Even though the 2010 elections are still being waged, speculation has already begun about which Republicans will look to challenge U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson in 2012. The venerable national opinion journal The New Republic ran a piece on energy bills in the Senate and offered an aside building up current U.S. Sen. George LeMieux possibly taking on Nelson. With his recent letter to Nelson on national issues, buzz is building that incoming Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, could also be looking at running for the U.S. Senate come 2012 ...

Voters will be asked in November whether to support a Legislature-proposed plan for congressional and legislative redistricting. 

In a 25-14 decision, senators added to the ballot the choice of supporting a new constitutional amendment that supporters said will ensure Florida does not break any laws or disenfranchise minority voters.

The ballot choice, supported by Republicans and some Democrats,  is a response to ballot amendments 5 and 6, which were proposed by Fair Districts Florida.

It appears that Floridians will vote in November on competing ballot initiatives on redistricting -- and Democrats are divided on which option is better.

More than 1.7 million Floridians signed petitions calling for changes to the ways the Legislature draws up congressional and state legislative seats.

Bowing to resistance from the Department of Corrections, Senate Republicans scaled back their prison privatization plans Wednesday.

But the DOC is still directed to open the new 2,224-bed Blackwater River Correctional Facility as a privately operated facility by the GEO Group.

GEO, which built the $110 million Panhandle prison per state contract, can operate the facility for $5.7 million less per year than the state, according to the Department of Management Services. Those savings are based on GEO's daily contract cost of $41 per inmate vs. $48 projected by the DOC.

Florida remains the political frontline in the battle on health care.

As Florida Republicans in Washington demand the repeal of the new health-care reform law, Democrats in Florida blast Attorney General Bill McCollum’s lawsuit challenging the law's constitutionality.

U.S. Rep. Connie Mack, R-Florida, introduced a bill in Congress to repeal health-care reforms that President Barack Obama signed into law on Tuesday.