November election could decide Where can you vape, who runs local schools and should Miami-Dade elect its sheriff?
Florida voters will have a full plate of ideas to digest when they show up at the polls this fall.
The Constitution Revision Commission Monday placed eight proposals on the November ballot to join five already approved for voters’ consideration. The 37-member panel meets every 20 years to propose changes to the state’s governing document.
The 2018 CRC finished its work three weeks early amidst protests over its decision to bundle 20-some ideas into eight initiatives for voters to decide.
Critics say the logrolling of controversial and popular proposals into a take-it-or-leave-it proposal is unfair. They say the number of initiatives addressing more than one issue can create “ballot fatigue” while voters try to figure out what an initiative accomplishes.
At the polls, voters will face ballot titles limited to 15 words and summaries of 75 words. Courts have placed the limits to avoid voter confusion.
“It can be quite challenging when you mix three or four proposals together,” said Jack Cory, a lobbyist for the greyhound industry about writing the titles and summaries.
Cory expects there will be court challenges to the CRC’s decision to bundle initiatives related more by category than by topic. For example, an education proposal that mandates the teaching of civics in public schools is combined with term limits for school board members and state control of local charter schools.
When some commissioners objected during the debate, drafting committee chair Brecht Heuchan shot back, “In our view, they all deal with the K-12 system.”
The mixing of popular items with controversial ones has drawn criticism from a variety of groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, the League of Women Voters and the AFL-CIO.
“The original intent of the constitution was not to have logrolling, not to have multiple issues,” said Cory citing a litany of legal opinions. “The Constitution says a proposal may be brought forth, not 20 proposals hidden in eight or 13.”
He expects a legal challenge may try to block some items from the ballot.
This year marks the third time Florida has convened a Constitution Revision Commission. In 1978 voters rejected all eight ballot proposals the CRC wrote. The commission placed nine proposals before voters in 1998 and eight were approved.
Ellen Freidin, a member of the 1998 CRC, said she is more concerned about the bundling of ideas than she is about the number of proposals
“Voters are smart. They know how to read ballots and I think voters know when something passes the smell test or doesn’t,” said Freidin, who has been active with the League of Women Voters.
"The number of proposals do not bother me nearly as much as the obscurity of the way some of these proposal bundle summaries are written, especially the one that tries to hide expanding charter schools behind civics education and school board term limits," she continued. "They are hard to read. They are hard to understand."
Each of the proposals must receive at least 60 percent of the vote to be adopted.
Reporter James Call can be reached at jcall@tallahassee.com.
Here are the Commission’s eight proposals for the November ballot
1. Proposal 6001 inserts additional rights of crime victims in the Constitution similar to Marsy’s Laws in six other states. It provides for victims the right to be heard in court and to be notified of bail and parole decisions.
“As a survivor of sexual assault and an advocate for other survivors, I am heartened by today's Constitution Revision Commission vote in favor of Marsy’s Law for Florida. Florida voters will now have the chance to decide if they, too, stand with victims and their families when they cast their ballots in November. We as survivors came before this body many times to share our stories, and I want to thank them for listening,” said Sen. Lauren Book.
The measure also mandates how a judge interprets state law in disputes between an agency and private party and increases the retirement age for a judge.
2. Proposal 6002 is a three-pronged initiative that would require a supermajority vote of the Board of Governors and university trustees to raise existing fees or impose a new one, provide a governing system for the State College System and give college scholarships to survivors of certain first responders and members of the military.
3. Proposal 6003 combines term limits for school board members with a mandate to teach civic literacy in public schools and allows the state to approve and supervise charter schools instead of the local school board. Opponents objected out of fear the charter school provision will undermine local control of public schools.
“This is a game changer. That’s why you want it,” pleaded Commissioner Robert Martinez to charter school supporters to have state authorization of local schools as a stand-alone proposal.
The motion failed and the CRC approved the education package with a 27 -10 vote.
“This idea of logrolling is a common legislative trick to get what you want,” said Rich Templin of the AFL-CIO about the number of CRC proposals that combine popular ideas with controversial ones.
4. Proposal 6004 prohibits drilling for exploration and extraction of oil and natural gas in specified coastal waters and vaping in enclosed workspaces including restaurants.
5. Proposal 6005 moves the start of the Legislature’s annual session to the first Monday in January of even-numbered years. The initiative would also establish a Department of Veterans Affairs in the Constitution, create an Office of Counterterrorism and require charter counties to elect their sheriff and tax collectors.
6. Proposal 6006 removes a couple of never enforced provisions in the Florida Constitution. A 1926 ban prohibiting immigrants not eligible for citizenship to own or inherit real property, known as an alien land law, was invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court more than 60-years ago. Other states repealed their versions but Florida’s law remains on the book. Proposal 6006 would remove it and another provision regarding the development of a high-speed ground transportation system from the state’s governing document.
7. Proposal 6007 is an ethics package that would make state and local officials wait six years before they could begin lobbying the government for which they had worked. It also mandates that government officials are not to use their office to receive a “disproportionate benefit” for themselves or relatives. It would be up to the Florida Commission on Ethics to define a disproportionate benefit.
8. Proposal 6012 would phase out greyhound racing by 2020.