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      Candidates for Federal Office Can Raise Unlimited Funds for Ballot Measures

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      The Federal Election Commission quietly issued an advisory opinion last week allowing candidates to raise unlimited money for issue-advocacy groups working on ballot measures in elections in which those candidates are on the ballot.The opinion, issued in response to a request from a Nevada-based abortion rights group, could significantly alter the landscape in the fall in terms of the capacity that candidates aligned with these groups have to help them raise money.The decision applies to all federal candidates, but with a presidential election taking place in six months, the biggest attention will fall to that race. If Mr. Biden can solicit money for abortion-rights ballot measures, he can add to an already-existing fund-raising advantage that his team currently has over Mr. Trump.The decision, released publicly last week but little noticed, could affect turnout in battleground states like Nevada where razor-thin margins will determine the election. In Arizona, an abortion rights group said it had the number of signatures required to put a referendum on the ballot. Florida — a state that has voted reliably for Republicans in recent presidential races — has a similar measure on the ballot.The advisory opinion means that both Mr. Biden and former President Donald J. Trump can raise money for outside groups pushing ballot measures. In the wake of the repeal of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision, abortion ballot measures are expected to be a key focus for Democrats this fall.“I think it’s quite significant,” said Adav Noti, of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, calling it an enormous change from prohibitions put in place by the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill in 2002.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Florida workers brace for summer with no protections: ‘My body would tremble’

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      For Javier Torres and other workers whose jobs are conducted outdoors in south Florida, the heat is unavoidable. A new law recently signed by Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, that prohibits any municipalities in the state from passing heat protections for workers ensures that it is likely to stay that way.Torres has seen a co-worker die from heatstroke and another rushed to the emergency room in his years of working in construction in south Florida. He has also fallen and injured himself due to heat exhaustion.“I work outdoors and have no choice but to work in the heat. I work often in painting and, in the majority of cases, we’re exposed to direct sun and we don’t have shade. Sometimes I feel dizzy and get headaches,” said Torres.He said employers rarely provide workers with water, leaving workers to ensure they bring enough water to work or find a hose to drink from.The effects of extreme heat on workers are only expected to worsen due to the climate crisis. Many parts of Florida experienced record heat last year. Orlando hit 100F (37.7C) in August breaking a record set in 1938. The National Weather Service recently issued its outlook for summer 2024, predicting Florida summer temperatures will be warmer than normal.“The heat can be very intense, especially as we get closer to summer,” added Torres. “What we want as workers who labor outdoors is to have water, shade and rest breaks to protect ourselves.”At the behest of agricultural industry lobbyists, DeSantis signed HB433 into law on 11 April, a bill scaling back child labor protections that also included an amendment prohibiting all local municipalities in Florida from enacting heat protections for workers.The exemption came in response to efforts by farm workers in Miami-Dade county to pass heat protections, including proper rest breaks, access to water and shade, as increasingly warming temperatures have expanded the days farm workers are exposed to heat.Ana Mejia, a farm worker, worked for 11 years at Costa Farms in south Florida where she said she experienced two serious heat stress incidents on the job. Costa Farms was included on the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health’s Dirty Dozen report of unsafe employers in 2024. Costa Farms declined to comment.“I worked outdoors during my entire time at Costa Farms in temperatures that quite often exceeded 100 degrees,” said Mejia. “I had headaches, sweat excessively, my body would start to shake and tremble. I started to feel dizzy and a lack of coordination, and this feeling of shock and desperation. It was a very bad experience.”She recounted having to be brought to onsite medical care, but only being given an electrolyte drink and finding no medical professional on site or called to help her.“The high standards of meeting productivity quotas per day combined with working in high temperatures is putting us in danger,” added Mejia. “The rest breaks are at the discretion of supervisors and often they don’t want to give rest breaks because it will reduce the productivity of the business.”There are currently no protections in the US for workers from heat. Only a handful of states such as California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado and Minnesota have passed any heat protections for workers.The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) is currently reviewing federal heat standard protections and issues fines against employers citing the general duty clause in cases where workers die due to heat stress, but worker groups have advocated that heat protections which include water, rest, shade, breaks and acclimatization are needed to save workers from heat illnesses and their lives.Up to 2,000 workers in the US die every year due to heat stress, according to a 2023 report by Public Citizen.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSeveral business groups are lobbying against heat protections for workers at the federal level, and lobbyists aggressively pushed lawmakers to pass the Florida heat exemption bill.Orlando Weekly reported on texts from corporate lobbyists to lawmakers urging them to pass the heat exemption bill before the end of the legislative session.“I haven’t texted you in weeks–HEAT cannot die,” wrote Carol Bowen, a lobbyist for the Associated Builders and Contractors in a text message on 7 March to the House speaker Paul Renner’s chief of staff Allison Carter, the day before the last day of the legislative session when the bill was ultimately passed. “The entire business community is in lock step on this. Thank you for your attention to this concern.”Ahead of a vote on the bill, the Florida chamber of commerce lobbyist Carolyn Johnson told Republican lawmakers their vote on the bill would be double-weighted on the How They Voted report the chamber sends to its members.Jeannie Economos, an organizer with the Farmworker Association of Florida, said worker advocacy groups opposing HB433 were hoping the clock would run out for the bill to get passed by the state legislature. Several labor and environmental groups sent letters imploring DeSantis to veto the bill.“It’s incomprehensible that people who live in Florida, and are supposed to represent the people of Florida, can vote against the health and safety of the workers that make this economy run, who were considered essential workers just a couple years ago and given PPE, are now treated like this, and not giving protection from extreme heat,” said Economos. “That makes no sense and it’s unconscionable.”She said worker advocacy groups in Florida were regrouping and planned on developing strategies on how to override the Florida law, while continuing to advocate for heat protections at the federal level and conducting heat stress trainings for outdoor workers to protect themselves.“For us right now, while HB433 is a setback to our campaign, we know the issue of extreme heat isn’t going away anytime soon,” said Oscar Londoño, executive director of the worker advocacy non-profit WeCount!, which has been pushing for heat protections for workers through its ¡Qué Calor! campaign. “We know that the issue is going to get even more and more relevant, and that workers will need to continue to do what is necessary to protect their lives on a job, whether that is through direct action, through workplace organizing, or through ongoing corporate campaign, workers will find a way to win the protection they deserve in Florida.” More

