Amendment disguises intent to sabotage home rule
No need for 75 words to summarize Amendment 10.
No need for such verbosity. Just choose a single word from the following list, any of which concisely describes the Constitution Revision Commission’s intent:
Deceit. Sham. Fraud. Subterfuge. Flimflam.
High-tone readers might prefer “artifice” to describe the commission’s ballot summary. My old granny would boil it down to “monkeyshine.”
Lawyers for Broward County used milder language when they fashioned their lawsuit, filed June 15, asking the Leon County Circuit Court to toss this specious proposition off the November ballot: “The ballot title and summary for Amendment 10 are misleading, inaccurate and fail to fairly inform voters of the true effect and impact of the proposed amendment.”
Volusia County demonstrated even more restraint in a similar lawsuit filed a week earlier, judging by an excerpt published in the Miami Herald. “The ballot title and summary for Revision 10 are ambiguous and unclear; and do not fairly inform the voter of the scope of the revision.”
But terms like “misleading,” “inaccurate,” “ambiguous” and “unclear” fail to capture the breadth of the commission’s sneakiness. The Constitution Revision Commission has obscured a scheme to usurp local governance amid unrelated twaddle about veterans and counter-terrorism and something about kicking off legislative sessions in January, instead of March, in election years.
It all makes sense, right? If you support veterans and fear terrorists and want to make life convenient for electioneering pols, it just naturally follows that you would also support an amendment that slaps uppity counties like Broward, Volusia and Miami-Dade into submission. And takes away what smidgen of home rule they’ve been afforded over the years. “Of the 75 words that comprise the summary, only 34 words buried in the middle advise voters that the proposed amendment materially negates home rule powers of counties,” the Broward suit states.
Apparently, the 37 political appointees who make up the Constitution Revision Commission decided these counties sorely need more political hacks running key county agencies. Rather than leave decisions about local governance up to locals, the commission has put the question to the statewide electorate.
Of course, the commissioners know that most of that statewide electorate hardly gives a damn whether Broward County elects a tax collector or whether Miami-Dade replaces its professional police chief with an old timey elected sheriff. But the commissioners are pretty damn sure that folks out in the Florida hinterlands will vote “yes” on most any measure that includes the word “veteran.” Or in favor of a counterterrorism office. No matter if state government already has these items covered. (Bundling was a favorite strategy for the commission, which crammed 20 mismatched proposals into eight amendments.)
What the ballot summary obscures is that Broward County — which decided back in 1974 to turn over tax collection to financial pros — would be forced to elect a tax collector. And that, if Amendment 10 passes, Broward voters would lose the future right to modernize county government and abolish anachronistic elected offices like sheriff or supervisor of elections. (The current office holders have not exactly provided a compelling argument for keeping them around.)
“The ballot title and summary of Amendment 10 do not fairly inform the voters that the chief purpose of the amendment is to remove the electorate’s right to engage in local self-governance and design the structure of their local government in a manner best suiting local needs and desires,” the Broward County lawsuit complains.
Like granny said, just a bunch of monkeyshine.
Volusia County voted back in 1970 to depoliticize its tax collector, sheriff, supervisor of elections and property appraiser. You wouldn’t know by reading the ballot summary, but Amendment 10 would force Volusia to turn the clock back 48 years.
Miami-Dade County (not a party to either lawsuit) replaced the sheriff ’s office with a professional police force after a 1966 Dade County Grand Jury described the agency as a virtual criminal empire, involved in gambling, prostitution, burglary, even murder. The tax collector and supervisors of elections were also replaced with pros.
All these years later, it’s not as if there has been some great clamor to resurrect political anachronisms. Except from a few term-limited local politicians in desperate need of another elected office to enhance their fat state pensions.
But the commission’s nefarious bundling strategy inadvertently provides citizens with a fix. We can vote “no” on Amendment 10 and kill a whole flock of odious birds with a single stone.
Fred Grimm (@grimm_fred or leogrimm@gmail.com), a longtime resident of Fort Lauderdale, has worked as a reporter or columnist in South Florida since 1976.