The Associated Press
Feb. 28, 2010
The Palm Beach Post
The Legislature received a well-deserved reprimand from the Florida Supreme
Court.
The court explained why a law allowing voters to revoke their signatures on petitions
for constitutional amendments was nothing short of a manipulative attempt to short-circuit
the citizen petition process. The opinion explained the court's decision eight months
ago that helped clear the way to the November ballot for the Florida Hometown Democracy
petition -- a target of a signature-revocation campaign.
The law sprang from legislative intent to block one of the most basic virtues of
democratic government: the right of citizens to petition government and change the
constitution. In 2007, the Legislature created a 150-day period in which opponents
could persuade petition-signers to revoke their signature. Never mind that the deadline
for revocations was the same as the deadline for signatures, lending great uncertainty
to petition drives. In fact, that may have been the point to legislators who wanted
to stop Hometown Democracy, which calls for public votes on all manner of growth-plan
decisions. We dislike Hometown Democracy, but we're fond of the Florida Constitution.
A 4-2 Supreme Court majority saw the revocation law for what it was: a legislative
intrusion into a constitutional right. The justices found that the law did little
to ensure ballot integrity, as supporters tried to claim, since existing laws already
handled infrequent abuses. "Rather than curbing any alleged fraudulent practices,"
Justices Peggy Quince, Barbara Pariente, Jorge Labarga and Fred Lewis agreed, "these
provisions incentivize a race to the bottom in which partisan factions compete to
'persuade' Florida's electors to revoke previously provided signatures."
The majority continued: "Indeed, the record before us contains evidence that frustrated
Florida electors were actually duped and misled by a partisan letter into revoking
their signatures." That could only be the letter sent by John Thrasher, the new
chairman of the Florida Republican Party and a state senator. Thrasher's typically
misleading letter urged petition-signers to revoke their signatures because Florida
Hometown Democracy actually would be a "bonanza for certain select special interests"
and result in "huge property-tax increases."
Most insidiously, by setting the same deadline for revocation as for signature completion,
the court found, it was "simply impossible for initiative proponents to ascertain
the number of signatures necessary for ballot placement before the time to do so
expires." The court, with its two most conservative justices dissenting, protected
cherished citizen rights in the face of activist Republican legislators seeking
to curtail those rights.
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