After more than two years of bickering over reforms meant to curb political abuses, the Florida Senate on Tuesday plans to debate maps for congressional and legislative districts that preserve Republican majorities and, its authors say, meet legal muster with Fair Districts.

Likewise, Dan Gelber, a former legislator and general counsel for Fair Districts Now, said his membership submitted maps last week "to give the Legislature an opportunity to pass a map that complies with the criteria" of amendments 5 and 6.

But Republicans in charge of redistricting have fired back at the "cynical litigation strategy" by arguing the new maps disenfranchise black voters and that the deadline for public maps passed more than two months ago.
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As Republicans try to link Nelson to Obama at every turn, strategists in the state in both parties concede that he has cultivated a reputation as a noncontroversial figure, distinct from national Democrats. That's another reason he can win in Florida, even if Obama can't.

"Nelson is one of the few Democrats with a statewide identity, and that really distinguishes him from everybody else, who is generally going to be tied to a national trend line," said Democrat Dan Gelber, a former state House minority leader.
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Dan Gelber has a Miami Herald op ed rebuttal to Marco Rubio's recent Reagan Library speech:

In a recent speech at the Reagan Library — part of which was excerpted in these pages — U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio asserts that the decision of America in this last century to collectively care for those that have fallen behind "actually weakened us as a people." While his words may have been a dog whistle for the right wing, I took a double take.
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Forget Barack Obama. The fellow really firing up Florida Democrats is Rick Scott.

On Saturday, Democratic activists who gathered in Broward County for their annual Jefferson-Jackson fundraising gala invoked the name of Florida's unpopular, hard-right governor at least as often as Obama.

Two widely expected challengers — former gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink and South Florida state Sen. Jeremy Ring — mingled with party activists Saturday along with two other less certain prospects, state party chairman Rod Smith and former state Sen. Dan Gelber.

"When you're in a campaign spending $5 million a week on TV, you can create your truth," Gelber said. "But when you're not in campaign cycle, the truth creates itself. It's very hard to disabuse people of their first impressions and his first impression is horrible. People are seeing him for who he really is."
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"I miss Jeb Bush." That's [more or less] the wistful start of Democrat Dan Gelber's blog post today.

Yep; the former state senator-turned AG candidate says on his blog that he is pining for his old adversary. Sort of.

"Don't misunderstand, I fought Jeb (and, I suspect, will again). But no matter how much I opposed his policies, I always believed Jeb possessed the requisite respect for our state and its people," Gelber writes.
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