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1 STATE OF FLORIDA
CONSTITUTION REVISION COMMISSION
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COMMISSION MEETING
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DATE: February 11, 1998
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TIME: Commenced at 9:00 a.m.
11 Concluded at 5:00 p.m.
12 PLACE: The Senate Chamber
The Capitol
13 Tallahassee, Florida
14 REPORTED BY: KRISTEN L. BENTLEY
JULIE L. DOHERTY, RPR
15 MONA L. WHIDDON
Court Reporters
16 Division of Administrative Hearings
The DeSoto Building
17 1230 Apalachee Parkway
Tallahassee, Florida
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1 APPEARANCES
2 W. DEXTER DOUGLASS, CHAIRMAN
3 CARLOS ALFONSO (EXCUSED AT 4:30 P.M.)
CLARENCE E. ANTHONY
4 ANTONIO L. ARGIZ
JUDGE THOMAS H. BARKDULL, JR.
5 MARTHA WALTERS BARNETT
PAT BARTON
6 ROBERT M. BROCHIN
THE HONORABLE ROBERT A. BUTTERWORTH
7 KEN CONNOR
CHRIS CORR (EXCUSED)
8 SENATOR ANDER CRENSHAW
VALERIE EVANS
9 MARILYN EVANS-JONES
BARBARA WILLIAMS FORD-COATES
10 ELLEN CATSMAN FREIDIN
PAUL HAWKES
11 WILLIAM CLAY HENDERSON
THE HONORABLE TONI JENNINGS
12 THE HONORABLE GERALD KOGAN
DICK LANGLEY
13 JOHN F. LOWNDES
STANLEY MARSHALL (EXCUSED UNTIL 1:00 P.M.)
14 JACINTA MATHIS
JON LESTER MILLS
15 FRANK MORSANI
ROBERT LOWRY NABORS
16 CARLOS PLANAS (EXCUSED)
JUDITH BYRNE RILEY
17 KATHERINE FERNANDEZ RUNDLE
SENATOR JIM SCOTT
18 H. T. SMITH
ALAN C. SUNDBERG
19 JAMES HAROLD THOMPSON
PAUL WEST (EXCUSED)
20 JUDGE GERALD T. WETHERINGTON (ABSENT)
STEPHEN NEAL ZACK
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IRA H. LEESFIELD (ABSENT)
22 LYRA BLIZZARD LOGAN (ABSENT)
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1 PROCEEDINGS
2 (Quorum taken and recorded electronically.)
3 SECRETARY BLANTON: All commissioners indicate your
4 presence; all commissioners, indicate your presence.
5 Quorum call, quorum call.
6 (Pause.)
7 SECRETARY BLANTON: All commissioners indicate your
8 presence; all commissioners indicate your presence.
9 Quorum call, quorum call.
10 (Pause.)
11 SECRETARY BLANTON: All commissioners indicate your
12 presence; all commissioners indicate your presence.
13 Quorum present.
14 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: If you would come to order,
15 please. Everybody go to their desk, please. If everybody
16 would please rise for the morning prayer this morning
17 given by Commissioner Barbara Ford-Coates.
18 COMMISSIONER FORD-COATES: Let us pray. Gracious
19 God, we thank you for this day. We thank you for the
20 blessing of family and friends. We thank you for those
21 special friendships that we have formed in the time we
22 have spent on this commission.
23 Inspire us, we pray, this day with your gracious love
24 that we may agree and disagree with respect and
25 consideration. All this we pray in your holy name. Amen.
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1 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Lowndes, would you
2 lead us in the pledge of allegiance to the flag.
3 (Pledge of allegiance.)
4 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: All right. Commissioner
5 Barkdull.
6 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: Mr. Chairman --
7 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Let's have some order, please.
8 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: Mr. Chairman, Members of the
9 Commission, you have on your desk a pink packet which will
10 follow the yellow one we were using yesterday. I believe
11 we completed the gold one. If we didn't, it can't be more
12 than one or two items there.
13 The proposed special order calendar is on your desk.
14 I would like to move two changes. One, on Page 5 you will
15 see a proposal placed on the calendar and it is No. 109.
16 I would move you that it be moved over to appear below
17 Proposal No. 41 on Page 4.
18 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: In front of it or behind it?
19 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: Behind it.
20 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Scott?
21 COMMISSIONER SCOTT: Mr. Chairman, I have no idea
22 what this is or isn't and where it is going, but changes
23 of this nature where members have had on their desk the
24 order that we were going to take up or have been
25 available, I think we need to find out what it is and see
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1 what's being changed. So I would like to inquire of the
2 Rules Chairman what the proposal is.
3 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Barkdull.
4 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: Commissioner Scott, it is on
5 Page 5. The only difference is instead of being listed on
6 the special order, it says, proposals placed on the
7 calendar.
8 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Which he just moved it up one is
9 what he did.
10 COMMISSIONER HENDERSON: I'm confused, Mr. Chairman.
11 Mr. Chairman?
12 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Henderson.
13 COMMISSIONER HENDERSON: Inquiry of Commissioner
14 Barkdull and/or Commissioner Mills. I thought this was
15 withdrawn yesterday.
16 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: If it was, that would certainly
17 solve anybody's problem.
18 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: If it was that would solve
19 the problem. I just looked at the calendar and picked it
20 up.
21 COMMISSIONER MILLS: Mr. Chairman?
22 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Oh, I know what this was. This
23 is the one you tried to withdraw, it was a committee
24 substitute and I said it was withdrawn and now the
25 calendar shows it wasn't. It was withdrawn, as far as I'm
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1 concerned, and it is withdrawn. That solves that problem.
2 That's one out of the way anyway.
3 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: Mr. Chairman, I have another
4 one which Senator Scott, Commissioner Scott will probably
5 need a copy of. This is Proposal No. 58 by Commissioner
6 Zack. What it relates to is an amendment to Section 2 of
7 Article I, the Declaration of Rights, and it provides, no
8 person shall be deprived of any right because of race,
9 religion and it adds age or physical handicap. That's
10 been dropped between the cracks between the Declaration of
11 Rights Committee and getting back to the office.
12 In order that we will have everything available to be
13 considered by the commission today and tomorrow, I'd like
14 to move it be placed at the bottom of the calendar.
15 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: I understand that you are moving
16 to just place it on the calendar; it won't come up today.
17 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: I don't think it will.
18 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Okay, probably won't. Everybody
19 has heard the motion is to place the Proposal No. 58,
20 which adds the word "age" in the Declaration of Rights
21 section dealing with individual rights. All in favor say
22 aye; opposed.
23 (Verbal vote taken.)
24 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: It is placed on the calendar.
25 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: Thank you. That's all the
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1 comments I have, Mr. Chairman.
2 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Barkdull, would you
3 move that Proposal 109 be withdrawn from the committee --
4 58.
5 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: I'll make a motion to
6 withdraw it from the committee and place it on the
7 calendar, if that will suit Madam Secretary.
8 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Okay. That is done. Without
9 objection, that is done; it passes. Are you satisfied
10 Commissioner Mills has withdrawn 109, or do I need some
11 more on that?
12 (Off-the-record discussion.)
13 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Okay. That's taken care of. All
14 right. We will proceed.
15 The first item on the calendar as recommended by the
16 committee is Proposal No. 2 on reconsideration by
17 Commissioner Sundberg. Would you read it, please?
18 READING CLERK: Proposal 2, a proposal to revise
19 Article I, Section 2, Florida Constitution; authorizing
20 governmental agencies to take actions to remedy the
21 effects of past discrimination in the areas of public
22 employment, public housing, public accommodations, public
23 education and the public procurement of goods and
24 services.
25 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: All right. Commissioner
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1 Barkdull.
2 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: Mr. Chairman, Members of the
3 Commission, I move to reconsider this because I think
4 there is an impact -- this impacts No. 44 that's already
5 on reconsideration that was, or 144, that's already on
6 reconsideration. This was a proposal by Commissioner
7 Barnett related to arbitrary and discriminatory
8 sentencing. And I'm not sure how these two intertwine and
9 that was my purpose of the motion to reconsider. I'd like
10 to move the motion and leave it pending.
11 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: There is a motion we leave it
12 pending. Without objection it will be left pending. I
13 think also I believe Commissioner Connor wanted to be
14 heard on this and he hasn't arrived.
15 The next proposal on reconsideration is Proposal
16 No. 6 by the Committee on Finance and Taxation and
17 Commissioner Nabors. Commission Nabors, you are
18 recognized, I think, on this. Did you want to be
19 recognized on this? It is on reconsideration. It was
20 moved --
21 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: It is my motion.
22 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: It is your motion, all right.
23 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: And my purpose for making
24 this motion to reconsider, this is the Nabors proposal on
25 sunsetting the sales tax exemptions. If it passes, this
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1 will have some excess revenue. I thought that this should
2 be considered along with the Lottery enhancement proposal
3 because that proposal, if it passes, as I understand it,
4 creates a shortfall for the Legislature in finding
5 funding. And I thought that possibly the two of them
6 should travel together. We already have the sunset
7 provision reconsidered and that's the purpose of my motion
8 to reconsider. I move it and leave it pending.
9 COMMISSIONER NABORS: Could I speak to that?
10 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: All right. Commissioner Nabors.
11 COMMISSIONER NABORS: Yes, I would hope we wouldn't
12 do that, with all due respect, Commissioner Barkdull, for
13 this reason -- could you listen up? This passed by 20
14 votes, we debated it. Everybody has got another at least
15 one or two bites at the apple on this. The language in
16 the Proposal 6 that passed, under revenue neutrality, has
17 language in it which makes it basically no additional
18 dollars unless the Lottery proposal happens to be adopted
19 simultaneously.
