Good and bad from Florida’s CRC

When the Florida Constitution Revision Commission set out a year ago to hear what the public wanted it to do, nobody said it better than Susan Bucher, a former state legislator who is Palm Beach County’s supervisor of elections.

“Your job,” she said, “is not to unravel. Your job is to make our state better.”

The commission wasn’t up to the challenge.

Service on the blue-ribbon panel is one of the rarest of opportunities and highest of honors. Every 20 years, 37 people are given the awesome power to shape Florida history by sending constitutional amendments directly to the ballot.

The voters will pass their judgments in November, but it’s already clear this commission, compared to its predecessors of 20 and 40 years ago, let a great opportunity go to waste.

For a mid-term grade, C-minus would be generous — and only because of the defeat of some of the worst ideas it was considering. Those included an assault on privacy pushed by the right-to-life movement, two measures to promote private school vouchers and a proposal to make it much more difficult to pass other constitutional amendments.

The commission took only three days last week to cull the 37 proposals its committees had approved and move 25 toward final action next month. Of those, only nine would truly make Florida better.

They include a six-year post-service ban on lobbying by elected officials, a prohibition on offshore oil drilling, an end to greyhound racing and a provision to open party primaries to all voters if the winner will have no general election opposition other than a write-in candidate.

Another measure, unsung but important, would abolish the legal presumption that courts and administrative law judges must defer to a state agency’s interpretation of a law or a rule. The judges would get to draw their own conclusions.

Some other proposals might be appropriate as laws, but shouldn’t be cluttering up the Constitution. This category includes the politically appealing “Marsy’s Law,” exported from California, which imposes a laundry list of victims’ rights on police, prosecutors and courts. There’s no evidence the Legislature was even asked to consider it before its lobbyists sought a constitutional amendment. Gov. Rick Scott is eager to have it on the ballot, along with his likely senatorial candidacy in November.

The commission’s poor performance is reflected by a wealth of good ideas that failed to come up or move forward because of limited vision, political pressure or lobbyist influence. They include: Standing for citizens to sue to protect the environment, which was sadly killed in committee.

A nursing home patients’ bill of rights, which would have mandated “a safe clean, comfortable and homelike environment” and forbidden nursing homes from asking patients to waive their right to a jury trial if they were injured.

Independence for judicial nominating commissions, which have been degraded into political patronage committees.

The top-two primary, which would have allowed the 2.4 million Florida voters who claim no party to vote in the primary election. A proposal to abolish the death penalty. Measures to establish an independent redistricting commission and require a judge’s approval to try a child in criminal court.

And confronted with the most urgent issue of our times — the assault weapons used to massacre 49 people at an Orlando nightclub and 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School — the commission cowered behind its rules and refused to discuss a ban.

The commission’s role, as seen by the authors of Florida’s 1968 Constitution, was to rise above the partisanship and lobbydominated politics inherent in the Legislature. It was to take a more statesmanlike view of Florida’s ever-emerging problems and adjust the Constitution to accommodate them.

The flaw in the design is that partisan politicians appoint most of the commissioners: 15, including the chairman, by the governor; and nine each by the House speaker and Senate president. The chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court appoints three, who are usually the most independent. The attorney general is automatically a member, but Pam Bondi made the least of that opportunity, almost never attending committee hearings and showing up only for some of the full commission deliberations last week. She spoke against addressing assault weapons.

This commission has more work to do. It should reconsider some of its more questionable proposals, including:

Proposal 11, which would require counties to elect all five constitutional officers: the sheriff, tax collector, circuit court clerk, property appraiser and supervisor of elections. It would repeal provisions of eight voter-approved county charters, including Broward’s. This proposal, sponsored by a commissioner who’s a circuit court clerk, is the worst assault on home rule since it was established in the 1968 Constitution.

Proposal 43, which would limit school board members to two terms. This is another insult to home rule and the wisdom of local voters.

Proposal 29, which would require employers to use the federal government’s flawed system for verifying employment eligibility. This is pandering to the antiimmigrant movement. Even if it were good law, it doesn’t belong in the Constitution.

Proposal 44, which requires a supermajority vote for college and university boards to raise student fees, but not tuition. Granted, fee increases can be subterfuges, but this seriously handcuffs those responsible for running the schools and is another instance of micromanaging that doesn’t belong in a Constitution.

Proposal 71, which exempts charter schools established by the state from supervision by local school boards, the agencies best suited to oversee them.

Proposal 93, which would allow entire school districts to declare themselves “innovative” and exempt from most provisions of the state school code. The details, including what would qualify as a “high performing” district, would be left to the Legislature. Something so broadly experimental — and targeted toward charter schools — is better tried on a limited basis, not in the Constitution

The commission’s Style and Drafting Committee should consider whether some parts of the ethics proposal go too far and whether the oil drilling ban leaves an opening for pipelines from wells beyond the state’s offshore jurisdiction.

The open primary proposal would stop candidates and party bosses from recruiting sham write-in candidates to keep their primaries closed, but it got only 21 votes last week, one short of the supermajority needed to make the November ballot.

The dog racing proposal, heavily lobbied, is in worse trouble with only 18 votes in favor and 14 against. If these fail, it would flatter the commission to grade its performance even D-minus.

Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O’Hara, Elana Simms, Andy Reid and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson.

This commission has more work to do. It should reconsider some of its more questionable proposals.