Vanessa Brito after unseating Natacha Seijas last year

​Lost in the din of Mitt Romney's guttural Mormon victory cry and Newt Gingrich's helium-like baby whine -- we're not sure what Santorum sounds like -- was the fact that there was actually an important election last week.

Voters rejected a county charter amendment that would had slapped commissioners with term limits. It was a dispiriting set-back for Miamians still riding the high from last year's recall of Carlos Alvarez and Natacha Seijas.

The good news is that Vanessa Brito -- the woman who slayed Seijas's political career -- will turn in a petition for commissioner term limits later this morning. The bad news is that she will only have 120 days to gather at least 120,000 signatures in order to get it on the November ballot.
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​A Florida law requires all bicyclists to keep at least one hand on a handlebar while riding their bike at all times, which, of course, prevents show offs from looking totally awesome. Republican Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff may have been unsuccessful in her attempt to bring Las Vegas-style casinos to Florida this year, but her bill to remove these handlebar regulations just passed the Senate with only a single nay vote.
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​Florida is a pretty horrible place to be an animal. That's due at least in part to the great conglomeration of weirdos and cretins here, of course, but stone-age animal cruelty laws have a lot to do with it as well. A few Florida senators have done their part by proposing bills that would go a long way in increasing animal welfare in this state. And one special lawmaker -- take a bow, Jim Norman -- is headed full speed in the opposite direction. Here are five 2012 bills every Florida animal lover should know about and their current status in the Florida Senate.
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​So Gov. Rick Scott, or whoever it is that controls his social media accounts, took to Facebook last night and asked Floridians to play a fun little game of fill-in-the-blank about the legislative session so far. With over 300 replies so far, Scott, who has some of the lowest approval numbers of any governor in the country, didn't quite get the response he was looking for. Here are 10 of the most ridiculous.
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courtesy Alan Reynolds

Coffee's a no-go at Romney rallies, a local ex-supporter says.

​When Alan Reynolds learned Mitt Romney would be holding a rally in Hialeah last week, the local conservative was ecstatic: Not only could he see his favorite GOP contender in person, he could unleash the perfect sign. "My wife is Cuban-American, he's holding a rally at a Hialeah lunch spot, so I thought, 'I'm going to bring a sign about Cuban coffee," Reynolds says. "It was perfect."

So it was -- at least until Romney's staffers saw the poster. Reynolds says he was promptly booted from the event with a staffer telling him: "Romney doesn't drink coffee. It's against his religion."
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​Remember in December when Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi was roaming around Tallahassee asking officials, including Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi to pee in a cup?  Well, the package finally made it onto the air last night.More >>

​If you were a betting man, hopefully you were betting that a bill to bring three full-service, Las Vegas-style casinos to South Florida wouldn't pass this year. You'd be cashing in right now.

The bill has died in the Florida House, after Rep. Erik Fresen, the Republican from Miami who is sponsoring the bill in the House, failed to cobble together enough votes to pass the bill out of the Business and Consumer Affairs Subcommittee. That, of course, does not mean he won't try again next year.
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​Citizens decry the involvement of shadowy special interests and lobbying groups in our politics, so it's quite surprising that Rep. Rachel Burgin, a Republican from Tampa, tried to pass the actual mission statement of such a group into law.

It's not exactly a secret that lawmakers often don't actually write the laws they introduce. Sometimes they rely on aides, but sometimes they just pretty much copy and paste language pre-written for them by outside groups. Most, however, aren't as lazy about it as Burgin.
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​Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi may be fighting to repeal President Obama's healthcare reform laws in court, but the new laws have already saved Floridians close to $142 million, and most of the laws haven't even gone into effect yet. The savings come from Medicare recipients who now pay less for their prescription drugs. Bondi however wants the laws voided as soon as possible.
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"Be nice, guys!"

​Earlier today, Riptide's resident Tea Party trouble-maker Gus Garcia-Roberts took a strong stand against Libertarian hero Ron Paul -- as well as his allegedly "sandpapery man hands" -- while demanding that Paul "cease to exist (in politics.)"

To say that Paul's supporters were angry at Garcia-Roberts column would be to say that Newt Gingrich has some fidelity issues. The piece has drawn more than two hundred comments to date, not to mention a full voice mail box. Click through for the ten most well-reasoned rebuttals from the bowels of the Interwebs.
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