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      Matt Gaetz Faces Last-Minute Challenger in Republican Primary

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      Aaron Dimmock, a retired Navy officer and aviator, has entered the Republican primary to challenge Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida — jumping into the race hours before a filing deadline last Friday.Mr. Dimmock’s campaign committee shares a treasurer with American Patriots PAC, a group that was used by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy to support candidates who were aligned with him in the 2022 midterms. Mr. Gaetz led the revolt among House Republicans that ultimately ousted Mr. McCarthy from the speakership.Mr. Dimmock and representatives of American Patriots PAC did not respond to requests for comment. The primary for the First Congressional District, which covers Pensacola and the western Florida Panhandle, will take place on Aug. 20.Mr. Dimmock, a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, served as a pilot for the P-3 surveillance plane for the Navy. In an interview with the U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association in 2020, Mr. Dimmock said that he had deployed to Bosnia and Kosovo and had completed several tours in the Middle East. He also described flying surveillance missions over New York City in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center. He became an instructor pilot, later worked as a recruiting officer and closed out his career as a Navy liaison in the Pentagon. The Navy operates a major air base in Pensacola.Mr. Gaetz quickly attacked Mr. Dimmock on social media, pointing to LinkedIn posts that Mr. Dimmock made as a business consultant in 2020 in support of racial diversity and the Black Lives Matter movement after the murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.“Meet Aaron W. Dimmock,” Mr. Gaetz wrote. “The B.L.M. supporting D.E.I. instructor running against me in the Republican Primary. I knew former Representative McCarthy would be getting a puppet of his to run. I didn’t know it would be a Woke Toby Flenderson!” More

