U.S. attorney general can enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The Arkansas Public Policy Panel and the Arkansas State Conference NAACP, which are challenging Arkansas’ new state House districts under the law, have argued last year’s ruling would upend decades of precedent and would remove a key tool for voters to stand up for their

High turnout in previous elections has caused states like Florida to take steps to reduce access to voting. As the 2024 election approaches, organizers are working hard to preserve voting rights in states that have made it drastically more difficult to vote.  After record voter turnout in 2020, several states, including Georgia, Florida, and Iowa, took steps to make voting more difficult. Some reduced drop box access, and others limited vote-by-mail or shortened voting times. Voting rights organizations across the country are fighting to curb the impact of these laws by challenging them in court while also trying to help voters navigate obstacles that keep them from exercising their democratic right.

TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to take up a challenge to the constitutionality of a congressional redistricting plan. But it appears the case will not be resolved before a candidate-qualifying deadline for the November elections. The Supreme Court issued an order saying it will hear an appeal by voting-rights groups and other plaintiffs, rejecting arguments by the state that it should turn down the case. The voting-rights groups went to the Supreme Court after the 1st District Court of Appeal on Dec. 1 upheld the constitutionality of the redistricting plan.

A federal judge stopped the enforcement of a Florida law in July that bans non-U.S. citizens from collecting or handling voter registrations. Now, the voting rights advocates are preparing to defend their temporary victory in an appellate court on Thursday. Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd and Attorney General Ashley Moody filed an appeal of U.S. Chief District Judge Mark Walker’s decision to stop the enforcement of the law just days after it went into effect. The appeal is set to be heard on Jan. 25 in the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta, Georgia.

The 2024 presidential election is a full year away – and many of the rules that will govern the pivotal contest have already been written. The past three years make up one of the most prolific periods for election legislation in American history. Over 560 new laws governing our elections – many of them containing pages and pages of changes – have become law in states all across the country.

Andrea Mercado, the executive director of Florida Rising, a nonpartisan nonprofit that leads civic engagement and helps to educate and register voters in Black and Latino communities, is just as blunt in her assessment of the leading GOP contender. “(Trump) built a campaign stoking racial animus with a promise to deliver solely for white working-class voters, and we saw corporations and the rich get richer and others hurt in the process,” Mercado said. “If he wins, we enter a new chapter in American history, as his playbook is no friend to marginalized people.”

A divided federal appeals court on Monday ruled that private individuals and groups such as the NAACP do not have the ability to sue under a key section of the federal Voting Rights Act, a decision that contradicts decades of precedent and could further erode protections under the landmark 1965 law. The 2-1 decision by a panel of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals based in St. Louis found that only the U.S. attorney general can enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires political maps to include districts where minority populations’ preferred candidates can win elections.

In the last decade, the U.S. overall and the South specifically have become more racially diverse, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau. An analysis from the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice found that racially-diverse states governed by Republicans are more likely to implement restrictive voting policies. And three of the 10 states that had the highest diversity index in 2020 are in the South: Florida, Georgia, and Texas.  All three are controlled by Republican governors and legislatures that have passed restrictive voting laws disproportionately affecting communities of color. So far this year, at least 14 states have implemented laws making it more difficult to cast a ballotthat will be in place for the 2024 election.

Last fall, the Movement Advancement Project released The ID Divide: How barriers to ID impact different communities and affect everyone. The analysis outlines in grave detail how barriers to obtaining IDs can impact one’s daily life, including voting, which communities are most harmed by restrictive policies and the ways that policymakers can address systemic inequities and barriers that make IDs inaccessible for too many Americans. Photo by Judson McCranie

Civil rights groups and local leaders are kicking off a campaign to register more Black Floridians to vote in the next election.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody unholstered one bogeyman after another in urging the state Supreme Court to deny Floridians even the opportunity to vote on a proposed constitutional amendment enshrining abortion rights. Her legal brief in a procedural matter is a nakedly political assault on privacy, freedom, medicine — and even the English language itself. The court should see through this maneuvering and allow Floridians to address this issue through the democratic process.

Jacksonville’s Mayor continues to push for the removal of a Jim Crow era statue from the former Confederate Park. But she notes there’s little “interest” from the City Council in removing the obelisk paying tribute to the “Women of the Southland.” During an interview on WJCT, Donna Deegan said the $500,000 the Mayor’s Office has requested for monument removal “has to go through Council and that is something Council is not interested in doing.”

Four advocacy groups have gone to an appeals court after a federal judge rejected a lawsuit challenging a Florida requirement for “wet” signatures on voter-registration forms. Vote.org, the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans, the Florida NAACP and Disability Rights Florida filed a notice last week that was a first step in appealing the Oct. 30 ruling by U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor. As is common, the notice did not detail arguments the groups will make at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Nearly a quarter of a million children were ineligible for Medicaid as the state is about halfway through its redetermination process, in which the Department of Children and Family Services is reevaluating eligibility for 5.5 million Floridians. So far, DCF has disenrolled around 260,000 children from Medicaid across the state. The state plan was to have those qualifying children enter Florida’s kid healthcare plan… Only 25,000 have enrolled.

One in 5 voters with disabilities either needed assistance or had difficulty voting in 2022 — three times the rate of people without disabilities, according to the most recent survey from the U.S. Election Assistance Committee (EAC). The survey report, “Disability and Voting Accessibility in the 2022 Elections,” highlights the difficulties faced by the estimated 30 million Americans with disabilities who are eligible to vote and the subsequent negative impact on their civic engagement.

In Marion County, Fla., elections supervisor Wesley Wilcox has stopped using the word “misinformation.” Not because lies or misleading rumors about elections are any less prevalent in his county than the rest of the country. Wilcox says he regularly interacts with groups that aim to find what they see as rampant fraud in elections.

In response to the recent controversy surrounding African American history standards in public schools, Senator Shevrin Jones, a Democrat from Miami Gardens, has introduced a proposal aimed at preventing the inclusion of any instruction suggesting that enslaved people benefited from slavery in any way.

As a minority voter in the United States, I have experienced firsthand the detrimental effects of gerrymandering on our democratic process. Gerrymandering, a practice that involves manipulating electoral boundaries to favor a particular political party, has long been a cause for concern. With reference to the insightful article from the NYC Daily Post on the overview of political segregation and gerrymandering, I will shed light on how this practice disproportionately affects minority communities.

At first Salanda Benton didn’t think enough people were paying attention to what she felt was the unraveling of civil rights happening in Florida. It angered her, then saddened her as state officials banned books and restricted the teaching of Black history. ‘I can’t believe it’s 2023 and we’re going through this,’ said Benton, executive director of the Florida Coalition on Black Civic Participation.

Salandra Benton is Executive Director of the Florida Coalition on Black Civic Participation.

An appeals court Tuesday took up a battle about the constitutionality of a congressional redistricting plan that Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed through the Legislature last year, and some judges appeared skeptical of the challenge filed by voting rights groups.

She said they timed this week’s stop and voter canvassing to correspond with the Florida Classic, the annual matchup between HBCU football teams from Bethune Cookman University and FAMU, in order to reach young people attending the game.

Last month, Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen stood at a podium at the state capitol in Montgomery and announced what he called a novel way for his state to keep its voter lists up to date.

Republicans have been more successful than Democrats since 2010 at gerrymandering congressional districts to their advantage. But the Republican advantage may be about to fade because of a few court cases.

Early voting has begun across Duval County, but Florida keeps on making it harder for some individuals to cast a ballot — thanks in part to a few new bills passed by the Florida Legislature. We talked with Larry Hannan, communications director for State Voices Florida, about these and other changes.