They fear that more amendments will make governing difficult.
By ALISA ULFERTS
Published December 9, 2003
TALLAHASSEE - Florida lawmakers on Monday began looking for ways to make it more difficult to pass citizen initiatives.
Voters in Florida are twice as likely to approve initiatives as those in other states, University of Florida political science professor Daniel Smith told the Senate Select Committee on Constitutional Amendment Reform.
That success is related to legislative failure, Smith said.
"Measures that make it on the ballot are perceived to be measures that you have failed to deal with," Smith told lawmakers.
Still, the number of measures has remained steady in recent years, Smith said. Sixteen have been approved in the past 24 years. "This is hardly rampant," Smith said.
But the success of some particularly costly amendments has prompted the governor and lawmakers to figure out how to make it harder to get them on the ballot and pass them, including those proposed for the November ballot.
"It's got to be more difficult to get something on the ballot," Senate President Jim King said during the first meeting of a special committee he formed to do just that.
Otherwise, King worries Florida will become as ungovernable as California, where state government's hands are tied by numerous citizen initiatives.
"I can't think of anything that is more adversarial or more difficult for us than the Californication of Florida," said King, R-Jacksonville. But he admitted reining in a citizen's right to amend the Constitution could be a hard sell.
"Politically, you're at risk, which incidentally is one of the reasons why we put a Democrat as chairman," King joked.
Sen. Rod Smith, D-Alachua, chairs the committee.
If lawmakers agree, voters would be asked as soon as September to amend the Constitution to make it tougher to approve future amendments, even those on the November ballot.
They haven't decided whether the same rules should be required for amendments proposed by lawmakers.
House Speaker Johnnie Byrd, R-Plant City, has appointed a similar committee, and Gov. Jeb Bush is considering similar ideas. Some 50 proposals have been floated, but so far none has made it to the ballot.
Getting a measure before the voters takes a half-million signatures. The Florida Supreme Court must approve the language to ensure that the issue is clearly explained and limited to one subject.
The issue is shaping up to be one of the most divisive of the 2004 legislative session, which begins March 2.
Florida TaxWatch supports King's effort, but Common Cause of Florida does not. Making it harder to put something on the ballot would mean only deep-pocketed interest groups could afford it, Common Cause argues. But since turnout is often low, less than a majority of voters is actually approving amendments, TaxWatch argues.
The move to cut back on ballot access is generated largely by several expensive amendments that passed in the past couple of years, particularly the class size reduction amendment and the high-speed rail amendment.
Several measures proposed for the 2004 election also worry lawmakers.
One is organized by former Sens. John McKay of Bradenton and Jack Latvala of Palm Harbor to require lawmakers to take a public vote on every state sales tax exemption every 10 years. Florida collects $17.5-billion in sales taxes but exempts $25-billion in taxes.
"It'll completely kill economic development in Florida," said Paul Ledford, a senior vice president with the Florida Chamber of Commerce.
Latvala scoffed at that.
"If they think that a review of the exemptions by a Legislature that we all elected could kill Florida's economy, I think that's a stretch," he said.
Two ballot initiatives proposed by state Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Dania Beach, would create an independent commission to draw congressional and legislative districts and establish standards for those districts.
Democrats complain that Republican legislators have gerrymandered legislative districts to keep them in power. Republicans firmly control both chambers of the Legislature even though Democrats outnumber Republicans in voter registration.
"I just want people to keep in mind that the majority of the amendments passed were put on the ballot by the Legislature or a legislatively directed body," such as the Constitution Revision Commission, said Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland.
Dockery's husband, C.C. "Doc" Dockery, spent $2.7-million getting the high-speed rail amendment on the ballot in 2000. Numerous lawmakers have said they want to repeal the amendment because of the multibillion-dollar cost.
