Florida Senate weighs further crackdown on ballot initiatives

TALLAHASSEE — A proposal that would make it harder to put proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot is headed to the full Senate, but Democrats — and some Republicans — say it goes too far.

The Senate Rules Committee on Wednesday voted 10-7 to approve the bill (SB 7094), which would place a series of new restrictions on the ballot-initiative process. But opponents attacked the measure, with one Democratic senator even proposing to name the bill the “Direct Democracy Limitation Act.”

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Travis Hutson, R-St. Augustine, comes after years of efforts by Republican lawmakers and powerful groups, such as the Florida Chamber of Commerce, to address what they see as a proliferation of ballot initiatives that clutter the state Constitution.

In supporting the bill on Wednesday, Senate Appropriations Chairman Rob Bradley, R-Fleming Island, said the Constitution is the state’s “fundamental law” that sets up the basic structure of government and basic rights.

“It is not designed to write a budget,” Bradley said. “It is not designed to set run-of-the-mill policy.”

But opponents argue that the initiative process provides an avenue for citizens to make changes when the Legislature is unresponsive to public wishes. They point to initiatives that have passed in recent years on issues such as setting aside money for land and water conservation and broadly legalizing medical marijuana.

“The citizens’ initiative process is seen as a way to check this legislature, when this legislature refuses to act on things like land and water conservation, minimum wage, medical marijuana and those sorts of things,” said Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez, a Miami Democrat who unsuccessfully proposed the “Direct Democracy Limitation Act” name.

The bill focuses, in part, on the costly and time-consuming process of collecting and verifying petition signatures to reach the ballot.

As an example, to get proposed constitutional amendments on the 2020 ballot, committees needed to submit 766,200 valid petition signatures to the state and receive approval from the Florida Supreme Court of the ballot wording.

To trigger the Supreme Court review, committees needed to submit 76,632 signatures, or about 10 percent of the 766,200. Also, they needed to meet thresholds in at least a quarter of the state’s congressional districts.

The Senate bill would make a series of changes in the process, including increasing the signature threshold for triggering Supreme Court review. It would require increasing the 10 percent statewide threshold to 33 percent. Also, it would require meeting thresholds in half of the congressional districts, rather than a quarter.

Democrats and representatives of groups ranging from the League of Women Voters of Florida to the Sierra Club Florida objected to Hutson’s bill during Wednesday’s meeting. For instance, Sen. Oscar Braynon, R-Miami Gardens, said he doesn’t agree with killing the citizens’ initiative process “by a thousand cuts.”

But Sen. David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs, said concerns about the initiative process are justified, pointing to potential fraud in signature gathering.