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7/4/04 06:32![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
telarynFrom the St Petersburg Times website. So few things make me cheer these days that I had to preserve this.
For those of you who don't know, Howard Troxler is a local columnist. The subject of this column is the recent "trend" in Florida of dealing with touchy legislative issues by amending the State Constitution. I was very interested to find out what he had to say, because like a lot of people I assumed these were all citizen generated petitions.
Apparently not.
Power to the people, uh, unless they try to use it:[NORTH PINELLAS Edition]
HOWARD TROXLER. St. Petersburg Times. St. Petersburg, Fla.: Apr 6, 2004. pg. 1.B
Full Text (692 words)
Copyright Times Publishing Co. Apr 6, 2004
Second of two parts.
The argument being advanced in our Legislature for cracking down on citizen petitions boils down to two claims:
(1) There is an epidemic of petitions.
(2) Many petition topics do not belong in our Constitution.
Let's answer these arguments.
First of all, here's how many citizen petitions reached the ballot in 2002:
Five.
You might be thinking: "There were only five amendments on the ballot in 2002? I seem to remember more."
Good memory! There were 10 in total. But five came from the citizens, and five from the Legislature. Our present debate is about whether the citizens are filing too many. If you want to start a separate campaign to crack down on the Legislature, I'll help.
In the 2000 election, only one citizen petition was on the ballot.
In 1998, there were zero. In 1996, there were three, and three in 1994.
As for the upcoming 2004 election, so far only one petition (dealing with gambling in South Florida) has gathered even more than 100,000 valid signatures so far. But you need almost 500,000 to make the ballot.
See, any yahoo can start a petition. The trick is to finish. It is tough to get on the ballot, and it should be, to weed out the riffraff. Of the 48 petitions now listed as active by the Department of State, most are jokes - 36 have zero signatures to date.
Now, here's something funny. The Florida Chamber of Commerce, which is leading this attack on petitions, claims to have a poll showing that citizens support a crackdown.
But I have a copy of the chamber's poll. Here is the precise question asked:
If you knew there could be 50 constitutional amendments on next year's ballot, would you say that (1) this could be a problem because it will take everyone so long to vote and most people will not have enough information about most of the issues or (2) it would not really be a problem or (3) unsure.
Fifty amendments on the ballot! To that question, answer (1) got 81 percent. Surprise. You see, the chamber counted every single citizen petition in existence.
There. Is. No. Epidemic.
Now, let's turn to the second claim, which is that many petition topics are inappropriate.
The first and most important point is this: Isn't it up to the citizens to decide what is appropriate for the Constitution? Isn't that, you know, why we have elections?
The most-often used example of a "bad" topic is the 2002 amendment prohibiting the inhumane treatment of pregnant pigs.
Pigs! What a ridiculous idea, right?
Except . . .
Except, that I am originally from North Carolina, a state now choked with hog waste. It seems to me that if the citizens of Florida adopt a bedrock philosophy that blocks mass commercial animal farms, that is not necessarily a horrible misuse of our Constitution.
As for the other most-cited example, high-speed rail - again, if the voters of Florida choose a state philosophy of pursuing alternatives to roads and Hummers, that does not strike me as an altogether crazy abuse of the Constitution.
Personally, I voted against both ideas.
But, you know what? My side lost. The difference between me and the Florida Chamber of Commerce is that I am not a sore loser who now wants to rig future elections.
What is really at work here is fear. The Legislature fears losing power to citizens. The business lobby fears future petition drives that might hurt profits - minimum wages, or tougher rules on development.
But here's news. The citizens of Florida are perfectly capable of deciding such matters wisely. It is insufferably arrogant for someone who doesn't like an election result to claim the voters were "confused" or "misinformed." Those people now trying to rig the rules of future elections should instead be willing to campaign on the merits of their issue, the way democracy is supposed to work.
If I were amending the Constitution, you know what I'd add? I would say that any office-holders who tried to repeal a citizen amendment, or to restrict citizen power, would automatically forfeit office if they lost.
