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Legislature really wants to muzzle the riff-raff

By HOWARD TROXLER
Published March 13, 2005

Well, well! I must say, our Legislature is not getting any less clumsy in cracking down on the citizens. Like last year's attempt to crack down on citizen petitions, this year's is both sleazy and stinky.

Four ideas passed their first votes in the state House last week:

Petition ideas that now need a simple majority to pass would need 60 percent of the vote.

Citizen ideas that cost more than a certain amount (the class-size or bullet-train amendments, for example) would need two-thirds of the vote to pass.

Future citizen petitions could deal only with basic citizen rights, the structure of the government or changing something already in the Constitution. Most kinds of past ideas (smoking ban, minimum wage) would no longer be permitted.

Citizen petitions would have to pass not only in the statewide vote, but also to win by 60 percent - in 60 percent of Florida's congressional districts.

If the full Legislature agrees, these four proposals and anything else they think of will be on the ballot in November 2006. We citizens would still get the final say over whether these new rules are approved.

Now, right off the bat, there is an arrogant and hypocritical double standard at work.

Both the Legislature and the citizens are entitled to put ideas on the ballot, but the last three of these oppressive new rules would apply only to the citizens' ideas.

'Cause it's the worst, let's take up the House's last idea first. It is a terrible idea to require passage by congressional districts because congressional districts are creations of the Legislature.

The Legislature draws the maps, and can gerrymander districts any way it chooses. Adding a district-by-district requirement would subjugate an absolute right of the people - the right to petition and amend the Constitution - to the capricious whim of the Legislature.

You don't think those guys would start ripping up the map and redrawing it every month if they had to, just like Tom DeLay in Texas? Phooey to that!

At any rate, this hurdle is ridiculously high. We don't run any other election that way, why only for citizen ideas? Why shouldn't our governor and Cabinet have to meet the same burden?

Next on the list is the idea that petitions should affect only a "basic right" or the "basic structure" of the government. This gives too much power to the government to say what is "basic."

Presumably there would be some sort of screening by the Supreme Court. Remember, this is the same Legislature that is always yelling about "activist judges" - except when it wants them.

As for requiring 67 percent of the vote to pass an idea that costs money - why? Aren't the voters the boss of the government? Why are the voters any less the boss when it comes to deciding how the government has to spend their own money?

Anyway, we've already recently added a "price tag" feature to future amendments to "educate" the voters. Let's give those price tags a chance to work.

Last, as for needing 60 percent to pass anything: Well, heck, these are constitutional amendments, so maybe they should require a higher standard. But, you know, I just don't like the Legislature's motives, so I hope the people shoot that one down too.

By the way, the House Judiciary Committee, which approved all these ideas, also killed the idea of letting the citizens petition to pass laws and not just constitutional amendments. The bottom line here is cracking down on the riff-raff.

This is a central theme in Florida politics today. The citizens keep demanding the kind of government they want, over and over. The Florida Legislature, protected by dirty money and rigged voting districts, continues to refuse.

You know what? I hope the tension just keeps building. Here is what the citizens are writing as they sign their names: Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin. Those are the words of the famous "handwriting on the wall" in the book of Daniel.

Belshazzar, the target of that particular "petition," also was doing a lousy and prideful job of running the government, and things did not turn out too well for him.

[Last modified March 13, 2005, 00:21:06]