(The Center Square) – Lawmakers are looking to reform a ballot initiative process where two political committees raised $261 million in a losing effort to enshrine abortion rights and recreational marijuana into the state’s constitution in the last election cycle.
Senate Proposed Bill 7016 is sponsored by Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, and it would limit ballot initiative organizations to three election cycles if they can’t achieve signature threshold for court review.
The Senate Committee on Ethics and Elections, which Gaetz chairs, approved the bill 6-3 despite nearly every speaker at Monday’s hearing opposing the measure.
“We are all proud that here in the free state of Florida, citizens have the opportunity to place constitutional amendments on the ballot by petition,” Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, said in a release. “Amending Florida’s constitution is a responsibility every voter takes very seriously, and petition integrity is critical to ensuring the effectiveness of the citizen initiative process.
“This legislation increases transparency and accountability for sponsors of initiatives; deters, prevents, and penalizes fraudulent activities; and, provides voters with objective information about financial impacts of proposed amendments at the front end of the process.”
According to a bill analysis, there are active petitions that are more than a decade old with few or no unexpired signatures and affiliated political committees have no contributions or expenses in reports. People illegally in the country would be banned from being hired for signature gathering.
According to the bill text, amendments filed prior to 2022 would have one more election to reach the required number of signatures.
The bill would also require volunteers in ballot initiative efforts to register with state officials and would put a limit of one ballot initiative per political organization.
Petitioners would also be required to take the driver’s license number, ID card number or use the last four digits of their Social Security number of the signer.
A similar bill, House Bill 1025, is also working through the legislative process.
Not everyone supports changes to the state’s ballot initiative process.
The ACLU of Florida wrote in a post on social media, “This bill is an aggressive attempt to limit our freedom to vote on policies Floridians care about.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis called on lawmakers to reform the state’s ballot initiative process after two political organizations raised hundreds of millions for their causes.
Safe & Smart Florida raised $153 million for Amendment 3, most of it (nearly $145 million) coming from cannabis retailer Trulieve, according to data from the secretary of state’s office.
Floridians Protecting Freedom put Amendment 4 on the ballot and the group received $108 million in contributions, according to state data, with most of those funds coming from the Service Employees International Union and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Under present law, citizens can register political committees with the secretary of state’s office to try to get an amendment put on a ballot. For it to appear, the number of signatures must equal or exceed 8% of the number of voters in the last presidential election.
Each petition sheet must go within 30 days of being collected to county supervisors of elections for approval, with fines levied for late submissions.
The law also requires the signatures to come from voters in at least half of the state’s congressional districts.
Then the signatures go to the state attorney general, who asks the state Supreme Court for an advisory opinion on an initiative’s constitutionality. The state’s fiscal estimating conference also is required by law to examine potential costs for taxpayers if an initiative becomes part of the state constitution.
For it to become law, 60% of voters are required to approve the measure.
