Home rule under attack this week
What has happened to the doctrine, cherished particularly by conservatives, that the government closest to the people works best?
The question has to be asked. Because in Florida, the concept of home rule — one of the great reforms in the 1968 Constitution — is under assault in the Constitution Revision Commission as well as in the Legislature.
The commission has more power to do damage.
The commission’s Proposal 13 would repeal key provisions in eight voter-approved county charters, including Broward’s, and prohibit other counties from adopting similar ones. The major result would be to require that all sheriffs, tax collectors, property assessors, clerks of circuit court and supervisors of election be elected rather than appointed as some of those counties have been doing.
Home-rule charters let citizens adopt their own rules for governing, in certain areas. So if they want to appoint their tax collector or supervisor of elections they should be allowed to. Same goes if they wanted to make those positions nonpartisan, as they ought to be and as Orange County is trying to do.
This mischief has already cleared two committees and is on its way to the full commission.
Now comes Proposal 95, which would seemingly bar local governments from regulating anything that affects the special interests in Tallahassee.
It says a county, city or special district may not pass any business regulation that affects someone outside its boundaries.
In other words, if a city wanted to regulate medical marijuana dispensaries, or pass animal control regulations, or impose fertilizer controls, or ban plastic bags, or regulate vacation rentals, or pass human rights amendments or ensure labor protections, tough luck. If such an ordinance affects someone in another jurisdiction, it would be deemed unconstitutional.
The whole point of a local ordinance is to find a compromise that helps the most people or limits the damage of something. If you strip local governments of that ability, citizens will have to try to persuade lawmakers from across the state to solve their local problems.
This unwise proposal is on the agenda of the commission’s local government committee Friday morning in Tallahassee. It needs to be voted down.
Before 1968, practically any progress that a city or county wanted to make depended on the whim of a local delegation in the Legislature.
But Tallahassee’s meddling instinct is deathless.
Currently, the Legislature is rife with attempts to destroy home rule. Sen. Greg Steube of Sarasota, for example, has filed bills to eliminate local tree-protection ordinances and local regulation of vacation rentals. He also wants to stop local governments from banning “back in” parking in public garages.
The Constitution Revision Commission should not help the Legislature roll back the clock.
Proposal 95’s sponsor is Sen. Tom Lee, R-Brandon, who has said he will run for chief financial officer this year. He was appointed to the commission by House Speaker Richard Corcoran, who is expected to run for governor.
Attacks on home rule appeal to the hearts and wallets of Tallahassee’s lobbyists and play off the fact that the issue isn’t a high priority with voters, who may not realize the underlying message: you can’t be trusted with your own local government.
That is what’s fundamentally wrong with Proposal 13, which would force Broward County to elect a tax collector again and replace the County Commission’s clerical staff with that of the Circuit Court. Miami-Dade, whose home-rule charter long predates the 1968 home rule reform, would once again have to elect its sheriff, tax collector and election supervisor — offices that voters thought were better placed under the supervision of the county mayor and commission.
The other imperiled home-rule counties are Brevard, Clay, Duval, Osceola, Volusia and Orange, where 71 percent of the voters opted to change six elected offices from partisan to nonpartisan and term-limit their occupants to a generous 16 years. The Orange charter change has been snarled with litigation and is an issue in the lobbying over Proposal 13.
Proposal 13’s prime sponsor is Carolyn Timmann, clerk of the circuit court in Martin County, which doesn’t have a charter. She says the issue “is about our basic foundation principles of checks and balances, direct accountability, transparency and the consolidation of power at the expense of the public.”
Those are strong points, but they don’t outweigh the right of the people in those eight counties to decide whether they can be served better and more efficiently in nontraditional ways. Nor do they justify walling off any class of officials in the other 59 counties that have not opted for charters.
If the people of the eight counties are dissatisfied with their charters, or with the periodic review most charters require, they have what they need to set things right. It’s called the vote.
The Constitution Revision Commission, which meets every 20 years, will be wasting an immensely valuable opportunity if it loads the November ballot with favors to special interests, like proposals 95 and 13.