For those of you who don't know, Howard Troxler is a local columnist. The subject of this column is the recent "trend" in Florida of dealing with touchy legislative issues by amending the State Constitution. I was very interested to find out what he had to say, because like a lot of people I assumed these were all citizen generated petitions.
Apparently not.
Power to the people, uh, unless they try to use it:[NORTH PINELLAS Edition]
HOWARD TROXLER. St. Petersburg Times. St. Petersburg, Fla.: Apr 6, 2004. pg. 1.B
Full Text (692 words)
Copyright Times Publishing Co. Apr 6, 2004
Second of two parts.
The argument being advanced in our Legislature for cracking down on citizen petitions boils down to two claims:
(1) There is an epidemic of petitions.
(2) Many petition topics do not belong in our Constitution.
Let's answer these arguments.
First of all, here's how many citizen petitions reached the ballot in 2002:
Five.
You might be thinking: "There were only five amendments on the ballot in 2002? I seem to remember more."
Good memory! There were 10 in total. But five came from the citizens, and five from the Legislature. Our present debate is about whether the citizens are filing too many. If you want to start a separate campaign to crack down on the Legislature, I'll help.
In the 2000 election, only one citizen petition was on the ballot.
In 1998, there were zero. In 1996, there were three, and three in 1994.
As for the upcoming 2004 election, so far only one petition (dealing with gambling in South Florida) has gathered even more than 100,000 valid signatures so far. But you need almost 500,000 to make the ballot.
See, any yahoo can start a petition. The trick is to finish. It is tough to get on the ballot, and it should be, to weed out the riffraff. Of the 48 petitions now listed as active by the Department of State, most are jokes - 36 have zero signatures to date.
Now, here's something funny. The Florida Chamber of Commerce, which is leading this attack on petitions, claims to have a poll showing that citizens support a crackdown.
But I have a copy of the chamber's poll. Here is the precise question asked:
If you knew there could be 50 constitutional amendments on next year's ballot, would you say that (1) this could be a problem because it will take everyone so long to vote and most people will not have enough information about most of the issues or (2) it would not really be a problem or (3) unsure.
Fifty amendments on the ballot! To that question, answer (1) got 81 percent. Surprise. You see, the chamber counted every single citizen petition in existence.
There. Is. No. Epidemic.
Now, let's turn to the second claim, which is that many petition topics are inappropriate.
The first and most important point is this: Isn't it up to the citizens to decide what is appropriate for the Constitution? Isn't that, you know, why we have elections?
The most-often used example of a "bad" topic is the 2002 amendment prohibiting the inhumane treatment of pregnant pigs.
Pigs! What a ridiculous idea, right?
Except . . .
Except, that I am originally from North Carolina, a state now choked with hog waste. It seems to me that if the citizens of Florida adopt a bedrock philosophy that blocks mass commercial animal farms, that is not necessarily a horrible misuse of our Constitution.
As for the other most-cited example, high-speed rail - again, if the voters of Florida choose a state philosophy of pursuing alternatives to roads and Hummers, that does not strike me as an altogether crazy abuse of the Constitution.
Personally, I voted against both ideas.
But, you know what? My side lost. The difference between me and the Florida Chamber of Commerce is that I am not a sore loser who now wants to rig future elections.
What is really at work here is fear. The Legislature fears losing power to citizens. The business lobby fears future petition drives that might hurt profits - minimum wages, or tougher rules on development.
But here's news. The citizens of Florida are perfectly capable of deciding such matters wisely. It is insufferably arrogant for someone who doesn't like an election result to claim the voters were "confused" or "misinformed." Those people now trying to rig the rules of future elections should instead be willing to campaign on the merits of their issue, the way democracy is supposed to work.
If I were amending the Constitution, you know what I'd add? I would say that any office-holders who tried to repeal a citizen amendment, or to restrict citizen power, would automatically forfeit office if they lost.
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7/4/04 04:12 (UTC)