Originally Published: 11 April 2009
Daytona Beach News-Journal
Don't shoot! There's an endangered species the Florida Legislature is hunting to extinction. This species walks on two legs and carries a clipboard and a pen. It comes up to you with a friendly smile and asks, "Are you a Florida voter?"
This creature asks you to read a petition. Hopefully, you will sign it.
House Republicans want to mark petitioners and register them and tie them up with restrictions. They want to make them rarer than a Florida panther.
Since the last decade, Florida Republican leaders have waged an ongoing war against Florida voters and the U.S. Constitution. They are relentlessly pushing to destroy our most fundamental First Amendment right: free speech. Yes, right here, in what's supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, certain enemies of democracy have worked overtime to rid the state of fellow citizens who stand on street corners and ask you to sign a petition to put an issue on the ballot. A petition like Florida Hometown Democracy, the statewide initiative to give voters a vote on whether their local growth map should be changed.
Destroying the right to petition is an obsession of the Florida Chamber of Commerce. The chamber doesn't have to stand on the corner to win the war of politics: It has tons of big money and 31 registered lobbyists locked and loaded in Tallahassee at this very moment. Perusing the state's enormous list of Tallahassee lobbyists, I did not see anybody registered to lobby for Mr. and Mrs. Average Florida Voter.
State House Republican Chris Dorworth of Lake Mary, all of 32 and a self-styled "real estate investor," is sponsoring the petitioner extinction bill. The Republicans in the Legislature are especially appalled at the little people having the nerve to take it upon themselves to amend the Florida Constitution. The big boys like to run the show without interference.
Dorworth and the chamber claim we need more petitioning restrictions to fight identity theft. What a crock! All information you provide on a petition is already a matter of public record at the Division of Elections. For a mere $10, the state will send you the Florida voter database, complete with address and birth dates. No petition requires you to reveal your Social Security number, which is the entry point for identity fraud.
Dorworth's bill typifies a mindset that views Americans as merely consumers, not citizens. Under this theory, our job is to work and watch TV and eat out and shop and leave governance to our elected "representatives." At election time, they pander/pretend that they "represent the people." Look around Florida at the crashed economy, overbuilding, overconsumed water supplies, degraded quality of life, etc. You can judge the results for yourself.
Dorworth needs to be locked in a room until he memorizes the U.S. Constitution and reads several U.S. Supreme Court decisions holding petitioning is our nation's most constitutionally protected form of First Amendment speech. I guess the chamber forgot to tell him this.
Because Dorworth is still young, we can hope for his redemption. But he should repent now and withdraw this abomination. He and the rest of the legislative cabal destroying our rights should take a page from Google and assume its worthy motto: "Don't be evil."
Blackner, a lawyer, is president of Florida Hometown Democracy, a nonpartisan citizens' initiative to amend the Florida Constitution. You can learn more and download a petition to sign at floridahometowndemocracy.com.
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