42 Proposed Constitutional Amendments and counting is Florida out of control?
Bottom Line: If you thought last year’s twelve proposed Constitutional Amendments was a lot to read and consider in November’s elections – it’s possible that you haven’t seen anything yet. The passage of eleven of the twelve proposed amendments has turbo-charged interest groups with ideas of being able to get their pet proposal onto the ballot and into Florida’s Constitution in 2020.
Right now, there are 42 potential contenders to make it onto your ballot. And that’s if there aren’t others that pop up! Now it’s beyond unlikely that 42 complete the process successfully but what if say, half did? Could you imagine a Presidential Election ballot with 21 Amendment questions as well?! Because of the proliferation of this process which arguably was created without consideration for huge money interest groups setting up behind them, a la, John Morgan’s groups – there's actually a proposed amendment that would potentially curb some of this activism with proposed amendments by raising the threshold of voter support necessary to achieve passage.
Currently the threshold is 60%. The new proposal would raise the threshold to 66.7%, (two-thirds), in the future. How big of a difference is that 6.7%? Huge. Had it been in force only four of the twelve amendments would have passed last year. That could also be enough to discourage the mountain of proposals attempting to make their way onto our ballots. More to come...