Workplace vaping, candidate residency rules advance
TALLAHASSEE — A ban on vaping in workplaces and a change in residency requirements for legislative candidates are a step closer to appearing on the 2018 ballot, but a proposal to give Florida’s chief financial officer more power to oversee state contracts has stalled after actions of the last two days by a committee of the Florida Constitution Revision Commission.
The committee on Tuesday unanimously approved the proposal to expand the state’s current smoking ban to include vaping devices.
Former state Sen. Lisa Carlton, a member of the commission, said people are being adversely affected by public vaping because a ban on smoking in workplaces was passed by Florida voters in 2002, well before electronic cigarettes and other devices became available.
Florida Cancer Action Network lobbyist Heather Yeomans said her group supports the proposal but has suggested a number of changes, including eliminating the term “vapor generating devices” and replacing it with electronic smoking devices, which, she said, would capture devices such as electronic hookahs, electronic pens and electronic cigarettes.
Yeomans said the Cancer Action Network also would like the proposed constitutional amendment to eliminate an existing exemption that allows people to smoke in some bars and hotels.
Also on Tuesday, the commission’s Executive Committee deadlocked twice in 3-3 votes over advancing a measure, sponsored by Commissioner Tom Lee, a Republican state senator from Thonotosassa, that would give the state’s chief financial officer, one of three Cabinet members elected statewide, a larger role in overseeing state contracts in excess of $10 million. The measure also would allow the CFO to participate in the process of estimating state revenue and other financial impacts.
Lee said despite Tuesday’s votes he plans to resurrect his proposal when the full Constitution Revision Commission meets. The commission has the power to place proposed constitutional amendments directly on the November 2018 ballot. To reach the ballot, however, Lee’s measure would have to win support from 22 of the 37 commission members. It would need support from 60 percent of voters to be enacted.
“We really don’t have a good healthy set of permanent controls in state government in how money is being spent,” said Lee, who plans to run for the CFO post next year. “That’s not responsible.”
Lee, a former Senate president and budget chairman, said what often happens is that the Legislature appropriates contract money, and if the governor agrees, “the vendor and their lobbyist work with the (state) agency to develop the contract language under which that money will be expended.”
But Attorney General Pam Bondi, another commission member, raised questions about the cost of the proposal, which could require hiring more staff and updating computer systems in the CFO’s office, as well as a possible constitutional “separation of powers” issue.
On Wednesday, the commission’s Legislative Committee passed a proposal that would require a candidate to reside in the district he or she intends to represent at the time of qualification. Currently, they are only required to live in the districts when elected. The requirement, however, would not be applied in years of legislative redistricting, which often leads to substantial changes in district boundaries.