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Originally Published: 8 January 2009
Jackson County Floridian
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- An attorney for the state tried Thursday to persuade the Florida Supreme Court to reverse a lower court decision that struck down a law allowing voters to revoke their signatures on petitions for citizens’ initiatives.
But some justices appeared to struggle with the state’s argument that if you changed your mind once, you couldn’t change it back again.
“And there was no reasonable answer to that,“ Tallahassee attorney Ross Burnaman, who favored the lower court’s ruling, said after arguments. Burnaman was making his sixth appearance before the high court on behalf of backers of the Hometown Democracy Amendment, an initiative to require voter approval of changes in plans where new roads, homes and businesses could be built.
Justice Charles Canady, a former state legislator and congressman named to the court by Gov. Charlie Crist in August, asked Burnaman what was wrong with the Legislature recognizing that people could change their minds.
“It’s a one way street,“ Burnaman said, noting there was not a provision to return to the original position.
“It seems to me we are complicating the whole process,“ Chief Justice Peggy Quince said during an exchange with Solicitor General Scott Makar toward the conclusion of the 50-minute session.
The 1st District Court of Appeal ruled in April that a state law that allows voters to revoke their signatures was unconstitutional, leading to the appeal argued Thursday.
The Legislature passed the law at the request of business organizations, which used it to revoke 13,182 signatures obtained by proponents of Hometown Democracy.
“Big business hates the Hometown Democracy Amendment,“ Burnaman said afterward. “They want to just, apparently, pave over the entire state and let everyone’s home get foreclosed on.“
The law was one of several steps taken by the Legislature in recent years with encouragement from business leaders to make it harder to pass initiatives. They contend initiatives, such as Hometown Democracy, would slow growth and the damage the state’s economy.
The court will issue its ruling at a later date.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
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