How reforms were undone
Reform of the judiciary, another triumph of the Golden Age, came unraveled by a 2001 law giving governors power to appoint all nine members of local judicial nominating commissions instead of only three. DeSantis and his predecessor, former Gov. Rick Scott, have used this power to turn the Supreme Court and the First District Court of Appeal into echo chambers for Republican policies and conservative ideology.
The Golden Age gave the people the ability to amend their own constitution by petitions calling for referendums. Under pressure from the Florida Chamber, Associated Industries and other powerful lobbies, it has become much costlier and harder to do that.
The Golden Age pioneered the purchase of environmentally sensitive land and in protecting areas of critical state concern including the Green Swamp, Key West, the Florida Keys and Big Cypress Swamp. But led by Scott, pro-development politicians abolished the state Department of Community Affairs and its oversight of projects having regional impact.
The evidence of what has gone wrong makes plain what needs to be done first: Abolish the slush funds.
Require real-time source disclosure of every dollar intended for politics. Require supermajority votes for any bill that preempts home rule. Restore the independence of the judicial nominating commissions. Get the PSC out from under the Legislature, by constitutional amendment if necessary.
But what’s needed most of all is for voters to ignore the hyper-partisan trash talking of too many politicians and elect only those who speak seriously about the state’s future in the face of a new pandemic and inexorably rising seas.
Otherwise, Florida will remain sunk in a dark age of mercenary politics.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.