20 So they are consistent. So I don't see any reason to
21 leave this thing in doubt as to its status until our next
22 vote. I would urge you not to reconsider it.
23 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Barkdull.
24 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: The only reply to that I've
25 got is that I don't know whether we might not want to use
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1 some of the revenue that's going to be saved to make up
2 the shortfall.
3 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: All right. Now we were going to
4 leave this motion to reconsider pending. Do you have any
5 objection to that, Commissioner Nabors?
6 COMMISSIONER NABORS: Well I guess I'm a youngster to
7 this process. I'm not sure exactly what that means.
8 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: It means it will come up later in
9 the day.
10 COMMISSIONER NABORS: We have got a lot of work to
11 do, we have done a lot of debate. I see no reason to do
12 that. There is no -- any extra money -- there will be
13 extra money --
14 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Wait a minute now. We are on
15 reconsideration. You don't argue the merits.
16 COMMISSIONER NABORS: I'm arguing in the sense I
17 don't see any reason to reconsider it because the stated
18 reason is incorporated within the bill itself. So there
19 is no reason to reconsider it.
20 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Smith, you have been
21 wanting to be recognized, so you are recognized.
22 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm
23 just rising for a point of clarification with regard to
24 Proposal 2 on affirmative action. I have no objection to
25 the request that has been made by Commissioner Barkdull; I
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1 just want to know procedurally, you know, is there a date
2 certain that it is coming up? Is it going to be tied to
3 Proposal 44? I'm just not clear.
4 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: My understanding is it is
5 temporarily passed, it could come up later in this
6 meeting, it could come up any time today. If it is not
7 taken up today, it would have to be carried over until
8 tomorrow. And so what he has done in effect is ask that
9 we not take this up at this time on the calendar. It is
10 not removed from the order, it is temporarily passed from
11 the order.
12 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Okay.
13 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: That's my understanding. Is that
14 what you intended?
15 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: (Nods affirmatively.)
16 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Well is it any -- for instance,
17 with regard to setting the calendar today, Commissioner
18 Barkdull --
19 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Beg your pardon?
20 COMMISSIONER SMITH: -- in terms of setting the
21 calendar today, Commissioner Barkdull asked that Proposal
22 58, which is the age provision, be placed at the end so we
23 know where it is. He asked that 41 be moved over. Where
24 is 2 now in the universe? It is somewhere in the stars,
25 help me find it. Tell me which star to look toward.
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1 You know, is it at the end, the middle or the
2 beginning?
3 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Let me say what I think is
4 correct and has been confirmed by the Secretary. Matters
5 on reconsideration are continuing order. They can be
6 brought up at any time during the meeting today.
7 COMMISSIONER SMITH: I can even bring it up?
8 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Yes, sir.
9 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you, sir.
10 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: That was all you really needed to
11 know, wasn't it, Commissioner Smith?
12 (Laughter.)
13 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: You might want to pick your spot.
14 We are on the motion to reconsider, though, Proposal
15 No. 6, which is the one relating to the taxation article.
16 Would you read that, please?
17 READING CLERK: Committee Substitute for Proposal
18 No. 6, a proposal to create Article VII, Section 19,
19 Florida Constitution; providing limits on the adoption of
20 exemptions and exclusions from the general state sales
21 tax, reducing the rate of the general sales tax to
22 5 percent.
23 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Now there has been a motion by
24 Commissioner Barkdull to temporarily pass this and put it
25 on the calendar in the same mode as the one Commissioner
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1 Smith talked about. I think we have to vote on that
2 motion since there has been an objection. We didn't do it
3 without objection. You did enter an objection, didn't
4 you, Mr. Nabors?
5 COMMISSIONER NABORS: Yes, sir.
6 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: What the motion is, Commissioner
7 Scott, is that we not take this up at this time, it is
8 left pending and on the calendar. It could be brought up
9 any time as a continuing order of business. That's
10 Commissioner Barkdull's motion that we are fixing to
11 consider. Do you want to speak to the motion?
12 COMMISSIONER SCOTT: Inquiry of the chair.
13 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Okay.
14 COMMISSIONER SCOTT: What is the vote required to do
15 this?
16 (Off-the-record comment.)
17 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: She says all we have to do is TP
18 it.
19 COMMISSIONER SCOTT: It has not been officially
20 reconsidered though.
21 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: That's correct. All he is saying
22 is don't take it up right now.
23 COMMISSIONER SCOTT: Well the rule is that if it is
24 not -- either something done with it by the end of the
25 day, then it would be lost.
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1 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Right, unless it is carried
2 forward, that's correct. It can be brought up at any
3 time, however. She said we don't have to vote on it, it
4 is just TP'd.
5 COMMISSIONER NABORS: Mr. Chairman, I'll withdraw my
6 objection. We will deal with it during the day.
7 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: It is TP'd and it's under the
8 conditions that has been again explained by Commissioner
9 Scott; that is, that it has to be brought up today, it can
10 be brought up as a continuing order of business. If it is
11 not brought up today at the end of the day, you need to
12 carry it forward to the next meeting.
13 Now we are on Proposal No. 144 by Commissioner
14 Barnett. Commissioner Barnett -- I mean, yeah.
15 COMMISSIONER BARNETT: Is this -- I'm not sure the
16 current status of this, Mr. Chairman. I know a motion was
17 made to reconsider yesterday. We decided not to take up
18 the motion to reconsider because the General was not here.
19 I'm happy to take it up now and move on, but he is not
20 here again. If he has issues I certainly want to hear
21 from him about these issues, but it is at the will of the
22 commission.
23 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Barkdull.
24 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: It is the same as the other
25 two.
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1 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: It will be temporarily passed
2 under the same conditions as the other two. It is still
3 pending on the calendar under the same conditions as the
4 previous two on reconsideration. Now is there anything
5 further before we continue with the order?
6 COMMISSIONER SCOTT: I move we temporarily pass the
7 next one.
8 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: The next is Committee Substitute
9 for Proposal 172 and 162 by the Committee on Legislative
10 and Commissioners Thompson and Evans-Jones, with a pending
11 motion to reconsider by Commissioner Evans-Jones. Would
12 you read it, please?
13 READING CLERK: Committee Substitute for Proposals
14 172 and 162; a proposal to repeal Article III, Section 16,
15 Florida Constitution, relating to legislative
16 apportionment and create Article II, Section 10, Florida
17 Constitution; providing for a commission to establish
18 legislative and congressional districts; providing for the
19 appointment of members to the commission; requiring that
20 the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court fill certain
21 vacancies on the commission; requiring meetings and
22 records of the commission to be open to the public;
23 providing certain exceptions; requiring that the
24 commission files its final report with the Secretary of
25 State within a specified period.
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1 COMMISSIONER SCOTT: Mr. Chairman --
2 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: There is an amendment on the
3 table.
4 COMMISSIONER SCOTT: Well I was told that there is an
5 amendment, but it hasn't been distributed so I would move
6 that this be temporarily passed in the same manner as the
7 other two until we get a chance to see the amendment that
8 they are asking to be reconsidered.
9 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: The amendment will be
10 distributed, it will be temporarily passed, it is subject
11 to being brought up any time during the meeting today, as
12 are the others.
13 All right. We now go to the special order calendar
14 for today. Proposal 91 by Commissioner Hawkes was
15 disapproved by the Committee on Bonding and Investments,
16 it failed, motion to reconsider by Commissioner Barnett
17 was adopted, it was reconsidered and adopted in committee,
18 there was a motion to reconsider by Commissioner Mills,
19 adopted and consideration deferred until today.
20 All right. We are on rehearing on Commissioner
21 Hawkes' Proposal 91. Commissioner Hawkes, I haven't read
22 it yet, but --
23 COMMISSIONER HAWKES: Mr. Chairman, what I'd like to
24 do is just TP this. We have an understanding and it may
25 never come that it needs a vote or it may come that we
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1 want a vote. So as long as possible we would like to TP
2 it and if at the end some things happen, then we can bring
3 it up. But our understanding is that we are going to wait
4 and see what other things happen.
5 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: It is TP'd. We are really on a
6 roll this morning. Then we have Committee Substitute for
7 Proposals 138 and 89 by the Committee on Education and
8 Commissioners Nabors and Riley. And it was recommended as
9 a committee substitute, adopted as amended, with a pending
10 Amendment No. 1 as amended by Commissioners Riley,
11 Sundberg and Nabors. So it is on the calendar for
12 consideration with a pending Amendment No. 1. Am I right,
13 Commissioner Nabors?
14 COMMISSIONER NABORS: You are absolutely right,
15 Mr. Chairman. Unfortunately the amendment is not quite
16 being typed now, I hate to do this. But the good news is
17 that all of the debate we had yesterday between Mr. Mills,
18 I and others, we have worked out the language and we will
19 come with a product, hopefully, that can be voted up and
20 down based on the merits, not any detail of language. I
21 move to TP it until we get that amendment on the table.
22 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: All right. We will TP the
23 Constitution, the Secretary says. How long is it going to
24 take you to do that?
25 COMMISSIONER NABORS: They are doing it right now. I
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1 don't think it will take long.
2 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Well I'd like to take that up
3 since it is pending.
4 COMMISSIONER NABORS: Well we are having to do a
5 substitute so it is going to take a while; I don't think
6 we can do that. I mean, it is not just a question of a
7 word here or there, it is being retyped.
8 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: All right. Then what we are
9 fixing to go into now will be the initiative process which
10 embraces several proposals. And I think it would be
11 appropriate, would it not, to take up the Select
12 Committee's report and then move to these proposals?
13 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: I was going to yield to
14 Commissioner Freidin to submit the Select Committee report
15 in lieu of Proposal 132 or whichever one is on the
16 calendar.
