Florida’s 2024 Proposed Amendments, Abortion Policy & Oyster Bunnies - Top 3 Takeaways – April 2nd, 2024
- And then there were six. As in six proposed constitutional amendments on our ballots this year. Prior to yesterday’s decisions by the Florida Supreme Court Floridians had four proposed constitutional amendments set to appear on ballots. There are two proposals passed by the state legislature last year and two that they passed in this year’s state legislative session. Those four proposals range from one that wouldn’t have any current policy impact – the proposed amendment to establish hunting and fishing as a constitutional right – to the somewhat wonky, as in a proposed amendment which would repeal a constitutional provision providing for public campaign financing for candidates who agree to spending limits. The other two set by the state legislature are higher profile in terms of their policy impact. We’ll vote on a proposed constitutional amendment which if passed would convert school board elections from nonpartisan to partisan races and one which is likely to have broad appeal pertaining to property taxes. The legislature has proposed an annual inflation adjustment for the value of the homestead property exemption. The two the Florida Supreme Court just decided will be on your ballot, citizen led proposals which accumulated enough support to reach the state’s high court, are the most controversial of all. Both proposals, which were opposed by the state of Florida and legally challenged by AG Ashley Moody’s team, will appear on your ballot in November. There will be a question asking if you want to “legalize” recreational marijuana in Florida, and if you want to add the constitutional right to an abortion up to the point of “fetal viability” to the state’s constitution. To be clear the state Supreme Court’s decision on those ballot questions is specific. The Court was tasked with determining whether the way the questions were presented were appropriate for the purpose of voters understanding the implications of proposed amendments or if they were deceptive. In the judgement of the high court the language was understandable. So, in addition to the incredibility consequential votes we’ll be making for the next President of the United States on down – we'll have highly consequential votes on proposed constitutional amendments as well. In the meantime, Florida’s two abortion laws passed over the previous two years, were allowed to take effect by the Florida Supreme Court. This means that as of today Florida’s 15-week limit, with limited exceptions, is in effect, and in 30 days the six-week limit on abortions, with exceptions, signed into law last year, will become law.
- Oyster bunnies. What’s an oyster bunny you ask? Near as I can, based on the president’s messaging around the Easter holiday, an oyster bunny is a transsexual Easter bunny. On Monday, at the White House’s Easter Egg Roll, in which the materials for the participants stated that Easter egg submissions must not include any questionable content, religious symbols, overtly religious themes, or partisan political statements. You know, because what exactly does religion have to do with the celebration of Easter, according to the direction of the Biden Administration, right? Anyway, when kicking off the festivities the president said...and say hello to oyster bunnies. At which point two people (of indeterminate gender identification) dressed in bunny costumes came out and waived. But that wasn’t the oddest thing he said yesterday.
- Who’s the boss? It was one of the great, or at least goodish, TV sitcoms of the 80’s era. It’s when I first grew an appreciation for Tony Danza, became a fan of Judith Light and had a crush on Alyssa Milano (this was wayyyy before she became a nasty woman politically). Anyway, it’s possible any of those three could be running the country (or any number of other people not named Joe Biden) if you take at face value what President Biden said yesterday... When questioned by a reporter about why he issued a Presidential Proclamation declaring that Easter Sunday was a “Transgender Visibility Day”, he said: I didn’t do that. When pressed about House Speaker Mike Johnson's related note decrying the president’s action, President Biden replied...He’s thoroughly uninformed. There’s only one enormous issue with President Biden’s statement. As I cited yesterday – Joe Biden literally signed a declaration stating: I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 31, 2024, as Transgender Day of Visibility. Now, since Joe Biden said that “I didn’t do that”, this must be dealt with. Here are the possibilities. A) Joe Biden didn’t know that Sunday was Easter and thus that he was declaring the tranny day on Easter Sunday. Except that’s even more problematic because on Sunday he posted on X this message: Today, on Transgender Day of Visibility, I have a simple message to all trans Americans: I see you. You are made in the image of God, and you're worthy of respect and dignity. So that takes us to possibility B) That Joe Biden really doesn’t remember that on Friday he signed the presidential proclamation and that Sunday posted on social media about it. Or possibility C) Who’s the boss? As Governor DeSantis said when asked about this yesterday: Either he’s not being honest with the public or he really didn’t know what was going on. And so my question would be, who’s running the presidency? Is it a bunch of woke 20-something-year-old White House staffers that just put out this drivel whenever they want? So I don’t know who’s in charge, the fact that he’s not owning up to it. Either way it’s bad; either he’s not being honest or he really didn’t have anything to do with it. My theory...it’s the oyster bunnies. After all bad oysters could also help explain how tens of millions of Americans are seriously ready to vote to reelect Joe Biden as president.