Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, started his bid to challenge Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson in 2012 with a bang Thursday, bringing in around $1 million at a fund-raising event in Orlando.

The race to take on Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson in 2012 is starting to heat up as a crowded field of Republicans continues to get ready to run -- and takes aim at Florida’s senior senator.

A poll released by Quinnipiac University Thursday showed that Florida will be in the front lines in the 2012 political wars when both President Barak Obama and Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson face challenges for re-election.

On Wednesday, the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate rejected Republican efforts to push a measure repealing the federal health care law enacted in 2010 with the backing of President Barack Obama. The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a repeal measure last week.

While U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio will not be speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) later in February, two of his fellow Sunshine State Republicans will be addressing the event.

As soon as federal Judge Roger Vinson of the U.S. District Court in Pensacola struck down the federal health care law backed by President Barack Obama as unconstitutional -- and Florida again became the political center of attention -- the Sunshine State’s congressional delegation broke on party lines in their reaction to the decision.

As the swordfish in the governor's kitchen broiled this week, the press corps stewed, and then was left out and got cold.

Carol Browner, who headed the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation under Gov. Lawton Chiles, is leaving her post at the White House, where she ran the Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy.

Newly inaugurated Republican Sen. Marco Rubio announced his committee assignments in Washington Thursday, setting the stage for the issues he will focus on in his first years on the national stage.

More than nine years after the 9/11 attacks, two Florida Republicans in Congress, both of whom are receiving some attention as possible candidates to take on Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson in 2012, introduced measures on how the United States tries captured terrorists.

Gov. Rick Scott continues to have a busy first month in office. He touched base with Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal in a telephone call on Friday before heading off to Orlando to speak to the Florida Realtors Forum in Orlando. Earlier in the week, he met with golf legend Jack Nicklaus …

Florida’s congressional delegation, like the overwhelming majority in the U.S. House, broke on party lines when the new Republican majority voted Wednesday to repeal the federal health care bill enacted in 2010 with the support of President Barack Obama. Those divisions filtered down at the state level as Republicans in Florida praised the repeal measure, while Sunshine State Democrats continued to back Obama and the health care laws.

Three U.S. senators announced in recent days that they plan to retire in 2012 instead of seeking another term. But Florida Democrat Bill Nelson shows no signs of joining his three colleagues -- Kent Conrad, D-N.D., Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.