Not all news stories, particularly the complicated ones, can be wrapped up in a couple of sound bites. But some stories, either because of lengthy legal processes, political posturing or private obsessions, drag on and on.
Here are the worst offenders — news stories in 2014 that stuck around well beyond their expiration date.
1. Will Jeb/Won’t Jeb?
Just as Christmas comes earlier every year, speculation on prospective presidential candidates begins earlier each election cycle.
“Election seasons overlap,” says USF Political Science Professor Susan MacManus. “You can’t even finish one before you talk about the next one.”
Take Mr. John Ellis Bush, known to many as Jeb.
Even before the November midterm elections, we knew that Florida’s governor (1998-2006) was probably going to run. After all, he’s directly related to two former presidents, a signal achievement in political circles.
In the past year he has gone from saying he wasn’t thinking about running to saying he was thinking about it to saying he was “seriously” thinking about it.
And now, as of last Tuesday, he’s “actively exploring a run.”
The national media was there to cover every last maybe, possibly and seriously.
And guess what? We’re still stuck on probably.
“The coverage of the 2016 presidential race looks to me like the media is itching for a Bush/Clinton race,” MacManus
observes. “Every time one of them breathes… it’s news.”
For 23 more months. Huzzah!
2. Pinellas County’s CD-13 race
Early 2014 was an election cycle dead zone, so this was the only game in town. Plus, millions in Super PAC money was just sitting around, money that ultimately made the election the most expensive Congressional race in history up to that point. And with the district split pretty evenly among Rs and Ds and a good number of independent and non-party voters, pundits floated the idea that the race between Democrat Alex Sink, Republican David Jolly and Libertarian Lucas Overby would be a bellwether for the November midterms.
So the entire Tampa Bay media market was flooded with negative ads, causing confusion among people who didn’t live in the district.
The race was close; Jolly won by about a point and a half.
But it didn’t end there.
“Because of the closeness of the race there was still speculation that he might have had more competition for the general election,” says USF’s MacManus.
There was talk of a rematch, but the Democrats fumbled and wound up without a candidate in the race after they tried to run Ed Jany, a political unknown from Hillsborough, as a non-party candidate. He dropped out days after announcing.
But the CD-13 drama didn’t end there. The Tampa Bay Times published numerous stories about Young’s widow and her grudge against Jolly for not keeping all of her husband’s staff on the payroll.
Then Young’s son Billy challenged Democrat Dwight Dudley, the incumbent in the HD-68 seat, running on a “my father…” platform. Dudley held onto his seat, but some political observers have said that’s probably not the last we’ll be seeing of the Younger Young.
3. Redistricting drama
This one was supposed to have been settled in 2010.
That’s when Florida voters approved the Fair Districts Amendment, meant to alleviate the practice of gerrymandering through which legislators manipulate the shapes of Congressional and legislative districts in a way that benefits the ruling party.
Following the changes instituted in the amendment, districts were supposed to be drawn contiguously and without blatant attempts to engineer election outcomes on the basis of, say, race or age.
But after the districts were redrawn in 2012 — something done only once a decade — it looked like deja vu all over again, with the same tortuously drawn boundaries carefully drawn up in closed-door meetings to predetermine electoral outcomes. Groups like the League of Women Voters were not happy, so they sued. That litigation continues today, and has landed on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court. So the issue will likely extend well into 2015.
“It’s ongoing and the stakes are high,” MacManus said. “It’s always been simmering since the legislature passed it.”
Who knows? Maybe next year at this time the districts will all be shaped like fluffy, contiguous fairness clouds.
4. Bondi’s weird fight against gay marriage
She just won’t let it go.
FL Attorney General Pam Bondi’s battle against same-sex marriage in Florida finally seemed to have reached its Waterloo Friday when the U.S. Supreme Court refused her request to issue a stay on an August federal court decision deeming the ban unconstitutional. The stay will expire at the end of the day Jan. 5, after which gay couples in the state will be free to marry.