17 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Freidin, you have
18 the floor, it has been yielded by Commissioner Barkdull,
19 the sponsor of 130. I didn't read 130, so let him read
20 it.
21 READING CLERK: Proposal 130, a proposal to revise
22 Article XI, Section 3, Florida Constitution; requiring an
23 initiative petition to be signed by a specified percentage
24 of the electors from each congressional district.
25 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Freidin, you are
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1 recognized. Could we have some order, please? We are now
2 finally not TPing something.
3 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: Good morning, Commissioners.
4 Everybody is supposed to say, Good morning, Commissioner
5 Freidin.
6 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: We're glad you are here.
7 (Laughter.)
8 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: This is a report of the Select
9 Committee on Initiatives and I want to give you a little
10 background, and then I'm going to describe for you the
11 proposal that we have come up with.
12 The Select Committee on Initiatives was formed at --
13 I guess, two sessions ago, two meetings ago. And referred
14 to this committee included, one, two, three, four, about
15 six different proposals that dealt with statutory
16 initiatives, and reforms to our present constitutional
17 initiative system in the Constitution at the present time.
18 The committee met several times and we considered all
19 of the proposals that were submitted to us; however, we
20 immediately made a decision not to consider, not to give
21 further consideration to the proposals that dealt with
22 statutory initiatives. So those will be coming up after,
23 for your consideration on their own and will not be the
24 subject of anything that the Select Committee is going to
25 report out on.
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1 I will say that from the beginning it was, and I
2 would invite any of the members of the Select Committee to
3 please stand and correct me if I am not properly stating
4 our position, but I think there was a very clear consensus
5 on this committee that we wanted to make the
6 constitutional initiative process more meaningful, more
7 easily understood by the citizens of our state.
8 We wanted to enhance participation by the citizens of
9 our state in the, in initiative reform and we wanted to
10 enhance, we wanted to come up with ways of enhancing the
11 understanding of the citizens of initiative reform
12 proposals that were put before them. There was a very
13 strong consensus among the members of this commission that
14 we did not want to make the process more difficult.
15 Now, I want to remind you-all that during the time of
16 our public hearings and certainly after the time of our
17 public hearings, we had received a lot of communication
18 from the public, from the media, and there was a lot of
19 comment on our initiative process.
20 I need not say any more than the two words "net ban"
21 To conjure up for all of you the comments that we heard,
22 most of which were very favorable towards the initiative
23 process, but some of which were from a group of people who
24 felt that their livelihoods had been taken away because it
25 was, in their opinion, too easy to get something on the
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1 ballot.
2 We also have heard, of course, from many people who
3 talked to us about how the Constitution in our state is
4 for sale because by spending a lot of money it seems that
5 it is not that hard to get an initiative passed and you
6 can make a change in the Constitution.
7 I think that the members of the Select Committee were
8 pretty unanimous in our feeling that that works both ways.
9 And that we want to preserve to the people of our state
10 the right to change our Constitution.
11 Now --
12 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Henderson.
13 COMMISSIONER HENDERSON: Yield for a question?
14 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: I will.
15 COMMISSIONER HENDERSON: This whole section over
16 here, I don't know, we are totally confused as to what you
17 are talking about.
18 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Let me see if I can bring it
19 to -- I was confused, too, but I think I got it straight
20 with the help of the Secretary and the Executive Director.
21 Yesterday this came up on the calendar and an
22 amendment was offered which was distributed by
23 Commissioner Freidin which was in effect the report and
24 recommendation of the Select Committee. It is on your
25 desk as an amendment to Proposal 130. I will ask that
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1 that be read again so that you will then be informed as
2 where we are because there is on the desk also an
3 amendment to that amendment which changes one word.
4 And I think it would be appropriate if we proceeded
5 on where we were when we quit, which was on Commissioner
6 Freidin's moved amendment to 130. And I would like to ask
7 the clerk to read the amendment.
8 COMMISSIONER HENDERSON: Mr. Chairman?
9 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: They are going to distribute them
10 again.
11 COMMISSIONER HENDERSON: None of us around here have
12 it and the question, if I can just ask this, is this a
13 complete substitute amendment for all of these proposals?
14 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Well they proposed that, but
15 obviously we have to take up each proposal when we come to
16 it.
17 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: I guess I was getting ahead of
18 myself. Let me see if I can back up a minute. There are
19 six proposals. The committee reviewed the six proposals,
20 the committee is not making any recommendations with
21 regard to statutory initiatives, but with regard to
22 constitutional initiatives, the committee came up with a
23 substitute proposal, which we are offering as an amendment
24 to Proposal No. 130.
25 That was distributed yesterday, it will be
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1 redistributed today, but I'm giving you a little
2 background so that you can understand where the committee
3 was coming from in terms of why we came up with this
4 proposal, with this recommendation, so that you can
5 understand what the thinking behind it was.
6 Some of the issues that came up that the committee
7 did feel could be improved in our initiative process
8 included the following, and I want to discuss each one of
9 them with you.
10 The first one, requiring statewide support for
11 initiative petitions. At the present time in order to get
12 an initiative petition on the ballot, the requirement is
13 that you have 8 percent of all the voters, and I hope I
14 say this right, all the voters who voted in the last
15 presidential election throughout the state, but the number
16 has to be percent of the number of electors who voted in
17 that election in the state and in half the congressional
18 districts.
19 In other words, you have to get your signatures from
20 at least half the congressional districts, you have to
21 have 8 percent of the people who voted in each of those
22 congressional districts, and you also have to have
23 8 percent of the voters in the state as a whole.
24 So you could get all of your signatures from half the
25 congressional districts, which means that you could draw a
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1 line from Tampa over to the east coast and go north or
2 south and you could have a North Florida constitutional
3 amendment, or you could have a South Florida
4 constitutional amendment. And you could actually get that
5 on the ballot without a single signature from the other
6 half of the state.
7 So the first thing that we dealt with was the
8 concept, which actually was the basis of Proposal 130 to
9 begin with, which was to require signatures not increasing
10 in any way the number, the total number of signatures that
11 are necessary, but to require signatures from all of the
12 23 congressional districts, rather than the current
13 requirement of half the congressional districts.
14 The second thing -- well the reason, before I go on
15 to that thing, let me see if I can explain to you the
16 reason that we thought that that was a good idea.
17 Obviously what we are trying to avoid is regionalism here.
18 What we are trying to avoid was what we heard when we went
19 to the panhandle that certain groups of people in the
20 panhandle had had their livelihoods devastated and they
21 felt like they really had been disenfranchised on this
22 issue.
23 If there had been signatures collected in that area,
24 if they had had more of an opportunity to participate, we
25 hope that perhaps they would have felt less
25
1 disenfranchised. Now the main concern of the Select
2 Committee was increasing public understanding on debate on
3 initiatives by creating, and we came up with the idea of
4 creating a system of public hearings.
5 The notion is that at a very early stage of the
6 proceeding when a proponent of a constitutional amendment
7 has collected a small fraction of the total signatures
8 that they are going to need, and in this proposal it says
9 that at the point where they have collected 8 percent of
10 the 8 percent, which means, for your information,
11 currently anybody trying to get an initiative petition on
12 the ballot has to have something like 435,000 signatures.
13 We are talking about less than 40,000 signatures, a
14 small percentage of what their total number is, when they
15 collect that, they file with the Secretary of State, they
16 say, We now qualify for a public hearing. And the
17 Secretary of State's office will arrange for public
18 hearings around the state for the purpose of giving a full
19 airing and full discussion to the issue that's being
20 proposed.
21 Now the thinking is twofold here; one, it gives the
22 proponent of the initiative, of the constitutional
23 amendment, the opportunity to have their issue heard in
24 the public, hopefully covered by the press, and if not
25 covered by the press, published. The results of the
26
1 hearing would be published in a way I'm going to describe
2 for you in a minute.
3 The other thing that it does is it gives the
4 proponents of an initiative a first airing, like a first
5 reading. And as you-all know, when we had first readings
6 of proposals here, we have often gone back to the drawing
7 board and said, Well, gee, after public discussion, after
8 we have discussed something, we realized that it really
9 isn't going to work the way we thought it would and we
10 want to go back and we want to get it fixed.
11 Well this gives the proponent an opportunity to go
12 back, get it fixed and start over without a tremendous
13 investment -- well, I guess tremendous investment is
14 probably a term of art here, but without a total
15 investment. In other words, they don't have to get all
16 their signatures and then figure out that their ballot
17 language really isn't good or that their proposal needs to
18 be tweaked a little bit. So the idea is to propose public
19 hearings, to allow public hearings after the collection of
20 a minimal number of signatures.
21 The other goal of the Select Committee was to expand
22 the amount of time to submit petitions to the Secretary of
23 State. In other words, to draw out the process, to
24 increase the length of time that the public has to become
25 informed and to increase the length of time that the
27
1 proponents have to get their message out to the public.
2 The purpose of this extension of time is simply to
3 provide the public with an opportunity to review and
4 understand the proposals before the election. And so at
5 present, under the present, under the present plan, a
6 proponent of an amendment can get it to the Secretary of
7 State up to 90 days before the election. And that is
8 generally, you know, right in the summer where people
9 aren't paying a lot of attention. And what this does is
10 it requires that proposals with all signatures be filed
11 six months before the election.
12 The committee addressed but declined to include in
13 this proposal increasing the voting requirement to
14 requiring the electorate to ratify. Right now the
15 electorate is required to ratify constitutional amendments
16 by a simple majority. It was proposed to the committee
17 that, and there is a proposal that you will consider later
18 to increase that to three-fifths. The committee declined
19 to deal with that and also declined to raise the signature
20 requirement. There was no interest on the part of the
21 Select Committee in raising the signature requirements.
22 I will be happy to answer any questions. I would
23 hope that you will read the amendment that I think is now
24 on everybody's desk. Is there anybody that doesn't have a
25 copy of the amendment?