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      Trump and DeSantis appear to try to thaw relationship with breakfast meeting

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      Donald Trump claimed to have “the full and enthusiastic support” of Ron DeSantis after the two men met on Sunday for a golf course breakfast in an apparent attempt to thaw their relationship after the Republican primary.“I am very happy to have the full and enthusiastic support of Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida,” Trump posted to his Truth Social platform on Monday afternoon.“We had a great meeting yesterday, arranged by mutual friend Steve Witkoff, at his beautiful Shell Bay Club in Hollywood, Florida.”Witkoff, an investor, is a friend and donor to Trump. He has also been a witness for the former president, in his New York civil trial for business fraud.DeSantis was once considered Trump’s top rival in the Republican presidential primary, with a platform that rested primarily on fighting the “woke” cultural forces of diversity, inclusion and tolerance.But a bungled presidential run meant DeSantis left the race after the Iowa caucus in January, leaving Trump to storm to victory despite facing 88 criminal charges and multimillion-dollar penalties in civil suits also including a defamation claim arising from a rape claim a judge said was “substantially true”.DeSantis’s catastrophic presidential run left him needing to repair his relationship with Trump.The meeting in Hollywood, Florida, was first reported by the Washington Post. On Monday, Trump said the two men discussed “how we would work closely together” and “the future of Florida”.Relations between DeSantis and Trump had long been frosty. Trump nicknamed his rival “Ron DeSanctimonious”; DeSantis described Trump as unelectable, though he said he would support him if he won the nomination.DeSantis has said he does not want to be named as Trump’s running mate and prospective vice-president.Relations between the two men have long appeared tense. DeSantis at one point criticized Trump’s team as people “we fired”. Trump’s team called DeSantis a “sad little man”, according to the Post.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump has proven to be transactional with rivals when necessary – and he stands to benefit from improved relations. DeSantis developed a network of wealthy donors to back his presidential run, moneyed supporters Trump needs if he hopes to catch Joe Biden in fundraising terms.Many donors were weary of Trump before the primary began. Some of the largest players criticized the former president, who on Sunday met DeSantis during a break from trial in New York in a case centering on hush-money payments to an adult film star that prosecutors allege were illicitly covered up.Trump is also accused of illegally trying to reverse his defeat to Biden in the 2020 election, at federal and state levels, and of improperly retaining classified materials.Nonetheless, some Republicans who aligned themselves against Trump began to reverse course as early as January – and a reconciliation with DeSantis may help more return to Trump’s orbit.DeSantis apparently hopes to run for president again in 2028. To mount a serious effort, he would need to maintain both his national profile and his large network of donors. More

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      Trump and DeSantis Meet in Florida for First Time Since Bruising Primary