But Bondi is still not admitting defeat. She has supported the alarmist theory floated by law firm Greenberg and Traurig, which represents county clerks, that the federal ruling against the ban applies only in Washington County, the only place named in the lawsuit. Bondi’s “concession” speech after the Supreme Court refused to extend the stay emphasized the need for “uniformity” in state marriage licensing, but she has been all too willing to stoke the fears raised by Greenberg and Traurig that clerks who marry gay couples outside of Washington County could be facing arrest. Meanwhile, the ACLU is threatening lawsuits to any clerk who refuses to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.
Bondi’s determination to stop something that even religious, conservative strongholds like Utah are moving forward on is a real head-scratcher.
“History will not be kind to her no matter how much she tries to justify the indefensible,” says Nadine Smith, director of
Equality Florida. Her organization's Web site features useful information for couples intending to wed on Jan. 6, and is asking supporters to flood county clerk's offices with phone calls urging them to do their constitutional duty.
5. The Rays stadium saga — make it stop!
Few local issues, if any, have garnered as many headlines and front-page stories as the Tampa Bay Rays’ stadium saga. The team wants to leave Tropicana Field, its current home, and look for stadium sites elsewhere, namely Tampa.
But it’s contractually obligated to stay put in the dome until 2027.
“Just as sporting events are emotional, so is the business of sports,” said Noah Pransky, an investigative reporter with Channel 10 who runs the blog Shadow of the Stadium, in an email interview. “Unfortunately, most fans don’t understand the rules of the game when it comes to sports business.”
High demand for a major league team could give teams an edge over local governments, which are often on the hook for the stadiums.
“Pro sports teams have grown to rely on government subsidies — money that can be spent on any variety of public uses — and even when public coffers run empty, teams tend to still profit greatly,” Pransky wrote.
Last week, the issue came to a head when the St. Pete City Council rejected the team’s agreement with Mayor Rick
Kriseman that would have allowed them to check out sites in Tampa — a vote Pransky calls the biggest surprise of the year.
So it’s back to square one, and the steady stream of news stories and commentary will continue to flow.
6. Vinik’s plan: Baseball not included
Vinik, Vinik, Vinik, Vinik. For many months, the speculation about Jeff Vinik’s plans for Channelside was the stuff of breathless news stories on both sides of the bay. Then, on the morning of Dec. 17, The Unveiling took place in a Marriott Waterside ballroom as ablaze with lights as a Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert. The Tampa Bay Lightning owner finally announced what he plans to do with the 26 acres of land he bought near the Amalie Arena where his team plays.
And behold — no stadium! When Vinik and his partners started quietly buying up land in the area, there was hopeful chirping about the possibility of the Rays building a new home there.
He quickly shut that down, and on Wednesday presented a vision of a massive yet walkable mixed-use development, a billion-dollar project made possible with money from none other than Bill Gates.
A handful of progressive activists have already protested the plan, saying it excludes Tampa’s low-income residents.
And while the project could break ground as early as next summer, Vinik said construction (which for you means traffic) could last up to ten years. Meanwhile, the next round of conjecture begins: Will he/won’t he win the hearts of a big-time corporation looking for a new HQ?
7. Governor Rick Scott’s drug testing
The guv can’t let it go. Despite objections from all along the political spectrum, Rick Scott carries on his crusade to make all welfare recipients pee in a cup to make sure they’re not trading their food stamps for meth. Or something.
Critics say the requirement constitutes a violation of Fourth Amendment rights, an argument that has caused multiple judges to overturn the law, the latest instance of which was earlier this month.
Last week, even the conservative Tampa Tribune editorial board urged the governor to give up the fight, which has so far cost taxpayers $650,000.
But will he budge?
“Sometimes it’s personal ideology of the person” that drives such a crusade, says McManus. “Other times it’s positioning the person or the party in the next election.”
This article appears in Dec 25-31, 2014.