Tampa Tribune on Petition Drives by Geniusofdespair

This article speaks for itself. Why is the Miami Herald SILENT on this: Lawmakers Need To Reform Citizens' Initiative Process

The Tampa Tribune - Published: January 18, 2008

The Florida Legislature has made a mess of the citizens' initiative process. The system is now more burdensome for citizens groups seeking to change the state constitution and more chaotic for local elections supervisors.

Groups seeking to have their proposals put on the November ballot fear they will fall short because local elections offices don't have time to verify the signatures before the Feb. 1 deadline.

At issue this year are two initiatives, one to ban gay marriages and the other to limit development. Both campaigns are close to meeting the required 611,009 signatures of registered voters that must be collected from throughout Florida.

But the signatures must be collected and verified by Feb.1, and local election offices now also are busy preparing for the Jan. 29 presidential primary and a statewide vote on property taxes.

Lawmakers moved up the presidential primary, traditionally held in March, without any regard for how it would affect the initiative process. The verification process should have been extended. (hit read more)

In the past, signature campaigns had an August deadline for collecting and verifying signatures to get on the November ballot. Lawmakers rightly moved it earlier to allow more time to determine the financial impact of any proposed change. But there is nothing magical about February.

Giving groups until March or even April to submit signatures would eliminate the conflict during presidential primary years and still allow time to study proposals' fiscal ramifications.

Further complicating the matter is that lawmakers last year established a 30-day deadline for elections supervisors to verify signatures that have been submitted.

The goal was to ensure supervisors checked the signatures in a timely manner. But now citizens groups feel the requirement will allow supervisors, who are focused on the primary, to ignore signatures submitted in January, since they have a 30-day window.

Secretary of State Kurt Browning, Florida's chief elections officer, who oversees state elections, says local officials are doing their utmost to verify signatures, regardless of how late they are turned in. He also acknowledges the presidential primary makes the task more challenging.

Another wrinkle is that lawmakers approved legislation that allows "revocation" - signers of a petition can revoke their support. That means an organization opposing a proposal can contact people whose names have been submitted on behalf of a petition and try to persuade them to withdraw their support.

This is happening with the Hometown Democracy proposal to require growth-plan amendments to be approved by voters. Floridians for Smarter Growth, heavily funded by business interests, is actively trying to derail the initiative. Browning says 4,738 signatures have been revoked so far.

There is nothing wrong with revocation, since people often do sign petitions without giving the proposals much thought, but the provision does give petition groups reason to delay submitting signatures for as long as possible to keep opponents from contacting signers.

There is probably nothing that can be done about that. But the law is flawed nevertheless because it allows signatures to be revoked only through an organized group. In other words, citizens can change their minds only when there is special-interest opposition to a citizen's initiative. That should be changed so that individuals can change their support on their own, not solely at the behest of a well-funded campaign.

It's too late to fix these problems this election cycle, but lawmakers should revisit policies so citizens groups don't feel the deck is stacked against them. Changing the constitution should not be easy. But the process should be fair.