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      Donald J. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida met on Sunday morning, according to three people briefed on the meeting, the first time they’ve done so since the end of a bruising Republican presidential primary that Mr. Trump won while relentlessly attacking Mr. DeSantis.The meeting — which took place in Hollywood, Fla., according to one of the people briefed on the meeting — was the result of a weekslong effort by a longtime friend of Mr. Trump, the real-estate investor Steve Witkoff, who also has a relationship with Mr. DeSantis. The three men met alone in a private room at Shell Bay, Mr. Witkoff’s development and golf club, according to the person briefed on the meeting.Mr. Trump is looking to bolster his fund-raising, an ability Mr. DeSantis demonstrated during the primary by tapping into a network of well-funded donors. And Mr. DeSantis — who has made clear he is interested in running for president again in 2028 — is seeking to shed the negative weight of his disappointing campaign. The meeting was reported earlier by The Washington Post.A spokesman for Mr. Trump didn’t respond to an email seeking comment. A spokesman for Mr. DeSantis declined to comment.Mr. DeSantis is not seen as a contender to join a Republican ticket with Mr. Trump, who is both the presumptive Republican nominee and on trial in Manhattan on charges he falsified business records to conceal hush-money payments to a porn star in the 2016 election. Both Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis have made clear that such a pairing doesn’t interest either of them, and they also live in the same state, which would make it an unconstitutional pairing unless one of them were to move out of Florida, which is unlikely to happen, especially since Mr. DeSantis is currently the governor.Mr. DeSantis had been seen as Mr. Trump’s chief intraparty competition, and he was the target the Trump team focused on for months. The tensions between the two men — and their aides — often boiled over during the primary race. Mr. Trump excoriated Mr. DeSantis during the campaign, nicknaming him “Ron DeSanctimonious,” and criticizing him as being disloyal. Mr. DeSantis also claimed that Mr. Trump was unelectable at various points during his primary campaign, which was plagued by missteps and accusations of mismanagement.Recently, Mr. DeSantis held a donor event the same weekend that Mr. Trump held a large fund-raiser for his campaign. During the fund-raiser, Mr. Trump revived the “DeSanctimonious” nickname, according to an attendee.Still, allies of both men say it is politically beneficial for them to come together for the 2024 campaign and beyond. More

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      Melania Trump to hit campaign trail for husband after early absence

