Advocacy groups for and against the eight amendments on the ballot have launched TV ads that play on voters' emotions but do little to educate them.
Published October 27, 2004
The images flash by in a dizzying blur: hurricanes blasting the Florida coast, a man writhing in pain on a stretcher in a hospital, attractive children looking on in sorrow as a headline trumpets that 18,000 youths will lose health insurance.
After this alarming parade of visuals, one question remains: What does any of this have to do with raising the state's minimum wage by $1?
The subject arises because the deceptively named Coalition to Save Florida Jobs has drafted a TV advertisement featuring the images described above - deriding the proposed constitutional amendment to raise the state's minimum wage as the fifth hurricane to hit Florida.
Regardless of anyone's position on Amendment 5, comparing a small rise in the hourly wage to an unprecedented quartet of natural disasters that killed dozens of people across Florida is extreme. And the Amendment 5 killers are not alone.
Counting on the public's inability to decipher the dense language of most amendments, advocacy groups for and against the eight constitutional initiatives now on the ballot have crafted a deluge of misleading ads heavy on emotionally charged language and short on substance.
For example, Amendment 4 allows voters in Miami-Dade and Broward counties to decide whether slot machines can be added to seven facilities in their area. If the Legislature chooses to tax the proceeds, the funds must be used to supplement public education funding.
Yet ads from supporters of Amendment 4 distort those details. Floridians for a Level Playing Field, a group backed by the gambling industry, does not disclose in its commercials that a tax-resistant Legislature could refuse to tax slot machine proceeds, or collect far less than the $500-million touted in their advocacy spots. Instead, the ads show overcrowded classrooms and cute kids urging politicians to keep their promises.
To sell voters on Amendment 3, which limits the amount of money lawyers can make from medical malpractice cases, Citizens for a Fair Share created an ad with a woman in a wheelchair lamenting that her lawyer took half of her settlement. Viewers are not told the woman is an actor.
Opponents of the amendment developed their own spot featuring the tearful father of a woman who died during an outpatient procedure, without explaining how that tragic story has anything to do with the initiative's proposed cap on lawyer fees (foes of the measure say it will limit attorneys' incentive to take complex, costly cases).
A mailer sent to voters' homes by Amendment 3 opponents features detailed photos of a little girl who lost both legs, her left hand and much of her right hand to gangrene. But it provides no details on the initiative or exactly how it relates to the girl's case.
These are issues Floridians should be debating extensively: expanded gambling in Florida, wage increases for an estimated 400,000 low-paid workers, the deluge of nuisance lawsuits vs. the need to hold doctors accountable for mistakes. And the question of whether amending the state constitution is the best way to deal with any of it.
But many of the ads related to these initiatives don't even try to educate people. Instead, advocates have chosen inaccurate, inflammatory messages aimed at securing votes regardless of the cost. With this method of making a case, no matter who wins, we all lose.
