I know everyone thinks that their state's politics have to be worse than anywhere else. (If not, and you don't have winter, hurricanes, tornadoes or earthquakes, please let me know so I can call the moving trucks.)
However, I will take Florida 1 on 1 with anyone! We have a state that has more registered Democrats than Republicans, but thanks to the creative gerrymandering of the Republicans, they hold a 2 to 1 advantage in Congress and both houses of our state legislature. Unlike most states, we allow corporate donations to political candidates, meaning that significant monies flow to incumbents, with most of them coming from business and PAC interests. Our form speaker of the house is under criminal indictment, we just had a county commissioner and county school board member arrested on public corruption charges in Broward County, and we've recently had several arrests and convictions in Palm Beach County for public corruption.
So you would think that when looking for the new head of the state Senate Ethics and Campaign committee you might want to consider someone with an unblemished record. Not in Florida.
Senate President Jeff Atwater (R), who himself raised $2.5 million dollars for his re-election effort last year (not to count the $2 million dollars raised and spent by his separate political committee), has appointed new Senator John Thrasher to head this committee.
Senator Thrasher's qualifications? He has twice admitted and once been fined for ethics violations, once for lobbying as a sitting lawmaker and once for lobbying the legislature without waiting for the two year period after leaving office. (You can find the link to the story here.)
On second thought, perhaps those are good qualifications; at least he knows which rocks to look under.
The price we pay for 85 degree sunny days in October!