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      Her biggest fashion statement as first lady was a green jacket emblazoned with the words “I really don’t care, do u?” More recently, Melania Trump has given the impression that she doesn’t care whether her husband, Donald, returns to the White House. That is about to change.On Saturday Melania, 53, will appear at a fundraiser at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, for the Log Cabin Republicans, the biggest Republican organisation dedicated to representing LGBT conservatives. It will be her first appearance at a political event since Trump, 77, launched his bid to regain the presidency.It comes at the end of a week that saw Melania’s husband become the first former US president in history to stand criminal trial. The case, involving a hush-money payment by Trump to an adult film performer, would be enough to test any marriage. Yet it seems that the former and possible future first lady is again prepared to campaign for her spouse – up to a point.“It’s not going to be in volume but you’ll see her at key moments,” said Mary Jordan, author of The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump. “She likes to heighten the interest in her appearances by being scarce. It’s very intentional, like a movie star who doesn’t want exposure. She’s hyper-aware of her persona and her celebrity. This is a model who learned to get covers of magazines so she wants to be in control.”The former Slovenian model, who married Trump in 2005, became only the second foreign-born first lady in US history. She delayed moving to the White House after Trump won the 2016 election because she was renegotiating their prenuptial agreement, according to Jordan’s book, and in one notorious incident was seen swatting his hand away. She had a rivalry with Trump’s daughter Ivanka. But she came to love the trappings and prestige of being first lady.Since Trump’s defeat in 2020 she has maintained a low profile. Her main public appearances have included a memorial service for former first lady Rosalynn Carter, a funeral for Trump’s older sister and the funeral for her mother, Amalija Knavs. Last year she addressed a naturalisation ceremony in Washington, telling new Americans that citizenship means “actively participating in the democratic process and guarding our freedom”.But her absence is often more notable than her presence. Melania has been missing from Trump’s run of campaign rallies and court appearances. When he celebrated Super Tuesday primary election victories with a party at Mar-a-Lago, his children Don Jr, Eric and Tiffany were there but his wife was not.It is a potentially worrying sign for Trump in a country that traditionally prizes political candidates with loyal spouses and wholesome families. The spouse is often a vital surrogate, able to step in at fundraisers or other events; few doubt the authenticity of the love affair between Joe and Jill Biden. But the Trumps, who typically sleep in separate rooms and lead separate lives, have never followed anyone else’s playbook.Just as in the 2016 campaign, Jordan believes that Melania will pick and choose her moments for maximum effect. “She doesn’t like being on the political road but she likes to be a celebrity and she will be out there,” she said. “There were parts of being first lady that she loved and so you’re just going to see her pick her shots. She’ll go to events that she can have maximum control over. She won’t do too many because she absolutely knows newspapers write about it and she’s on TV.View image in fullscreen“Everything she does is very thought out and calculated at. Yes, we’re going to be seeing her at key moments but we’re not going to be seeing her as other political spouses are. She never has and never will act like any other political spouse the country’s ever seen. When he started running the first time, people were like, wow, this is crazy, this is such a valuable asset staying at home. But she’s definitely doing it her way.”It might be assumed that this week would be an especially rough one for Melania. Jury selection has been under way for Trump’s trial in New York on charges of falsifying business records tied to a $130,000 hush-money payment made to buy Stormy Daniels’ silence about an alleged sexual encounter that took place not long after Melania gave birth to their son Barron.Melania, who rarely betrays emotion in public, is known to have been furious about reports of the affair when they first surfaced, flying off to Palm Beach and taking a separate car to his first State of the Union address. But she is now said to be more sympathetic to Trump, privately calling the proceedings “a disgrace”, the New York Times reported.Jordan, a reporter for the Washington Post newspaper, commented: “She was mortified at the time and furious at her husband when she found out originally. But now she thinks that this is being used as a political weapon against her husband and she’s focusing her anger on that.”Indeed, the New York trial is unlikely to deliver surprise revelations that Melania is not aware of already. Kurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist, said: “This is what she signed up for. She knows who this guy is. It’s no surprise that he’s a serial philanderer. Whatever trade-offs she has made to live the life that she wants to live, she is comfortable with them. She makes her own choices and I couldn’t care less.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBardella, a former senior adviser for Republicans on the House of Representatives oversight committee, added: “I do think that when you are auditioning to be the first family of America there is an expectation from the public that you are open and transparent about what your real family situation is and those who have fallen short of that have paid a political price over the years. For the party that wraps itself and this cloak of so-called family values all the time, it’s interesting that they seem to completely bypass that when it comes to their leader.”Melania’s current main focus has been preparing Barron for university after he graduates from a private high school in May (Trump complained on social media this week that he might miss his son’s graduation because of the New York trial). But Trump often brings up her name at rallies, sometimes with some rare self-deprecation, and has assured crowds that they will see her on the campaign trail.Melania is thought to be one of the few people that Trump trusts to be straight with him. The former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told a congressional panel investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol: “He listens to many of us, but he reserves fear for one person, Melania Trump.”Indeed, Melania helped persuade Trump to select Mike Pence, rather than Chris Christie or Newt Gingrich, as his vice-presidential candidate in 2016. She also encouraged him to support the celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz’s losing effort in Pennsylvania’s Senate race in 2022. Melania is now said to be lobbying for Conway to return to the fold in an official capacity.She is also known to have admonished Trump on occasion for vulgar outbursts or mockery of people with disabilities. But there is no evidence that she intends to act as a brake on his radical rightwing policy agenda.Speaking last month at the Politics and Prose bookshop in Washington, Katie Rogers, author of American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden, said: “There was this idea that she would be a secret resistance figure early on. First ladies channel and mirror their husbands, even in this case. She shares his grievances. She has the same anger over how her family is perceived and covered as he does. They’re more united in that dynamic than people think.”Rogers, a White House correspondent for the New York Times and former Guardian reporter, said she did not know if the couple would remain married through a second term. “I know they have an agreement in place in the event that they’re not. But she likes the role.”Biden v Trump: What’s in store for the US and the worldOn Thursday 2 May, 3-4.15pm ET, join Tania Branigan, David Smith, Mehdi Hasan and Tara Setmayer for the inside track on the people, the ideas and the events that might shape the US election campaign. Book tickets here or at theguardian.live More

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      ‘This is a violent attack against women’: Florida Senate candidate seeks to channel abortion outrage