28
1 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: There is an amendment to the
2 amendment on the desk, very short. Commissioner Rundle
3 has on the desk amendment number, an amendment to the
4 amendment which has been filed and distributed I think.
5 Would you read that, amendment to the Amendment No. 2.
6 READING CLERK: Amendment to the Amendment by
7 Commissioner Rundle, on Page 2, Lines 16 through 18,
8 delete those lines and insert, signed by a number of
9 electors in each of one-half of the congressional
10 districts of the state and of the state as a whole equal
11 to 8 percent of the votes cast.
12 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: What you did, as I understand it,
13 Commissioner Rundle, is just strike the word "or
14 amendment".
15 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: If I might, and then I will
16 yield to Commissioner Rundle, we did have, I guess -- and
17 I apologize, Commissioner Rundle, because I think I should
18 have said that when I was talking about the committee, the
19 committee did vote to require that signatures --
20 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Freidin, wait just a
21 minute, we are going to have to get the caucuses to
22 adjourn and nobody seems to be listening to you. And I
23 would like for them to listen to you. This committee was
24 one of our best performing committees and I would, I think
25 all of us would be better served if we would hold off the
29
1 caucusing until this is at least presented. Now,
2 Commissioner Freidin.
3 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
4 The committee, the only split vote that the committee
5 had was on the question of whether to require the
6 signatures from all the congressional districts or
7 require, or maintain the present requirement where the
8 signatures only need to be collected from half the
9 congressional districts.
10 And Commissioner Rundle has moved an amendment to our
11 amendment which brings it back to half, which is really
12 the present constitutional requirement.
13 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Rundle, what you are
14 doing is bringing it back to the status quo where half of
15 the congressional districts could initiate it?
16 COMMISSIONER RUNDLE: Yes, sir. And my thought on
17 this is that I'm of the firm belief that it is difficult
18 enough for true citizens, grass roots citizen drives. And
19 we met with a number of people who have been through this
20 process, who were not a financed campaign, and I guess my
21 concern is that I believe well-financed campaigns will be
22 able to do that, whatever restrictions we put.
23 But I'm concerned that the true grass roots citizens
24 drive will not be able to overcome a lot of these hurdles.
25 So my thought was to leave it as the law is now with
30
1 respect to half of the congressional districts. I would
2 have entertained, and we did discuss, and it was a very
3 healthy discussion we had, to increase it to say, you
4 know, two-thirds. So going from half to 100 percent was a
5 middle ground. But as we tried to work through that, you
6 couldn't really do it numerically in a sound way.
7 So I would ask you just to really think about what
8 these citizens go through as it is now to get these
9 initiatives through. And I think that if we leave it at
10 half the congressional districts, we will help those
11 citizens that don't have the money, that aren't a
12 well-financed, well-campaigned organization, but who truly
13 want to have some access to their body of law which
14 represents them.
15 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: As I understand your amendment,
16 the committee recommended that it be statewide to meet the
17 objections that we heard in the public hearings and you
18 are offering an amendment which would in effect say, We
19 don't want to do that, we want to keep the status quo
20 insofar as the obtaining of the signatures.
21 COMMISSIONER RUNDLE: Correct. It just pertains to
22 that one section.
23 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: All right. It doesn't pertain to
24 the rest --
25 COMMISSIONER RUNDLE: Public hearings I think are a
31
1 wonderful idea. It educates the people and I think it
2 helps the true grass roots citizens get their message out.
3 So out of the three different areas, the one area that I
4 would suggest to this commission is that we leave it at
5 half the congressional seats, which is the law now, which
6 is what my amendment does.
7 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: All right. The first person up
8 was Commissioner Ford-Coates on the amendment to the
9 amendment and then Commissioner Smith is next.
10 COMMISSIONER FORD-COATES: Would Commissioner Rundle
11 yield for a question?
12 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: She yields.
13 COMMISSIONER FORD-COATES: And it actually may be
14 addressed to both Commissioner Rundle and Commissioner
15 Freidin.
16 If I recall correctly, one of the discussions or one
17 of the points brought up in the public hearings was the
18 difference between paid collectors of signatures versus
19 people that just sat out there because they believed
20 deeply in a subject. And I think this kind of goes to
21 that question. Was that discussed? Because I will vote
22 differently on this depending on whether or not that could
23 be a possibility of eliminating paid collectors.
24 COMMISSIONER RUNDLE: I'm glad that you asked that
25 question because we actually asked the citizens, we are
32
1 talking about the Stop Turning Out the Prisoners
2 Initiative that I had some relationship with because I saw
3 these people in different community groups.
4 And when we asked them, what would this do to you?
5 They said, You know, we are not paid, we didn't pay
6 anybody to get signatures, we didn't put paid collectors
7 out there to hand out these petitions and get them signed.
8 We just did it, we go to our Publix, we go to our local
9 supermarket, and to ask us to travel far to another
10 district on weekends and evenings was really an
11 inconvenience for them.
12 But it won't be for those that pay people to do that
13 because you would simply hire them to cover those other
14 congressional districts. So they really convinced me that
15 it was going to hurt the true citizens' access.
16 COMMISSIONER FORD-COATES: Was there any discussion
17 and is there any legal reason why you can't prohibit
18 paying people to collect signatures?
19 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: There is a constitutional reason,
20 I think.
21 COMMISSIONER FORD-COATES: That's what I'm looking
22 for because that was a proposal and that was a concern and
23 I didn't know --
24 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: The First Amendment prohibits
25 that.
33
1 COMMISSIONER FORD-COATES: So you can't -- we can't
2 stop people from just paying anybody to collect
3 signatures. Okay.
4 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Ford-Coates, I think
5 maybe your question included whether the committee
6 considered it or not and Commissioner Freidin I think
7 would be the one to answer that.
8 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: We did not have much
9 discussion of that because I think we were aware that the
10 Constitution prohibits it.
11 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Smith, you wanted to
12 be recognized, and then Commissioner Sundberg.
13 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My
14 question has been answered.
15 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Sundberg, you were
16 on the committee, were you not, sir?
17 COMMISSIONER SUNDBERG: I was, Mr. Chairman. I want
18 to speak against the amendment, as reluctant as I am when
19 it is offered by Commissioner Rundle and also -- and I
20 understand the problem.
21 I was convinced, however, if you will recall when we
22 met for public hearing in Fort Myers, one of the
23 representatives, Franklin, from that district, made a
24 presentation to us about this process.
25 And if you will recall, he brought a map of the state
34
1 of Florida that had the congressional districts outlined
2 on it. And he demonstrated that you could draw a line
3 from Tampa Bay due east to the Atlantic Ocean and more
4 than one-half of the congressional districts lie below
5 that line. He is the one that urged upon us that we make
6 the change that is incorporated in this proposal.
7 And that is to say, so that we prevent what are
8 regional special interest sort of initiative petitions,
9 that you should expand it so you have at least
10 demonstrated there is minimal support throughout the state
11 in each of the congressional districts for a proposal
12 before it is permitted to move forward.
13 I think that probably became manifest to us in the
14 continued presentations to us on the net ban issue, where
15 I think there were people from particular regions of the
16 state that felt there was no support whatsoever and that
17 they had foisted upon them something that had no support
18 whatsoever in their region. I'm not sure that's accurate.
19 But nonetheless, that was a perceived problem.
20 It is for that reason that I must vote against the
21 amendment because I think it does -- what we've heard is
22 this process has been abused, there has been too many of
23 these petitions. This doesn't make it harder and I think
24 as Commissioner Freidin has said, this Select Committee
25 did not set out to make it more difficult for the citizens
35
1 of this state to promote an initiative petition proposal.
2 We simply wanted to make it a more ventilated process.
3 And I think in addition, this at least indicates that
4 special regional interests cannot manipulate this process
5 if you require, and it's not a terribly onerous
6 requirement to require that they come from each of the
7 congressional districts. So I urge you to defeat the
8 amendment.
9 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Morsani.
10 COMMISSIONER MORSANI: With all due respect to the
11 committee and their work, I rise in serving in favor of
12 the amendment for the following: I'm very concerned, as
13 an example, the net ban. For those of you, and I don't
14 fish very much, but that change has been a dramatic change
15 on the industry, on a major industry in this state.
16 Granted, some were put out of jobs. But as all of us
17 know, some of us in the automobile business, we put the
18 buggy business out of jobs. And the buggy whip business
19 no longer exists in any great manner.
20 I think that if we, even though I am for change in
21 this initiative process, I don't think that this is the
22 right change. I support Commissioner Rundle's amendment
23 to leave it where it is. I understand about Mr. Franklin
24 and his presentation in Fort Myers. Yes, we can all make
25 that -- come to that conclusion; however, that does not
36
1 necessarily make it good public policy.
2 Yes, the net ban did affect some people and we all
3 regret that. We regret when people have to change their
4 jobs. But, in support of that, and I look at other
5 industries today. Fishing is an industry. Other
6 industries, we're talking people have two and three
7 careers today. That's going to be true in the fishing
8 industry or it could be true in the next generation of the
9 computer industry. Look what's happened in the telephonic
10 industry.
11 So the state is going to continue to grow. We know
12 by the year 2015 that there will be 20 million people.
13 This kind of policy is going to have a greater effect in
14 the future than it has had in the past. I actually must
15 tell you I'm going to vote against the whole thing the way
16 it is because I think stretching it out to 18 months, if
17 there is any process for initiative process also, what are
18 we doing for the tombstones? A seven year process, how
19 many tombstones are going to be on that initiative rather
20 than people that are alive today.
