Don't tamper with citizen initiative

March 17, 2006

This article appeared in the Miami Herald March 17.

By: Dan Smith
Dan Smith teaches political science at the University of Florida.

Mark Twain wrote, ”There are three types of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics.” But I’ll take statistics any day over the lies and damn lies being peddled by the special interests in Tallahassee.

Concerned primarily with consolidating their power, Tallahassee’s lobbyists are trying their hardest to convince our good state lawmakers to quash our First Amendment right to petition our government for a redress of our grievances.

Currently, our elected representatives are considering several bills — in large part written by lobbyists for the Florida Chamber of Commerce — that are no less than frontal attacks on the right of citizens to place policy issues on the ballot for fellow citizens to consider.

The anti-initiative lobbying machine has characterized the balloting process as ”out of control.” But since 1968, when Floridians adopted the initiative process as part of our new state Constitution, groups have placed only 27 constitutional amendments on the statewide ballot. That’s an average of just 1.5 measures every two years.

It’s true that Floridians have been quite receptive to measures that do qualify, adopting 22 of them. This remarkably high success rate of 81.5 percent is double the national average among the two dozen states that permit the initiative process.

But Florida voters’ support for initiatives is a sign not that the process is broken, but that it is working. It gives voters a welcome option of making the changes that their special-interest-beholden representatives are unable or unwilling to make.

Consider that in an era of increasing partisanship among elected officials, all the measures that have passed have had widespread bipartisan support among the electorate. In fact — and you won’t hear this from the lobbyists — wide bipartisan support is nothing less than essential to passage of any ballot initiative in Florida. The math is simple. In a state where a third of the voters are registered Republicans, a third are registered Democrats and a third have no party affiliation or belong to a third party, it’s impossible for strictly partisan measures to receive majority support.

Nationally and statewide, politicians and pundits push the idea of an America divided along ”red state, blue state” lines because it suits their increasingly polarized supporters and contributors. But the history of the ballot-initiative process in Florida shows the falsity of this division. For 30 years, Republicans, Democrats and independents have come together to support in impressive bipartisan fashion a wide spectrum of state ballot measures.

Amendments passed

• In 1976, nearly 80 percent of Floridians voted in support of the Sunshine Amendment, Florida’s first citizen initiative, which brought transparency to our state and local governments.
• In 1992, 77 percent approved term limits for our state legislators.
• In 1994, 72 percent supported a ban on commercial net fishing, and 58 percent supported a cap on state revenue.
• In 1996, 69 percent backed the Tax Cap Committee’s constitutional amendment requiring a supermajority vote for new state taxes or fees.
• In 2002, a ban on workplace smoking won with 71 percent of the vote, and in 2004, the same percentage of voters supported raising the minimum wage by $1.

The 2002 smoking ban serves as a good example of the virtues of the initiative system. Floridians had long supported such a ban. But bills to achieve that goal were killed in committee over and over again by politicians beholden to lobbyists for Big Tobacco, the Chamber of Commerce, the Florida Restaurant Association and other vested interests.
Finally, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association and the American Lung Association were left with no choice but to ante up $4.35 million to qualify their anti-smoking ballot measure. The rest is history. A majority of voters not only statewide but in every single one of Florida’s 67 counties supported and approved the smoking ban in 2002.

The plain truth is that Florida’s lawmakers are out of touch with the needs and desires of everyday Floridians. It speaks volumes that the Legislature this session apparently is less interested in passing laws that have bipartisan support statewide — and more interested in killing the right of citizens to petition their government.

The citizen initiative is not a perfect mechanism. But in Florida it has served as a safety valve, allowing the voice of citizens to be heard after being squelched by lawmakers who are in cahoots with special-interest lobbyists.

It’s time for Floridians to speak up and let our elected officials know that the initiative process is not what ails Florida. The problem lies instead with the special interests in Tallahassee who want to further consolidate their power.