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      A round table on abortion rights, hosted by Florida’s Democratic Senate candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, has only just begun, and already she finds herself comforting a woman in tears with a very personal story to tell.The woman is from Colombia, and speaks softly in Spanish as she tells the intimate gathering of the Miami-Dade Hispanic Democratic Caucus about the distressing decision her daughter had to make to terminate a pregnancy after learning the fetus was not developing.“In Colombia, which tends to be a very conservative country, she was glad supportive medical professionals were there for her daughter in the decision, and grateful she had access to good-quality healthcare for it,” said Mucarsel-Powell.“It was traumatic and painful, but at least they could rely on that healthcare. I’m just seeing outrage, from men and women, that here, families are faced with having to live in a state where you will not be able to get that care, because most women don’t even know they’re pregnant at six weeks.”She was referring to the ruling by Florida’s supreme court earlier this month that will allow a six-week abortion ban, with few exceptions for rape or incest, to take effect on 1 May. It will end the state’s position as a bulwark of access to the procedure in the south-eastern US.Yet it has also acted as rocket fuel to the campaign of Mucarsel-Powell, an Ecuador-born former congresswoman and mother of two daughters. She seized on the issue to launch a statewide Freedom Tour championing the protection of abortion rights and exposing the “unapologetic and proud” support for the ban on the part of her opponent in November, the incumbent Republican senator Rick Scott.View image in fullscreenThe Hispanic Caucus event in Coral Gables was only the third of the tour, but Mucarsel-Powell said it was already clear that abortion is a “top-of-mind” issue galvanizing voters, as it is in other Republican-controlled states that have curtailed reproductive rights since the US supreme court ended almost 50 years of federal protections with its 2022 reversal of Roe v Wade.On Monday, her campaign announced it had raised over $3.5m in the first quarter of the year, with more than 5,300 new donors since the supreme court ruling. And Democrats across Florida are also sensing wind in their sails as opposition to the ban, as well as support for a court-approved ballot initiative that could enshrine access to the procedure in the state’s constitution, hardens.“This is a violent attack against women, because it is fundamental for us to make that decision on our own, with our healthcare provider, with our families, with our faith,” Mucarsel-Powell told the Guardian in an interview following the round table.“This is about protecting privacy, protecting healthcare for women, making sure that there’s no government interference, especially from extreme politicians like Rick Scott. I can tell you what people are thinking about this, and that it’s affecting women living in the state of Florida that were sent home when they thought they were having a miscarriage, and they weren’t able to get that healthcare.“And then they got very ill, and almost died because they didn’t receive that healthcare. So this is a top-of-mind issue, like so many other issues, but we’ll see in November how voters decide what are going to be their priorities. I think they’re going to make things very clear.”View image in fullscreenAlso clear is Mucarsel-Powell’s disdain for Scott, who she believes is vulnerable in November as he defends the seat he narrowly won from the incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson in 2018 by only 10,000 votes from 8.2m cast.“If he goes back to the Senate, he will push for a national abortion ban,” she said. “His true agenda includes signing away women’s reproductive rights and trying to control their bodies.“And he knows he will have to answer for his support of Florida’s ban in November. The choice is going to be very clear for voters, they know who I am, they know what I stand for, and who and what Rick Scott isn’t.An Emerson College poll this week showed that 42% of Florida voters planned to vote for the constitutional amendment that would overturn the Florida ban, far short of the 60% it would need to pass.Yet Mucarsel-Powell sees hope in the 32% who say they are still unsure. “A lot of people don’t know that this amendment is on the ballot, so the movement that has been created and has built this infrastructure on the ground is ready to make sure that everyone knows this is an issue,” she said.“The work is happening, it will continue to happen, and I think in November, the majority of Floridians will know that they have a choice. I believe they’re going to come out and vote for freedom.” More

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      Bob Graham, former US senator and Florida governor who opposed Iraq war, dies at 87

