If you’re a Republican member of the Florida Senate and you haven’t taken sides in the Sharon Merchant-Lizbeth Benacquisto District 27 GOP primary, you’re in the minority.

Former state Rep. Merchant today launched her campaign for the West Palm Beach-to-Fort Myers seat and announced that she’s been endorsed by nine members of the Senate. Two of her backers — Sens. Paula Dockery of Lakeland and Alex Villalobos of Miami — stood with Merchant as she made her announcement at her family’s equipment rental business in West Palm Beach.

Benacquisto, who entered the race last month, has endorsements from eight Senators.

So 17 of the 26 Republicans in the Florida Senate have already taken sides for a primary that’s nearly 14 months off. Merchant and Benacquisto are vying for the seat of Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, who’s running for attorney general.

Read the endorsement lineups after the jump…..

(more…)

A Democratic activist filed an ethics complaintt against Attorney General Bill McCollum yesterday charging the Republican candidate for governor with misuse of the state plane, including a trip to West Palm Beach.

The complaint came later the same day a state employee and Gov. Charlie Crist appointee filed a similar complaint against Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, a Democrat, for the same thing. Sink is also running for governor.

A Miami Herald/St. Petersburg Times investigation found that Sink and McCollum each used the planes dozens of times to ferry them to their homes and not for official state business as required by law.

The complaint against McCollum filed by Kenneth Quinnell, a Tallahassee Democrat, charges that the attorney general’s misuse of the state plane included a trip to West Palm Beach on Feb. 19.

McCollum ordered an empty state plane to pick him up at a private airport in Sanford near his Longwood home in Central Florida. He took the plane to Sarasota then to West Palm Beach. The plane returned to Tallahassee empty, which taxpayers must pay for, and McCollum took the next day, Friday, off.

A Department of Management Services, which oversees the state’s executive aircraft pool, draft audit of Cabinet members’ state plane use found that there was potential abuse by high-priority state officials. But the final audit released to the public did not include that information.

Sink ordered her office to investigate the state plane use.

Whether it’s a $1 increase in the cigarette tax , more expensive driver-license renewals ($48 instead of $20), or tougher seat belt laws, today is the day that many of those votes taken in Tallahassee this spring begin to have a real impact on ordinary people.

Here’s a rundown of some of the other new laws that take effect today.