’18 ballot may be packed with changes

Panel deciding what Floridians should vote on

Making it harder to increase taxes, easier for exfelons to vote, cheaper for kids to attend college — all of these are among the ideas the Constitution Revision Commission is now considering that could result in profound changes for Floridians.

Voters will have the final say on next year’s ballot. The Constitution Revision Commission has winnowed more than 2,000 ideas from the public to 103 proposals. Just a small number of those will make the ballot.

Several proposals expand school accessibility and choice. Two proposals would allow the state to fund private, religious schools, and several others expand access to charter schools. Another would guarantee full university tuition for Bright Futures scholars and low-income students who qualify for grants.

An 11-point crime victims’ bill of rights has already garnered significant support from commissioners. The bill of rights includes reasonable protection from an accused criminal who hurt the victim.

There are three proposals to raise the retirement age for justices from 70 to 75.

Three other proposals

would restore voting rights to nonviolent ex-felons, who currently lose the right to vote for life in the state of Florida unless it’s given back to them by a clemency board, which rarely elects to do so. That puts Florida among the harshest states in the country for disenfranchising citizens that have committed felonies.

“Most of the CRC members don’t know what the other people are filing, so I think some folks filed things they think are important without knowing that someone else is going to file it,” said former Miami Republican state Rep. Jose Felix Diaz, who leads the 37-member CRC’s legislative committee.

Weston attorney Fred Karlinsky, appointed to the commission by Gov. Rick Scott, introduced a proposal that reflects the governor’s call for any tax increase to require a twothirds supermajority vote in both chambers of the Florida Legislature.

Commissioner Roberto Martinez, a Coral Gables lawyer, has suggested ending the death penalty, which was recently restored after being declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in January 2016.

Other proposals attempt to fix long-standing problems in the state constitution. Two would repeal a line preventing “aliens ineligible for citizenship” from owning property, an unconstitutional clause stemming from old immigration laws barring Chinese immigrants from citizenship.

Diaz has a proposal that would require legislative candidates to live in the district they want to represent upon qualifying to run for office, instead of upon being elected, as it stands now.

“The constitution says you need to live in your district, and the courts have determined you need to live in your district at the time of your election,” Diaz said. “But there are all sorts of shenanigans, people from outside a district running in the race. This puts a stop to that.”

Former Democratic state Rep. Daisy Baez of Miami recently resigned and pleaded guilty to perjury after admitting she did not live in her district, but Diaz said his proposal was not based on any one particular incident.

The Constitution Revision Commission meets once every 20 years to propose changes to the state constitution.

After a long round of public meetings and receiving ideas from across Florida, commissioners settled on 103 options, most of them garnered through public input.

“More than 50 percent of proposals filed by commissioners represent public ideas,” said commission chairman Carlos Beruff. “We identified general themes and ideas that were submitted by Floridians and then crafted proposals in the appropriate legal language.”

The Florida Legislature voted for two amendments dealing with property tax exemptions to go on the ballot. An anti-gambling amendment and an amendment that would restore the voting rights of ex-felons, except murderers and sexual offenders, each have more than 400,000 of the 766,200 signatures they need to get on the ballot in 2018.

Committee hearings are set to take place today through Dec. 1 in Tallahassee and again in midDecember. It’s possible the CRC may schedule further meetings in January, during the legislative session. The CRC must finish its work by May 10.