21 So I'm concerned about the whole thing, but I vote in
22 favor of the amendment. I think it's right to get it
23 there and I certainly would hope that we would accept the
24 amendment. I urge you to vote in favor of it.
25 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: All right. Commissioner Anthony
37
1 is next and then Commissioner Riley.
2 COMMISSIONER ANTHONY: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, too,
3 rise in support of the amendment. I don't think that the
4 Select Committee's intent is to make it more difficult for
5 the citizenry to have a say in their Constitution, our
6 Constitution. But in fact, the amendment will make it
7 more difficult.
8 Will it make it more difficult for big money
9 industry, corporate groups to have access to the
10 Constitution? I say to you, no. It will not make it more
11 difficult for those organized corporate associations to
12 have input on and access of the Constitution. But it will
13 make it more difficult for the real citizen group that
14 wants to have a change and propose a change to the
15 Constitution, as Commissioner Morsani has already noted.
16 So I just urge you to support this amendment by
17 Commissioner Rundle.
18 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Riley.
19 COMMISSIONER RILEY: I have to rise against the
20 amendment. And I speak as a member of this commission
21 from the panhandle. And I can tell you that the idea that
22 the committee has come up with to require signatures from
23 all of the districts, it's much more equitable than the
24 way it is now.
25 And as we went around the state and as much as we got
38
1 tired of hearing about the net ban, I ask that you listen
2 to what they were saying, separate from the fact that the
3 fourth generation of persons who had been in the fishing
4 industry had lost their livelihood. And I would ask
5 Commissioner Morsani to come up to Bay County and Okaloosa
6 County and Walton County and start one of his many
7 businesses because there are still people up there who are
8 looking for work.
9 So I would ask you, remember what they said. And
10 what they said was, whether you agree with the initiative
11 or not, whether you agree with the amendment, what they
12 said was, We were taken for a ride. They didn't -- we
13 didn't have the opportunity to get our message out because
14 our numbers are not as great. We didn't have the input
15 that the other part of the state did. And I think what
16 the committee has come up with is they have said, Let
17 everybody in the state, everybody in the state has to have
18 the opportunity and must have some input into what's going
19 to be on the ballot.
20 So I strongly recommend that we do not vote for this
21 and defeat this amendment.
22 COMMISSIONER HENDERSON: Mr. Podium, Members of the
23 Commission --
24 (Laughter.)
25 COMMISSIONER HENDERSON: -- Ms. Riley, I'm not a
39
1 fourth generation fisherman from North Florida, I'm a
2 sixth generation fisherman from North Florida who was one
3 of the 72 percent of Floridians that supported the net
4 ban. And as somebody that's been involved in this
5 process, I've got to tell you that the committee's work
6 here will just -- I hear the intent, but it just slams the
7 door. You can throw it out.
8 I see Commissioner Kogan smiling over here because he
9 knows he won't be reviewing any of these for preballot
10 clearance anymore because they will never make it that
11 far. The Rundle amendment at least keeps a crack in the
12 door with the current way of 50 percent of the state.
13 You have got to remember, the Constitution is a
14 document that's approved by the majority of the people of
15 the state. Now it just so happens to be the majority of
16 people in the state live somewhere south of I-4. That is
17 a fact of life, that is how elections are run in this
18 state. So if you want to totally kill initiatives, defeat
19 the amendment. If you want to leave a crack in the door
20 for them, support it.
21 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Freidin. Look, I
22 haven't been absent from my chair nearly as much as you
23 have, Commissioner Henderson.
24 (Laughter.)
25 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: Commissioners, with regard to
40
1 this amendment, you have a very simple choice. There are
2 two competing considerations here. One is, and they are
3 both really valid, worthwhile considerations.
4 One, the first consideration is do we want to make it
5 as easy as possible for a grass roots effort to get a
6 constitutional amendment on the ballot. The other one is,
7 when -- the other competing consideration is this is the
8 Constitution for all the people of Florida. And do we
9 want to encourage all the people of Florida to feel that
10 they have input into their Constitution and to feel that
11 they have been consulted with regard to their
12 Constitution.
13 This is a, in my opinion, a relatively minor
14 incursion into the ability of a grass roots effort to get
15 something on the ballot. We are not asking them by -- the
16 committee's proposal does not ask for additional
17 signatures. It's not one extra signature. What it is is
18 spreading it out throughout the state. All we're asking
19 for, all we're proposing is that it be spread out. That
20 means that you need to have some grass roots effort in
21 every congressional district.
22 And it doesn't mean -- in terms of paying for things
23 or anything like that, it really shouldn't cost much more.
24 It only means that you've got to engage people in
25 different geographical areas.
41
1 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Anybody else want to be heard on
2 the amendment to the amendment by Commissioner Rundle? If
3 not, all those in favor of the amendment say aye; opposed.
4 (Verbal vote taken.)
5 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Unlock the machine. Lock the
6 machine.
7 (Vote taken and recorded electronically.)
8 READING CLERK: Twelve yeas, 13 nays, Mr. Chairman.
9 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: I didn't vote, did I? I vote
10 yea. Does it fail? So my vote didn't count anyway,
11 assuming that would have been my vote. The reason I
12 didn't vote is because I couldn't make up my mind.
13 All right. Commissioner Freidin, you're now on the
14 amendment as amended which eliminates the requirement that
15 signatures come from all congressional districts and
16 restores it to eight; is that right?
17 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: The reverse.
18 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: The reverse. I said it
19 eliminated that from your amendment. Your amendment
20 provided it went to all districts; didn't it?
21 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: No. The committee's proposal
22 is that signatures must be collected in all congressional
23 districts. The amendment would have restored that to
24 half. So right now what we have, the amendment failed so
25 right now we're back to the committee proposal.
42
1 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: So we're on the committee
2 proposal. The amendment failed. I thought it passed.
3 Commissioner Freidin, you have the floor. It's right
4 where you started. I didn't mean to foul you up.
5 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: Well other than reminding the
6 commissioners that, and I know you all have gotten the
7 same mail that I have received, we have gotten mail from
8 Tax Watch, the League of Women Voters, the Tallahassee
9 Democrat, the Florida Chamber of Commerce. We have
10 received an interesting proposal from F. Allen Boyd,
11 Congressman, State Representative Ralph Livingston, and
12 the Florida Council of 100 and all of them addressed some
13 of the issues that we have addressed in this proposal.
14 The proposal at -- I would be happy to entertain
15 questions with regard to the proposal or open it for
16 debate.
17 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Barnett.
18 COMMISSIONER BARNETT: A question.
19 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: She yields.
20 COMMISSIONER BARNETT: I know the proposal deals
21 with -- tries to deal with the implementation of the time
22 frame for implementation and makes some reference to --
23 upon being passed by the electorate or at such other time
24 that might be specified in the Constitution.
25 My issue about implementation is that if it went into
43
1 effect at the end of the '98 general election, the way the
2 public hearing schedule is set -- the requirement to get
3 the signatures 18 months before it would actually go on
4 the ballot would create a situation where very few people
5 now would even be able to get anything on the ballot in
6 2000 because they only would have -- the question is would
7 they have only from November of '98 until May of '99 to
8 get the required signatures in order to get in line to do
9 the public hearings and then to meet the rest of the time
10 frame?
11 And is that a concern -- is that accurate and is that
12 a concern?
13 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: Gee, I wish you had been on
14 our committee. That is not something that we thought
15 about. That was not something we dealt with, and I think
16 that it is probably a valid concern. The only thing that
17 I would point out, and I think this is important,
18 particularly, Commissioner Morsani, because when you
19 mentioned it before, I think it's important for all of you
20 to understand that signatures currently have a life of
21 four years. And that's statutory.
22 And that they do continue to be valid for four years.
23 And there are ongoing efforts to collect signatures, but I
24 think that that's probably something that we could deal
25 with in Style and Drafting in terms of the implementation,
44
1 the effective date of it; is it not, Commissioner Mills?
2 Or should we amend it at the present time? I don't know.
3 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Kogan.
4 COMMISSIONER KOGAN: If I could comment on it. We
5 deal with this all the time. There are constantly
6 petitions out there, all the time, where signatures are
7 being gathered. At this very moment there are petitions
8 out there with signatures being gathered for the year
9 2000. So it's not necessary just to say it's limited to
10 that 18-month period. It could be something that's
11 underway now that they would just have to conform to the
12 new amendment. But these things are ongoing all the time.
13 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: It may impact some initiative
14 petitions in the first cycle. We also, by the way, had
15 discussion about slowing it down even more and putting it
16 into a four-year cycle which the committee rejected. But
17 the object -- and with regard to the timing of it, the
18 object of stretching it out was simply to give more time
19 and this really, according to the people that we heard,
20 the grass roots people that we heard from, they like this
21 because they felt that in a lower budget campaign, the
22 more time they had, the more time they had to get their
23 message out.
24 Whereas in a short-term campaign if a well-financed
25 campaign is mounted, they can just blitz the TV waves for
45
1 a few weeks and get their message across and all it takes
2 is money. So the object here was to slow things down,
3 give the media, give the free media and give the people
4 more time to understand and discuss the issue.
5 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Anthony was up and
6 you're next, Commissioner Barkdull.
7 COMMISSIONER ANTHONY: Do you think -- is it a fact
8 that it will not make a difference for those who have
9 money when it comes to getting the petition in a shorter
10 period of time? Or did you hear from any consultants or
11 people who basically said that it is most often better to
12 get the signatures in the last two or three months because
13 it has that momentum that takes them right into the
14 election? Did you all hear of any comments that way?
