The worst idea from the 2019 Legislature
TALLAHASSEE — In the annual competition for truly bad ideas in the Florida Legislature, this may be the worst one of them all.
Some Republicans want to make it much harder to change the state Constitution by requiring two-thirds of voters approve future amendments. The current threshold is 60 percent, the highest in the country.
If this ill-conceived idea were a reality, restoring the right to vote to most convicted felons would have failed in November, even though nearly 65 percent of Floridians supported it. Does that make sense?
A two-thirds threshold would make the minority more powerful than ever — at the expense of a super-majority.
It’s undemocratic. It’s unfair.
This proposal (Senate Joint Resolution 232) is the work of Sen. Dennis Baxley, a Republican from Ocala, who this week steered it through the Senate Ethics & Elections Committee he chairs on a shaky 4-3 vote.
Baxley says the state’s founding document is too easy to amend and is too cluttered with extraneous material.
“I call this the ‘protect your Constitution’ bill,” Baxley said. “I’ve been disappointed by some of the things that have happened.”
Baxley said he was distressed by the hyper-partisan Constitution Revision Commission and its penchant for “bundling” unrelated subjects, which he called “a mini-unelected Legislature” — an insult if ever there was one.
The fact is, people in Florida are turning to the ballot initiative as a costly and cumbersome last resort because a hostile Legislature has thumbed its nose at voters on all kinds of issues. In the past few years alone, they included voting rights, medical marijuana and protection of land and water.
Baxley wants it to stop. His band of like-minded Republicans includes Sens. Manny Diaz of Miami, Kathleen Passidomo of Naples and Kelli Stargel of Lakeland.
All three Democrats on the panel voted no: Sens. Oscar Braynon of Miami Gardens, José Javier Rodríguez of Miami and Bobby Powell of West Palm Beach.
“Sixty percent of the vote, to me, is a huge majority,” Powell said. “Do we need to continue to change the rules of the game every time we don’t like the result?”
This punish-the-voters strategy comes as lawmakers are under attack this session for what critics see as an overly restrictive way of carrying out Amendment 4 by making a felon’s right to vote contingent on payment of all fines, fees and court costs.
Such conduct bears close scrutiny because next year’s ballot could have more questions dealing with open primary elections, raising the minimum wage, expanding Medicaid and outlawing assault weapons — issues marginalized or ignored by the Legislature.
A myth perpetrated by lawmakers is that special interests are out of control, running wild, rewriting the Constitution.
The truth is, far more constitutional amendments are proposed by the Legislature itself than by the citizenry, and voters are more discerning (and at times puzzling) than the politicians give them credit for.
Yes, voters gave protection to pregnant pigs in the Constitution. They approved, then repealed, a high-speed rail system. They defined marriage as only between a man and a woman. In November, they denied themselves a property tax break by voting against a higher homestead exemption.
Since 1976, voters have acted on 185 proposed amendments, and 116 of them — 63 percent — were placed there by Republican and Democratic legislatures. Thirtyeight were put there by citizens and the remaining 31 by political appointees on the CRC or a tax and budget reform panel.
Eventually, the Legislature decided it was too easy to change the Constitution. The solution — approved by voters in 2006 — was to raise the bar for passage of an amendment from a simple majority to 60 percent.
The good news is that Baxley’s proposal faces a steep uphill climb.
It would require approval by 60 percent of voters in the next general election, but odds are it will never make it to the ballot. (The House version, by Rep. Rick Roth, R-West Palm Beach, hasn’t yet been heard, and next week is Week 4 of a nine-week session).
What’s more, a proposed constitutional amendment requires the support of threefifths of both the Senate and House just to get on the ballot.
Even if it does, enough voters are likely to figure out what’s up and they’ll defeat it — as they should.
It’s phenomenally expensive to run a statewide ballot initiative in a state the size of Florida. It also requires nearly 1 million valid voter signatures for an initiative to reach voters, and they must be collected from at least half of the state’s 27 congressional districts.
Then come court reviews to ensure compliance with ballot fairness and the single-subject rule; financial impact statements; political opposition; the 60-percent threshold for passage; and legislative meddling after the people have spoken.
The bar is high enough.