Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
STEVE BOUSQUETA group hopes its bid for a ballot initiative to increase the minimum wage would galvanize people who usually don't vote.
TALLAHASSEE - Denise Hylton collects signatures, and that makes her very unpopular around Florida's capital these days.
The Tampa health care worker and mother of seven is a board member of ACORN, a nationwide advocacy group for low- and moderate-income people. She joined dozens of activists on a bus ride Thursday to Tallahassee to oppose legislation making it harder for people to use the citizen initiative process to amend the state Constitution.
"I will not allow my Florida government to strip away my voting rights," Hylton said at a rally. "I am angry that my representatives are taking away our God-given right, as American citizens, to choose."
Hylton's more immediate goal is collecting signatures for ACORN's ballot initiative to increase the minimum wage in Florida by $1 an hour, to $6.15 an hour. She says the group speaks for Floridians who struggle to survive while toiling away in low-wage jobs in hotels and restaurants.
ACORN's demand for a higher minimum wage has implications for the presidential election.
ACORN paid for a poll last fall that showed a minimum wage initiative might not only benefit workers, but also might attract liberal voters to the polls in November - including thousands of poor blacks and Hispanics who usually don't vote.
"Our campaign is nonpartisan, but the minimum wage issue will directly benefit 300,000 workers," said Brian Kettenring, of St. Petersburg, ACORN's Florida director. "Those workers and their families and communities are going to be tremendously more motivated to come to vote in November, because they know they can vote themselves a raise."
The poll of 600 adults, including larger samples of black and Hispanic voters, showed 81 percent of voters overall favor a higher minimum wage and 71 percent of Republicans support it. The survey was done by Celinda Lake, a leading Democratic pollster and strategist.
The pollster cited a "messaging opportunity" in the coming election: "Raising the minimum wage issue would help progressives contrast their economic program with that of Gov. Bush and his brother."
Floridians for All, a political committee financing ACORN's effort, is supported in part by AFSCME, the nation's largest public employee union and a bulwark in Democratic politics.
Business leaders, who generally support Republicans, said using a citizen initiative as a get-out-the-vote tool in a presidential election is another example of why the rules need to be tightened on citizen initiatives.
"It's just an abuse of the process for a special interest agenda," said Fred Leonhardt, an Orlando lawyer and president of the Florida Chamber of Commerce.
Florida's minimum wage should be decided by the Legislature, Leonhardt said, not etched in the Constitution.
"Some people want it to become a part of the culture of Florida to bypass the Legislature and have citizens take over that role," Leonhardt said. "Making public policy by reading a 75-word ballot summary is not a good way to govern our state."
Geoffrey Becker, executive director of the Republican Party of Florida, said another possible ballot question, requiring parental notice for minors' abortions, could boost Republican turnout. But Becker is skeptical that initiatives far down a lengthy ballot significantly affect turnout.
"The potential is there," Becker said. "But the fact is, you have to educate people to know there's something on the ballot. If you don't have the wherewithal to do that, it doesn't really matter."
Florida business interests have not yet mobilized to stop the minimum wage initiative, but most business groups oppose raising the minimum wage. They include many of the same interests working to tighten restrictions on the citizen initiative process.
Dozens of groups support the limits on initiatives, including bankers, builders, hotel and motel operators, restaurateurs and the Florida Student Association.
A St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald poll last month found that 65 percent of voters support making it more difficult to amend the Constitution.
ACORN stands for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. It has 600 chapters in 45 cities across the country, including St. Petersburg, Tampa, Orlando and Miami.
ACORN needs nearly a half-million voters' signatures for the minimum wage issue to reach voters. They have been collecting signatures at places where working people gather, such as the state driver's license bureau on Florida Avenue in Tampa.
Last week they took their cause to Tallahassee.
Ordinary citizens attract attention in the capital because they are greatly outnumbered by people in tailored suits clutching cell phones and briefcases.
That contrast is part of ACORN's political message.
"Strip them of their luxuries for a month," said ACORN member Whitney Jamison of Tampa, referring to big businesses. "Put them out there on a $5.15 job, let them fend for it, and then come see me in a month. Tell me how you took care of your family."
ACORN members, in jeans, T-shirts and baseball caps, attracted five TV cameras. They held hand-lettered signs with slogans such as "Voting is our right" and "Don't pillage the vote."
Their rally was noisy but brief. The protesters were long gone by Thursday night, when the House Procedures Committee, playing to a near-empty room, passed a series of bills that would make it harder for citizen initiatives to succeed, but not amendments sponsored by the Legislature.
The changes include shortening the time period for collecting signatures, requiring initiatives to pass by a margin of 60 percent or more and limiting the subjects of initiatives.
As each bill came up for a vote, committee Chairman Allan Bense, R-Panama City, asked, "Any public testimony?"
No one stepped forward.
- Steve Bousquet can be reached at 850 224-7263 or at bousquet@sptimes.com