Florida Legislature 2005 (click for ongoing coverage)

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2006 ballot to contain initiative question

By CARRIE JOHNSON
Published May 7, 2005

TALLAHASSEE - It has been 37 years since the Florida Constitution was rewritten to give citizens the right to add their own amendments to the document.

On Friday, lawmakers passed legislation aimed at making the process more difficult.

The Senate voted 37-3 to put a question on the November 2006 ballot, asking voters to require 60 percent approval, rather than a simple majority, for all constitutional amendments.

Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville, said he hoped the measure would end the proliferation of citizen amendments to the Constitution, which has grown to 78 single-spaced pages. "This won't deny the opportunity for citizens to address us," said King, the bill's sponsor. "But it will make it a little more tough to get it passed."

A similar version was already passed by the House.

This is the second year the state's Republican leaders, backed by the influential business lobby, tried to make it more difficult to amend the state Constitution. They point to initiatives such as the 2002 amendment to protect pregnant pigs as proof the process has spun out of control and added unnecessary clutter to the Constitution. They also said the initiatives have been hijacked by special interests, such as the $36.7-million fight between doctors and trial lawyers that put three measures on the ballot in 2004.

"I think it's great the Legislature is going to give voters an option to improve the process," said Mark Wilson, senior vice president of the Florida Chamber of Commerce. "For two years now, they have realized how broken our constitutional amendment process is and it's literally for sale."

But business leaders didn't get everything they wanted.

The Senate late Friday still had not taken up two further restrictions on the amendment process:

One would place a second question on the 2006 ballot, asking voters to limit citizen petitions to issues affecting basic rights, government structure or items already in the state Constitution.

The other, which would not require voter approval, would place new restrictions on the petitioning process to qualify a citizen initiative for the ballot. It would make it a first-degree misdemeanor for someone to gather petitions without a prominent ID badge, or to pay people for each signature collected. That bill also requires groups to turn in signatures to local elections supervisors every 30 days. Late signatures would be thrown out.

In addition, only Florida residents could collect signatures for a petition, which could exclude many college students and seasonal residents.

Sen. JD Alexander, R-Lake Wales, the bill's sponsor, said the proposal is aimed at cutting down on election fraud by deterring out-of-state organizations from using paid petition gatherers.

But it drew opposition from some conservatives who said the provision prohibiting paying petition gatherers by the signature was too intrusive.

"I think it's taking government just a little too far," said Sen. Daniel Webster, R-Winter Garden. "I think when we begin stepping across the line and telling businesses how they can pay their employees, that's a little bit overreactive."

Wilson said he hoped the Legislature would take up the bills again next year before the 2006 election.

Citizens groups were dismayed by the 60 percent initiative.

They said lawmakers were depriving citizens of the only available method for circumventing politicians who ignore the public will.

Several popular amendments, such as the class size amendment and universal prekindergarten, failed to get 60 percent of the vote.

"They're crushing citizen amendments," said Paul Dunn, campaign manager for the Save the Voters Voice campaign.

"It's basically saying to the voters, "we think we know more than you and we do not want you to have the ability to amend the Constitution."'

[Last modified May 7, 2005, 01:03:04]