15 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: No. In fact, I tell you, the
16 work of this committee was very interesting because we
17 heard from consultants that represent, I would say,
18 moneyed interests and we also heard from people who are
19 mounting grass roots campaigns. And they all liked the
20 slowing down of the process. I think that they all felt
21 that it was a good idea to slow it down, to string it out.
22 And we did not hear what you're suggesting.
23 COMMISSIONER ANTHONY: When the whole entire proposal
24 comes up, I think many members did hear from the
25 consultants that that was a strategy that was used and
46
1 that was appropriately successful for them and like to
2 talk about that.
3 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: You mean in terms of the
4 moneyed interests being able to do it all at the last
5 minute?
6 COMMISSIONER ANTHONY: Correct. And in fact this,
7 again, makes it more difficult for the grass roots people
8 when it comes to making the Constitution available to
9 them, in my mind.
10 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: I'm not understanding. Is
11 it -- am I in order to ask Commissioner Anthony a
12 question? Because I know that we heard from some of the
13 same people that you heard from. But I'm not sure that
14 I'm understanding. You're saying -- is what you're
15 suggesting is that by stringing it out to six months
16 instead of 90 days that that makes it easier for moneyed
17 interests to get on the ballot? I mean, to get their
18 message across to the voters?
19 COMMISSIONER ANTHONY: You're looking at item D? Is
20 that what we're discussing?
21 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: I'm responding to your
22 question but, yeah.
23 COMMISSIONER ANTHONY: No, my question to you was,
24 you think that this makes it better for the normal citizen
25 to string this out; is that correct?
47
1 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: Actually we heard from both
2 grass roots amendment proposers and also from some
3 consultants that had represented moneyed interests who had
4 experience, I should say, with constitutional amendment
5 proposals. And both sides liked the idea of lengthening
6 the period of time.
7 They all thought that a better educated public would
8 be a better thing for us to have, and that the additional
9 time would give, they all thought that the additional time
10 would give them more time to educate the public on their
11 issues.
12 COMMISSIONER ANTHONY: We heard conflicting, in
13 regards to stretching that out, we did.
14 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Barkdull is next,
15 then Commissioner Smith.
16 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: Would the Commissioner yield
17 for a question?
18 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: Yes.
19 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: Commissioner Freidin, it's
20 your intent, if this should pass, that it not impact any
21 ongoing initiative proceedings at the moment; isn't it?
22 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: Well, I don't know how you
23 define "ongoing initiative proceedings" because as we
24 discussed earlier, it's my understanding that people can
25 be collecting signatures now and not planning on putting
48
1 their measure on the ballot until 2002 because there is a
2 four year life to these signatures. So I would think that
3 it probably would impact those.
4 If you're talking about petitions that have already
5 qualified for the ballot or ones that will qualify before
6 the effective date of this, of course not.
7 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: Well, I'm concerned that -- I
8 generally support the committee's report, but I think that
9 possibly, and we ought to consider whether there ought to
10 be a schedule that indicated that this should not impact
11 any ongoing initiative drives because I think it should be
12 prospectively only. And I was trying to find out if that
13 was the sentiment of the committee. If it is not, we need
14 to know it.
15 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: The answer to that is that the
16 committee really didn't discuss this issue and we would
17 welcome a friendly amendment.
18 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: I think for the benefit of
19 Style and Drafting we could just indicate -- normally
20 Constitutional amendments only operate prospectively,
21 unless there is something to the contrary. And you state
22 I think --
23 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: We would intend that this only
24 operate prospectively.
25 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: Thank you.
49
1 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Is that sufficient, Commissioner
2 Barkdull, for Style and Drafting to include that in the
3 schedule?
4 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: I think it is.
5 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: I mean, it would be that way
6 without it; would it not?
7 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: It would be that way without
8 it. But with some of the colloquy that went on, I was
9 afraid that there was some indication that it would impact
10 those that were ongoing at the moment. And that was my
11 purpose of standing up and asking the question, to try to
12 clarify it.
13 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Smith has the floor.
14 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
15 Commissioner Barkdull asked one of the two questions that
16 I was concerned about. And while I don't intend to go
17 back to the Rundle proposal because I'd be ruled out of
18 order, in the spirit of Commissioner Morsani's question,
19 because I do think, I do agree with the spirit of what's
20 trying to be done now, I just want to pose a question to
21 you.
22 We are moving forward in the spirit that we don't
23 want to make the process more difficult. If we're in the
24 public hearing process and a person who is engaged or
25 people who are engaged in this grass roots effort gets up
50
1 and asks the question, Commissioner Freidin -- let's say
2 it's on WFSU television -- Commissioner Freidin, if my
3 grass roots effort for this petition initiative,
4 Constitution petition initiative, gets signatures out of
5 22 out of 23 congressional districts and there is just one
6 little pocket we can't get it out of, does that mean, and
7 although we have 8 percent statewide, does that mean that
8 we don't have access to the ballot?
9 And the question then is, don't you think the people
10 are going to say we made it more difficult? I mean, I
11 just see that one little issue killing it; 22 out of 23,
12 60 percent, 75 percent. I really think we're going to
13 doom it if we require all 23 congressional districts. And
14 I just pose that to you because you're the floor manager
15 of this and I just want to make sure we think this thing
16 through before we take it forward.
17 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: My response to that is that
18 was amply discussed in the committee. And what we're
19 talking -- you have to remember, Commissioners, that what
20 we're talking about here is 8 percent of 8 percent. We're
21 talking about a relatively small number for each
22 congressional district. We're not talking about a huge
23 number of signatures. And the concept is that if there
24 isn't support in that small number in an area for -- I
25 mean, even in the panhandle the net ban surely would have
51
1 been able to collect that number of signatures.
2 And I'm getting a nod back. I want the record to
3 reflect that Commissioner Riley is nodding in the back of
4 the room there. Those signatures would have been
5 available.
6 COMMISSIONER SMITH: My follow-up question then is on
7 Page 2 of your amendment, is it correct starting at Line
8 17, the congressional district of the state, equal to
9 8 percent of the votes cast in each of such district. I
10 don't read that as 8 percent of 8 percent, which would be
11 like 164, I read that as 8 percent. And my question is,
12 is that accurate?
13 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: Well the 8 percent of
14 8 percent is the amount to get it to a public hearing, but
15 it is 8 percent total.
16 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you, Commissioner Freidin.
17 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: All right. Anybody else have
18 anything on this amendment as amended? Commissioner
19 Connor.
20 COMMISSIONER CONNOR: Mr. Chairman, I rise to speak
21 in opposition to the proposal. I think Commissioner Smith
22 has put his finger on the pulse. In fact, we do
23 substantially raise the bar for the citizens of the state
24 of Florida to address matters on their own initiative in
25 the Constitution when we require that a minimal amount
52
1 be -- of signatures be obtained in 100 percent of all the
2 areas. That represents a significant change.
3 Now as far as the grass roots folks are involved,
4 that doesn't help them one wit, I assure you. In fact
5 that has a substantially chilling effect on a grass roots
6 group that's operating on a shoestring budget and getting
7 their matters before all the people of Florida.
8 And as far as its affect on real grass roots
9 initiatives that are launched by real people that have
10 genuine concerns about their state and who desire to be
11 real participants in the Democratic process, then I would
12 submit to you that this will substantially impair their
13 ability to have their voices heard in the constitutional
14 amendatory process.
15 Now the reality of it is that institutional
16 interests, special interests, associations with keen
17 political interests take a lot of comfort in that because
18 the thing that scares them to death more than anything
19 else is to give life to the notion that the political
20 power reposes in the people, plainly and simply. That's
21 why you've seen everybody from the Academy of Florida
22 Trial Lawyers to the Chamber of Commerce to medical
23 association groups unite behind making it more difficult
24 to cross the bar in this particular instance. I think
25 it's a grave mistake.
53
1 And I think frankly it is -- it will be viewed as
2 rather patrician for those of us who are privileged to
3 serve in this capacity, simply by virtue of our
4 appointment by someone else, not by virtue of any
5 election, not by virtue of any selection by the people in
6 this case to come in and say, We're going to make it more
7 difficult for all you folks out there in the real world to
8 do what we're going to be able to do with the snap of a
9 finger in a very real sense. They'll resent that and
10 frankly I think it's wrong. I think it's bad public
11 policy to do so.
12 Now however one may feel about the net ban amendment
13 and it's effect, I guarantee you in a very real sense it
14 will be harolded sort of with the battle cry, Remember the
15 Alamo.
16 So when you have a recalcitrant Legislature that
17 blocks up the process and creates a logjam and doesn't
18 give the people a real ability to express themselves or to
19 be heard, they can say, Remember what happened with the
20 net ban. If you don't give us this opportunity, we're
21 going to take things into our own hands and then it's
22 going to be a lot more difficult to make all the
23 adjustments and the fine-tuning and all of that that we
24 think may well be appropriate for something that's more
25 properly the subject of the legislative process.
54
1 I think we should leave this process alone. Yes,
2 it's been a rather scary process and people have felt
3 threatened. I as a trial lawyer have felt threatened by
4 some of the things that have come forward on the ballot.
5 Other folks who are involved in other professions and
6 groups have felt threatened by things that come to the
7 ballot.
8 But I say, Let's continue to repose our confidence in
9 the people. Let's let the Constitution mean what it says
10 when it says that all political power is inherent in the
11 people and let's trust the people to do the right thing.
12 Thank you.
13 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Rundle.
14 COMMISSIONER RUNDLE: I think it was yesterday or the
15 day before yesterday I told Commissioner Connor that I
16 really enjoyed listening to him, that I found him to be
17 very, very articulate and a very captivating speaker. And
18 he looked at me and he said, If that's true, then why
19 don't you ever vote with me? Well I'm going to vote with
20 you today, Commissioner Connor.