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      Former US senator and two-term Florida governor Bob Graham, who gained national prominence as chairman of the Senate intelligence committee in the aftermath of the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks and as an early critic of the Iraq war, has died aged 87.Graham’s family announced the death in a statement posted on X by his daughter Gwen Graham on Tuesday.“We are deeply saddened to report the passing of a visionary leader, dedicated public servant, and even more importantly, a loving husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather,” the family’s statement said.Graham, who served three terms in the Senate, made an unsuccessful bid for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, emphasising his opposition to the Iraq invasion.But his bid was delayed by heart surgery in January 2003, and he was never able to gain enough traction with voters to catch up, bowing out that October. He didn’t seek reelection in 2004 and was replaced by Republican Mel Martinez.Graham was a man of many quirks. He perfected the “workdays” political gimmick of spending a day doing various jobs from horse stall mucker to FBI agent and kept a meticulous diary, noting almost everyone he spoke with, everything he ate, the TV shows he watched and even his golf scores.Graham said the notebooks were a working tool for him and he was reluctant to describe his emotions or personal feelings in them. “I review them for calls to be made, memos to be dictated, meetings I want to follow up on and things people promise to do,” he said.Graham was among the earliest opponents of the Iraq war, saying President George W Bush distorted intelligence data and argued it was more serious than the sexual misconduct issues that led the House to impeach President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s. It led Graham to launch his short, abortive presidential bid.“The quagmire in Iraq is a distraction that the Bush administration, and the Bush administration alone, has created,” Graham said in 2003.During his 18 years in Washington, Graham worked well with colleagues from both parties, particularly Florida Republican Connie Mack during their dozen years together in the Senate.As a politician, few were better. Florida voters hardly considered him the wealthy, Harvard-educated attorney that he was.Graham’s political career spanned five decades, beginning with his election to the Florida House of Representatives in 1966. He won a state Senate seat in 1970 and then was elected governor in 1978. He was re-elected in 1982. Four years later, he won the first of three terms in the US Senate when he ousted incumbent Republican Paula Hawkins.View image in fullscreenGraham remained widely popular with Florida voters, winning reelection by wide margins in 1992 and 1998 when he carried 63 of 67 counties. In that latter election, he defeated Charlie Crist, who later served as a Republican governor from 2007 to 2011. Crist said on Tuesday that he came to “love him for the good, decent man that he was”.House speaker emerita Nancy Pelosi called Graham “a patriotic American” who “brought his love for his family and for his state of Florida to the Senate, where he served with immense dignity and courage”.Daniel Robert Graham was born 9 November 1936 in Coral Gables, where his father, Ernest “Cap” Graham, had moved from South Dakota and established a large dairy operation. Young Bob milked cows, built fences and scooped manure as a teenager. One of his half-brothers, Phillip Graham, was publisher of the Washington Post and Newsweek until he took his own life in 1963, just a year after Bob Graham’s graduation from Harvard law.In 1966 he was elected to the Florida legislature, where he focused largely on education and health care issues. He got off to a shaky start and was dubbed “Governor Jello” for some early indecisiveness, but he shook that label through his handling of several serious crises.As governor he also signed numerous death warrants, founded the Save the Manatee Club with entertainer Jimmy Buffett and led efforts to establish several environmental programs. Graham was also known for his 408 “workdays”, including stints as a housewife, boxing ring announcer, flight attendant and arson investigator. They grew out of a teaching stint as a member of the Florida Senate’s education committee and then morphed into the campaign gimmick that helped him relate to the average voter.“This has been a very important part of my development as a public official, my learning at a very human level what the people of Florida expect, what they want, what their aspirations are and then trying to interpret that and make it policy that will improve their lives,” Graham said in 2004 as he completed his final job as a Christmas gift wrapper.After leaving public life in 2005, Graham spent much of his time at a public policy centre named after him at the University of Florida and pushing the legislature to require more civics classes in the state’s public schools.Graham was one of five members selected for an independent commission by President Barack Obama in June 2010 to investigate a huge BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that threatened sea life and beaches along several south-eastern Gulf states. More