Politics

Speaker Will Weatherford introduced a new member of the Florida House this week.

“Members, we have an auto-reader. We had it in the closet just in case we ever had to actually read the bills,” Weatherford said amid laughs from the chamber. “It may be a little bit faster than normal.”

Weatherford's communications director announced on Twitter that the auto-reader's name is Mary.

Within an hour of her debut, Mary had her own Twitter handle - @HouseAutoReader. Some of her tweets include “I'm so bored” and “Anybody have a cure for the hiccups?”

With just a few days left of the legislative session, we're working to get as many answers as possible to questions posed during our last WLRN-Miami Herald Town Hall meeting in February.

This question comes from Steve Moyer of Cooper City:

"I have a disabled child that attends public school and feel the education provided to most ESE (Exceptional Student Education) students in Broward County as well as other districts is inadequate.

I will never forget that awful December day. My daughter left to school and I turned on the TV. I stumbled upon something that read “School Shooting.” All I could think was that my little princess was at her school and that this could happen anywhere. As it was getting time to pick her up, I rushed a little more and could not wait to hear her voice and see her smile. As soon as I saw her, I felt an immense sense of relief and peace. Tears kept on coming down my face.

Update 10:07 p.m. EST: The Florida Senate approved the Dolphins bill, 36-4. Now the House will get its turn to pass its own version.

Believe it or not, early voting began Monday in Miami-Dade County in a referendum that may NOT be needed by the end of the week.

Join us Friday at noon on 91.3 FM WLRN for an hour's discussion on the week's headlines, including:

• Legislation on health care, ethics, elections and education dominate the final days of the current session in Tallahassee.

• Before Miami-Dade voters have their say on stadium improvements, will the state clear the way for the Miami Dolphins to receive tax rebates?

Everyone loves to complain about political corruption.  But would you do any better?  Play our interactive game, Tallanasty, and find out if you would be a cleaner Florida politician.

We're a little over two weeks away from the scheduled Miami-Dade County referendum on proposed upgrades to the Miami Dolphins' Sun Life Stadium.

State lawmakers still need to approve a local hotel tax increase and a Dolphins subsidy that would help pay for the renovations. If that happens, the public will have a chance to officially vote on the upgrades on May 14th. 

Until then, we figured we'd give our audience a different way to express their feelings on the issue:

House Republicans rejected a bipartisan Senate proposal to accept $51 billion in federal health care money on Thursday, diminishing hopes that lawmakers will reach a health care compromise before the legislative session ends next week.

After five hours of targeted questions and impassioned debate, Republicans rejected an attempt by renegade Republican Rep. Mike Fasano to accept the Senate plan to provide federally subsidized health coverage to more than 1 million Floridians.