21 And I'm sorry to rise against this proposal because I
22 know how hard my good friends and colleagues,
23 Commissioners Sundberg and Freidin, worked on this. I
24 couldn't agree with Commissioner Connor more. I do
25 believe it's going to be denying access to the people who
55
1 really should have access. And those that have all the
2 money and the organizational skills, you could double
3 this, you could make it 20 percent and they are going to
4 be able to reach this bar. The grass roots citizens will
5 not.
6 And I want you also to think about what this ballot
7 is going to look like. We're taking away a lot of rights.
8 You know, they're not going to be able to elect their
9 judges anymore. We have Cabinet members we're saying
10 they're not going to be able to elect anymore,
11 Commissioner of Education, and now we're going to make it
12 even harder for you to access your document which
13 represents you. I really urge you to vote against this.
14 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Henderson was next.
15 You're next, Commissioner Riley.
16 COMMISSIONER HENDERSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I
17 tried to stay in my seat through the course of this
18 debate.
19 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Thank you.
20 COMMISSIONER HENDERSON: And Commissioner Connor, I'm
21 glad Commissioner Rundle said all the things she did
22 because I'm going to be brief because I can't add any more
23 to what you said, you were quite eloquent. And I'm
24 enjoying agreeing with you this time. We're going to work
25 together on this one.
56
1 And you know, this is also with trepidation that I
2 oppose the committee report here because I know that they
3 have worked hard on this and I know they have tried to
4 address some of the things that brought up concerns in
5 this proposal.
6 Nevertheless, I wanted the rest of the commission to
7 note something that the commission may not be aware of.
8 And that is that there was a General Provisions Committee
9 that heard all of the individual initiative proposals
10 concerning constitutional initiatives and statutory
11 initiatives. We heard from I think the entire lobbying
12 core on all of these issues and we voted that we didn't
13 want to change the system at all.
14 And it was after many hours of listening to all that
15 because we concluded a number of things that Commissioner
16 Connor pointed out. That the people who control the power
17 in this room, or this building, who think they control the
18 power in this building, maybe that's a good perception,
19 don't want these battles fought out in the street. So
20 that's why they don't want statutory initiatives. But
21 they also don't want to make any changes, they don't want
22 to get rid of the constitutional initiative because of the
23 same reason.
24 This is the way that we help protect the people's
25 voice in the Constitution. The proposal virtually slams
57
1 the door in it. I would say, if you're going to go with
2 this proposal, Style and Drafting should just eliminate
3 initiatives from the Constitution because it will never
4 happen, except for those groups or those industries,
5 perhaps, that are so well organized that they could
6 finance their way all the way to the very end.
7 I'm making a list here of the problems. Now
8 everybody has talked about the problem with initiatives,
9 they don't like the way we have junked up the
10 Constitution. But it occurs to me that in the course of
11 all of our deliberations we've had the opportunity here to
12 rethink or question what our citizens have done in the
13 Constitution out there in the initiative. And we've only
14 amended the Constitution ten times by the initiative
15 process, not 100, not 50, only ten times in this period of
16 time.
17 And I think -- and we have debated most of these
18 during the course of the time we were here. Yesterday we
19 dealt with the Save Our Homes proposal and we chose to
20 stick with what the public said. When we were here a few
21 weeks ago we debated the Eight Is Enough proposal and we
22 decided that the wisdom of the public worked pretty good
23 there and we didn't want to change that.
24 Early in the process after hearing from hundreds of
25 people we decided we didn't even want to consider changing
58
1 the net ban and made a vote on that that was a motion by
2 Commissioner Sundberg that we do nothing on that, to send
3 the message that we didn't want to do anything about that.
4 We had a lot of discussion about the Ethics
5 Commission and ethics in government, and sunshine in
6 government. Where did that come from? That came from the
7 people. It came from the initiative process. It
8 certainly did not come from these chambers or the chambers
9 down the hall.
10 We've had some discussion about the Lottery. We've
11 had lots of discussion about the Lottery. Not that the
12 Lottery was wrong, but that others have used it for their
13 own purposes, and that fraud word has creeped up a time or
14 two. Not that we wanted to change what the voters did,
15 but what the folks in this hall and down the hall have
16 done to the proposal.
17 I would suggest to you that even though we like to
18 grumble about how the system is broken, that the people of
19 this state have shown a pretty good collective sense of
20 wisdom through this process.
21 I can tell you that it is a process that is getting,
22 that the courts have made it more difficult to get
23 something through. I think they have shown wisdom in
24 trying to keep Florida from becoming another California.
25 So it is harder to get something through the court and
59
1 onto the ballot. This is a system that is not broken.
2 And in light of all the things that we're doing,
3 taking away, proposing to take away rights of the people
4 to participate in government, if you change this, this is
5 going to drive a stake through the heart of this process.
6 And I suggest to you if we make this change, this could be
7 one of the worst things we could do while we're here.
8 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Freidin to close --
9 wait a minute. Commissioner Riley, do you want to be
10 heard again?
11 COMMISSIONER RILEY: I would like to speak quickly in
12 favor of it, if I may.
13 We find ourselves with very strange company and odd
14 bedfellows. If anybody says this is a partisan group, as
15 politically savvy as we all are, our votes are all over
16 the board. So I find that it's very odd that I'm
17 disagreeing with Commissioner Rundle and Commissioner
18 Henderson.
19 However, I would certainly like to do that. We chose
20 not to touch the net ban issue. And in fact, one of the
21 speakers said to us, I know you're not going to do
22 anything about that. And God knows they were right, we
23 didn't want to touch that. But I think what we did here
24 certainly on that issue was, please look at the process
25 and I think it can be more equitable.
60
1 I don't think this drives a stake through the heart
2 of the petition process. I think this allows the entire
3 state to participate in the process and does not allow
4 certain areas to dictate what goes on the ballot but says,
5 let's have everybody's input. So with that in mind, I
6 would urge you to vote for it.
7 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Now, Commissioner Freidin to
8 close.
9 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: This proposal doesn't take
10 away anybody's rights. It doesn't even interfere with
11 anybody's rights. What it does is it enhances the rights
12 of all the citizens in the state of Florida to understand
13 and participate in their Constitution. The whole idea
14 here is to get people involved, have public hearings,
15 invite the public to come out, invite input into proposals
16 before they are written in stone, invite people to learn
17 about their government and to give comment about their
18 government.
19 You know, there is part of this -- maybe I didn't
20 describe it fully. But what this requires is that there
21 be public hearings and that they would be organized and
22 put on by the Secretary of State and that after the public
23 hearings, the Secretary of State would publish for the
24 voters a summary of the arguments that were made for and
25 against the proposals. Now where else are you going to
61
1 get that? And what in the world, how in the world does
2 that interfere with somebody's right to amend, have the
3 Constitution amended?
4 This is an enhancement. It is an educational tool.
5 The whole concept behind it is to enhance the ability of
6 the public to be involved. Now it is being discussed
7 here, it is being characterized here in a way that it is
8 totally not intended and in fact in a way that I don't
9 think it will have an impact.
10 In fact, the people that we presented it to, the
11 grass roots people we presented it to, liked it. They
12 said, Gee, this gives us a free publicity. This gives us
13 free access to the media and this gives us the opportunity
14 to have our voices heard without it costing us anything.
15 And something is mixed up here, we are confused.
16 And I urge you to read this carefully and maybe even
17 to, I would ask for a minute to allow the body to sit here
18 and read this proposal so we all are clear on what it is
19 that we are doing because this is getting very turned
20 around. Thank you.
21 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: All right. Commissioner Freidin,
22 thank you very much. I don't take that as a motion for a
23 moment of silent prayer or anything here, but if we're
24 going to start reading it, we may have some problems with
25 the Commissioners. We will now vote on the amendment.
62
1 Unlock the machine.
2 (Vote taken and recorded electronically.)
3 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Lock the machine and announce the
4 vote.
5 READING CLERK: Ten yeas, 20 nays, Mr. Chairman.
6 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: By your vote, it fails.
7 Although I do want to thank the committee. You
8 worked very hard on this and if I had known you were going
9 to be roughed up like this, I probably wouldn't have done
10 it to you. Commissioner Sundberg told me that he couldn't
11 stand any more favors like this. I'll try not to do that
12 again.
13 We're still now on Proposal 130 by Commissioner
14 Barkdull.
15 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: I move the proposal. We have
16 heard the debate on the issue and I just ask for a vote.
17 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Would you read Proposal 130,
18 please. Pay attention. We're fixing to vote on Proposal
19 130.
20 READING CLERK: Proposal to revise Article XI,
21 Section 3, Florida Constitution; requiring an initiative
22 petition to be signed by a specified percentage of the
23 electors from each congressional district.
24 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Barkdull.
25 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: This proposal is similar to
63
1 the amendment that was proposed to take out of the Select
2 Committee's report. The effect of this is to require that
3 the 8 percent be gathered from each of the congressional
4 districts rather than one-half. We had the debate on the
5 earlier amendment and I suggest the same vote this time.
6 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: All right. Unlock the machine
7 and vote.
8 (Vote taken and recorded electronically.)
9 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Lock the machine.
10 READING CLERK: Eight yeas, 20 nays, Mr. Chairman.
11 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Now we go to Proposal 65. Would
12 you read the proposal, please?
13 READING CLERK: Proposal 65, a proposal to create
14 Article III, Section 26, Florida Constitution; providing
15 for the revision or amendment of statutory law through the
16 initiative process.
17 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: By Commissioner Langley,
18 disapproved by the Committee on General Provisions.
19 Commissioner Langley.
20 COMMISSIONER LANGLEY: I move to withdraw it from
21 further consideration.
