Pubdate: Sat, 22 Feb 2014 Source: Ledger, The (Lakeland, FL) Copyright: 2014 The Ledger Contact: http://www.theledger.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/795 Author: Lloyd Dunkelberger CITIZENS SIDESTEP LEGISLATURE ON BALLOT MEASURES TALLAHASSEE - State Sen. Jeff Clemens filed Florida's first medical marijuana bill while he was in the Florida House in 2011. "It went nowhere," said Clemens, a Lake Worth Democrat. "It never received a hearing - and I received a lot of snickers and laughs." For the next two years, Clemens filed bills, including a comprehensive package in 2013 that also had a House sponsor. Clemens said the best he got was a discussion from Senate committee chairmen about holding a workshop on the bill. Although Clemens has refiled a medical marijuana bill for the 2014 session, the issue has been taken out lawmakers' hands: Florida voters will decide the issue themselves in November as a constitutional amendment question placed on the ballot through a citizens' initiative. The medical marijuana vote is only the latest example of how the Legislature's power - which is supreme in Tallahassee - is being sidestepped through the amendment process by a public or interest groups' frustration with state governments indifference or hostility toward their preferences. Besides the medical marijuana initiative, voters will also consider a ballot measure earmarking state funding for conservation land purchases and other environmental programs. That movement stemmed from the Legislature's failure to fund Florida's publicly popular conservation land buying program for several years. Despite the Legislature's efforts to make it harder to pass ballot initiatives - including raising the bar to a 60 percent approval vote - - the initiative end-runs underscore Tallahassee's misalignment with some popular causes and, perhaps, the GOP's tendency to marginalize Democrats in the Capitol. In recent years, the amendment process has resulted in a class-size measure, which was vigorously opposed by legislative leaders and then-Gov. Jeb Bush, in 2002, as well as a state minimum wage in 2004, which gives Florida a higher rate than the federal minimum wage. A ban on public smoking, opposed by the tobacco lobby in Tallahassee, won approval in 2002. Animal rights activists won approval that year for an amendment banning the use of gestational crates for pigs. Some lawmakers express frustration with the medical marijuana prospect or the idea that the constitution would dictate how some money is spent. But others say lawmakers themselves are to blame. "It causes the people to take issues into their own hands so that now we have things like pregnant pigs in the constitution when it should have been handled legislatively," Clemens said. "The same goes for medical marijuana. There's no reason why we couldn't have followed the lead of 20 other states and written good quality legislation." BALLOT TACTIC USED BY BOTH SIDES It hasn't always been Democrats and their allies using the initiative process to trump the GOP agenda. In 1992, conservative groups successfully pushed a ballot initiative imposing term limits on a Legislature dominated by Democratic leaders, including some who had served decades. Before that, Gov. Reubin Askew went around the Democratic-led Legislature to win voter support for Florida's first corporate income tax in 1971 and a landmark financial disclosure measure in 1976. Florida's citizens' initiatives pass at the rate of 80 percent, roughly double the national average of about 40 percent, said Daniel Smith, a University of Florida political scientist who studies the amendment process. "These are things that pass easily and it speaks volumes of the disjuncture between our representative government in Tallahassee and the median view of the public as expressed through these constitutional amendments that are put on the ballot," Smith said. Smith said the citizens initiatives should not be an automatic default when the Legislature fails to act. But he said the threat of an initiative - that Woodrow Wilson once called the "gun behind the door" - should be enough to curb the tendencies of the Legislature, although that has not always been the case in Florida. "When the Legislature is so out of touch, fortunately we have a system where citizens can still petition and place amendments on the ballot," Smith said. "How many times does the Legislature have to be beaten over the head by successful constitutional amendments, I don't know. But it seems like they're willing to take those punishments." Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, said he respects the initiative process. "I see nothing wrong with consulting the people of Florida about what ought to be in their constitution," he said. But Gaetz said the process has become dominated by well-financed interest groups that pay for the collection of nearly 700,000 signatures to place a measure on the ballot. Through January, the medical marijuana initiative has spent $4.6 million on its amendment drive, while the environmental initiative has spent $2.7 million, according to state elections records. "Here's where I think we've gone astray," Gaetz said. "If you have $6 million you can get almost anything into the Florida constitution, good or bad. I think that has polluted the original intent of having the constitution be amended by the voters." But initiative supporters say the successful measures have broad appeal beyond the scope of any interest group. Besides, not all ballot initiatives have won popular support. In 1986, Florida voters resoundingly defeated a measure that would have allowed casinos in counties where voters agreed to the gambling by a local referendum. They have also rejected amendments put on the ballot by state lawmakers. In 2012, voters defeated eight out of 11 ballot measures initiated by the Legislature, including an amendment that would have banned the federal government from requiring Floridians to buy health insurance and a measure adding restrictions to abortions. Will Abberger, a spokesman for the Florida Water and Land Legacy initiative, said the proposal is a response to the lack of a long-term commitment from state lawmakers to dealing with issues like the decline of the state's springs and recent major pollution incidents in areas like the Indian River Lagoon, Caloosahatchee River and St. Lucie River. "That's a lack of funding and commitment by the state over a number of years to address those problems and prevent those things from happening," Abberger said. He said the amendment - which would dedicate roughly $10 billion of the state's tax on real estate transaction for the next 20 years - will provide consistent funding to improve water quality as well as revive the state's Florida Forever land-buying program. Like prior conservation measures that have made the ballot, Abberger said the proposal will resonate across a wide range of Florida voters. "Voters in Florida are very concerned about protecting the water quality of our rivers, lakes and streams and about land conservation," Abberger said. "When Florida voters have had a chance to vote on funding for conservation, they have overwhelmingly voted yes and we believe that's what they're doing to do next November." Clemens said the medical marijuana initiative also will have broad appeal, including support from many Republican voters as well as independent voters. "This is not a whacky idea or some leftist plot," Clemens said. "Republicans in other states have taken up the banner on this issue and have talked about this as a personal freedom issue." And while he would rather address the issue as a state law, Clemens said the reluctance of the legislative leadership to take up the issue has left supporters with no other choice but a ballot initiative. "When your own government forces people to collect hundreds of thousands of signatures to change laws that don't make sense, it's waste of resources and an abdication of our responsibility as a Legislature," he said. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom