Amendment 4 on Florida’s November ballot appears as “Voter Approval of Constitutional Amendments.” It would be better labeled: “The Evil Empire Strikes Back.”
The empire at issue are the special interests that control state government.
Florida’s power brokers have never liked the people’s right to amend the Florida Constitution, and that is what Amendment 4 is about.
People use the initiative process when state lawmakers refuse to listen. Citizen petition drives, for example, led to establishment of a state minimum wage in 2004 and will, we recommend, raise it this year.
Citizen initiatives also have been used to ban smoking in workplaces, legalize medical marijuana, limit property taxes, curb gerrymandering, allow casino gambling in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, prohibit inhumane pig farms, require polluters to pay for damaging the Everglades, create high-speed rail corridors, adopt term limits, restore voting rights to ex-felons, and much more.
The Legislature, egged on by big-money interest groups, has done what it can to handicap citizen initiatives. In 2006, it successfully ran an amendment to require 60 percent of the voters, up from 50 percent, to approve any future amendment. More recently, it imposed onerous regulations on citizens who want to help gather petitions.
But even that isn’t enough for whoever is behind the initiative — yes, an initiative — that comes to the ballot as Amendment 4.
It calls for every future amendment to be approved by voters not once, but twice. Curiously, it doesn’t provide for a second shot for amendments the voters disapprove.
It would apply to all amendments, including those from the Legislature and constitution revision commissions that meet periodically. But to have left those out would have exposed the purpose of Amendment 4.
This affront to self-governance surfaced about the same time as an energy choice initiative that would have barred present investor-owned utilities from the market. The Supreme Court eventually banned that proposed amendment from the ballot because of a misleading ballot summary.
Even worse than the misleading title of this amendment is the mystery of who put up more than $9 million to collect the necessary signatures.
The sponsor of record, a committee called Keep Our Constitution Clean, reported its money and in-kind contributions came from a so-called “social welfare” committee with essentially the same name. The committee is organized under a law that requires it to disclose its contributors once a year to the IRS, but no report is on record since it began heavy spending last year.
That’s called dark money.
“It’s a blatant abuse of the spirit of our campaign finance laws, which are intended to let voters know ‘who gave it, who got it,'” says Ben Wilcox, research director of the nonprofit watchdog agency Integrity Florida. “Unfortunately, they’ll probably get away with it.”
From other indications, the secret donors appear to be the state’s major electric power providers, Florida Power & Light, Gulf Power and Duke Energy, none of whom have owned up to it.
No matter who they are, Amendment 4 is as bad as bad gets. It takes massive effort and money to get a constitutional amendment ratified, particularly with the 60 percent approval threshold. One election is enough. There is no good reason to make it twice as hard.
We urge a massive vote AGAINST Amendment 4.
We also recommend voting AGAINST Amendment 1, which bears the beguiling title, “Citizenship Requirement to Vote in Florida Elections.”
Talk about keeping our Constitution clean, this initiative is unnecessary. It is political clickbait offered up by wealthy friends of President Donald Trump to echo his anti-immigrant agenda and lure like-minded voters to the polls. Similar efforts are underway in 13 other states.
The Washington Post revealed last year that the operation also was aimed at attacking California Sen. Kamala Harris, who was running for president at the time and is now Joe Biden’s choice for vice president. The hook, the Post reported, is that San Francisco is among a handful of localities that allow noncitizens to vote in school board elections.
But California is not Florida.
Florida law is clear that only a U.S. citizen and resident of Florida who is 18 or older is eligible to vote.
The state Constitution puts it differently, but to the same result: “Every citizen of the United States who is at least eighteen years of age and who is a permanent resident of the state, as registered as provided by law, shall be an elector of the county where registered.”
Amendment 1 changes that to begin “Only a citizen…”
Practically speaking, that is a distinction without a difference. It is wildly fanciful to imagine the Florida Legislature ever changing the statute to allow noncitizens to vote, or that the Florida Supreme Court would allow it. By definition, a constitution that specifies who may vote automatically says who may not.
As with Amendment 4, Amendment 1 is another example of dark money trying to manipulate our Constitution. The more than $9 million reported so far to get it on the ballot was attributed to another tax-exempt entity that hasn’t filed an annual report since 2018, according to the IRS website.
However, the Post identified a West Palm Beach couple, John Loudon and his wife, Gina, a radio talk show host, as the public faces of the campaign in Florida. They are members of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club and active political boosters for him. Lawyers and others working on the campaign also have ties to Trump.
It is reprehensible for them to be tampering with Florida’s Constitution, promoting an unnecessary amendment, for such transparently political purposes. A resounding “No” vote would send them a well-deserved message and put that money, wherever it came from, to a well-deserved waste.
Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O’Hara, Dan Sweeney, Steve Bousquet and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson.