22 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Without objection, it's
23 withdrawn. Commissioner Barkdull, wouldn't it be more
24 appropriate to go ahead with Proposal 72 which deals with
25 this subject than to go to --
64
1 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: Yes, I move we temporarily
2 pass --
3 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: 69?
4 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: -- 69 and we take up 72.
5 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: We'll take up 72 by Commissioner
6 Mills.
7 COMMISSIONER MILLS: Mr. Chairman, based on the fact
8 that the commission has decided to leave access the same
9 for the constitutional process, I would move to withdraw
10 this.
11 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Without objection, 72 is
12 withdrawn.
13 Proposal 132 -- wait a minute, was there an
14 objection?
15 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: I'm withdrawing 132.
16 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: All right. No. 132, without
17 objection, is withdrawn.
18 Proposal 150 by Commissioner Scott. Is that a
19 different subject?
20 COMMISSIONER SCOTT: Mr. Chairman, I would move to
21 temporarily pass this and let me explain. This was filed
22 just in case we needed it, like we needed that one the
23 other day for the Lieutenant Governor.
24 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Without objection it's
25 temporarily passed.
65
1 COMMISSIONER BARKDULL: Revert to 69. It's going to
2 be withdrawn.
3 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Correct? Sixty-nine has been
4 withdrawn? Okay. Without objection it's withdrawn. That
5 moves us to 160 by Commissioner Smith.
6 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Mr. Chairman, I move to withdraw
7 160.
8 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: 160 is withdrawn without
9 objection.
10 Number 164 by Commissioner Freidin.
11 COMMISSIONER FREIDIN: Based on the sentiments that
12 have been so clearly expressed here, I will withdraw that
13 proposal.
14 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Now we go to Proposal 59 by
15 Commissioner Zack. Read the proposal.
16 READING CLERK: Proposal 59, a proposal to revise
17 Article X, Section 13, Florida Constitution; providing
18 limitations upon the amount of damages payable by the
19 state when a court finds the state liable; providing for a
20 bad-faith surcharge; placing a limit on attorney's fees.
21 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Commissioner Zack, you are
22 recognized.
23 COMMISSIONER ZACK: We have a committee substitute
24 before the body.
25 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: It hasn't been put before the
66
1 body, no.
2 COMMISSIONER ZACK: Let me present it to --
3 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: It is an amendment to your --
4 COMMISSIONER ZACK: It is an amendment that is a
5 committee substitute which I accept as a friendly
6 amendment.
7 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Offered as an amendment to
8 Proposal No. 164 -- excuse me, 59. We haven't read it.
9 Did we read it? Let's read it and then we will offer the
10 amendment. Read it, please.
11 READING CLERK: By Commissioners Lowndes, Zack --
12 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: No, no, read the proposal first
13 and then the amendment. All right. Read the amendment by
14 Commissioner Zack.
15 READING CLERK: By Commissioners Lowndes, Zack,
16 Morsani and Hawkes, on Page 1, Lines 11 through 28, strike
17 all of said lines and insert lengthy amendment.
18 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: We are now on the amendment which
19 in effect rewrites your proposal, does it not,
20 Commissioner Zack?
21 COMMISSIONER ZACK: It fine-tunes the proposal.
22 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Would you like to take the floor
23 on the proposal or would you like one of the other
24 co-sponsors?
25 COMMISSIONER ZACK: I'm happy to go forward with the
67
1 amended proposal, though I'd like it read.
2 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: We did read it.
3 COMMISSIONER ZACK: Did you? Was that the amended
4 proposal?
5 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: We read the title to it, that's
6 all we read. Commissioner Morsani.
7 COMMISSIONER MORSANI: I need to ask a question.
8 Commissioner Zack, on our committee, the other piece of
9 that --
10 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Let's all take our seats, please.
11 I think you are blocking the line of fire there.
12 COMMISSIONER MORSANI: I wonder if we shouldn't TP
13 this for about 15 minutes because they are working on the
14 other thing that we discussed yesterday evening.
15 COMMISSIONER ZACK: I have no problem with TPing it.
16 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Without objection it will be TP'd
17 for 15 minutes or so. I guess there are three of them.
18 Do you want to TP all of them?
19 Proposal 46 by Commissioner Anthony is TP'd without
20 objection. Committee substitute for Proposal 177 is TP'd.
21 And now we are on Committee Substitute for Proposals 49,
22 103 and 185 by the Committee on Finance and Taxation and
23 Commissioners Anthony, Henderson and Mills, and as
24 recommended as a committee substitute by the Committee on
25 Finance and Taxation. Would you read it, please?
68
1 READING CLERK: Committee substitute for Proposals
2 49, 103 and 185; a proposal to revise Article VII, Section
3 3, Florida Constitution; revising the requirements for
4 exempting municipally-owned property; allowing the
5 Legislature to exempt from taxation property owned by a
6 governmental entity and used for airport, seaport, or
7 public purposes, as defined by law, and uses that are
8 incidental thereto.
9 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: We are going to take a five to
10 ten minute recess for everybody to get their itches taken
11 care of so we can be seated. We can't, we have no order
12 with everybody walking around the chamber and going from
13 desk to desk and the speakers are being not treated very
14 fairly.
15 We are going to take a recess and, please, everybody
16 do whatever it is you need to do in the way of walking
17 around so when we come back, we can do like Commissioner
18 Henderson, we can sit in our chair. We are in recess for
19 ten minutes, we will come back at 11:00 o'clock. We will
20 keep the chamber closed.
21 (Brief recess.)
22 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Everybody come to order. I
23 really hope, Commissioners, that we can keep order. And
24 that's why I had this recess because I think we owe it to
25 the people to do what we have been doing the whole time,
69
1 which is being very attentive to what's going on and
2 listening to the speakers. So I'm going to give you
3 another few minutes until they finish what it is that
4 they're working on.
5 (Pause.)
6 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Everybody come to order.
7 SECRETARY BLANTON: All commissioners indicate your
8 presence, all commissioners indicate your presence.
9 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: We have a quorum call. There are
10 a lot of people here that haven't come into the chamber.
11 I see one in the bubble. We are still missing some
12 members, but we'll start.
13 Commissioner Zack, you had offered an amendment and
14 were beginning to speak on it and now I understand that
15 you want to offer a substitute amendment.
16 COMMISSIONER ZACK: We withdrew that amendment and
17 offered a substitute.
18 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: So you now have a substitute
19 amendment which has not been read; is that right?
20 COMMISSIONER ZACK: That is correct.
21 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: Okay.
22 COMMISSIONER CONNOR: Point of order, Mr. Chairman?
23 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: All right. The proposal that we
24 are on is the Proposal No. 59 by Commissioner Zack and it
25 has been read and we now have an amendment, substitute
70
1 amendment being offered by Commissioner Zack which needs
2 to be read before we move to the next amendment.
3 COMMISSIONER CONNOR: Mr. Chairman, may I just
4 suggest --
5 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: I suggest first of all that we
6 try to sit down, please. All right, go ahead.
7 COMMISSIONER CONNOR: Mr. Chairman, I would just
8 suggest, and I believe it would be with Commissioner
9 Zack's consent, that you might allow me to set the stage,
10 as the chairman of the Select Committee, so that the body
11 would appreciate the recommendation that was made on this
12 proposal and fit it in the context of the various
13 proposals that came before our committee, if you deem that
14 to be appropriate.
15 COMMISSIONER ZACK: No objection whatsoever if it is
16 appropriate.
17 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: First of all we have to read this
18 amendment to technically make it before the body. Could
19 you do that, please?
20 (Off-the-record comment.)
21 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: We are on 59, that's what
22 everybody was caucusing on, I understood, 59 and we are
23 going to read the substitute amendment, after which
24 Commissioner Zack has yielded to Commissioner Connor to
25 present further items. Proceed. Read the amendment.
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1 READING CLERK: Substitute amendment by Commissioners
2 Lowndes, Zack, Morsani and Hawkes, on Page 1, Lines 11
3 through 28, strike all of said lines and insert, Section
4 1, Section 13 of Article X of the Florida Constitution is
5 revised by amending that Section to read, Article X,
6 miscellaneous; Section 13, suits against the state,
7 provision may be made by general law for bringing suit
8 against the state, its political subdivisions, agencies,
9 districts and municipalities as to all liabilities now
10 existing or hereafter originating provided in such a suit
11 a person may recover damages up to a maximum amount of
12 $200,000 plus costs, other than attorney's fees incurred
13 in the suit, unless such an amount is increased by general
14 law.
15 In any event, the maximum amount of damages shall be
16 increased each year by the same percentage as the
17 percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index or a
18 successor index published by the federal government.
19 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: All right. Commissioner Zack
20 yields to Commissioner Connor.
21 COMMISSIONER CONNOR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Your
22 Select Committee on Sovereign Immunity met on three
23 occasions and considered the Zack proposal, which was
24 Proposal 59; the Freidin proposal, Proposal No. 77; and
25 the Anthony proposal, Proposal No. 46. The only proposal
72
1 that emerged from that committee with a favorable
2 recommendation was the committee substitute which is now,
3 which Mr. Zack now will seek to amend. But it did receive
4 a favorable report from the committee for this body.
5 Mr. Chairman, we also did have -- consider
6 recommendations that a court of claims be established by
7 the Legislature.
8 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: That's on the desk now as an
9 amendment by Commissioners Lowndes and Morsani.
10 COMMISSIONER CONNOR: Yes, sir. And did not have the
11 opportunity, we considered that conceptually, did not have
12 the opportunity to consider a full-blown amendment, but I
13 understood that it was going to be submitted for our
14 consideration this morning.
15 CHAIRMAN DOUGLASS: There |
