Karma -- the idea that what comes around goes around -- can sometimes come back to bite you in the derriere.
Thats the story on the proposed constitutional amendment that would move the election of state offices, including the governor and lieutenant governor, to the presidential year, out of so-called off-year elections. Tactically, this is an admission by the Democratic Party of Florida that they cannot win in an electorate that is not swelled by increased participation by younger voters and minorities.
The Democrats, you see, are hoisted on their own petard.
Ironically, Florida statewide officers were elected in the same year as the president until 1960. Florida Democrats, still dominant in all three branches of government, viewed with alarm Nixons growing Southern Republican coalition gathering steam in Florida.
In 1960 an unknown Republican got 40 percent in the race with Gov. Farris Bryant, while Nixon edged JFK in the Sunshine State. These Democrats believed Republican coattails would elect a Republican governor in 1964, so they moved the new off-year gubernatorial election to 1966, a nonpresidential year.
Democrats did so by calling a special statewide election to change the year in which Florida elected its governors. Voters approved the change, shifting gubernatorial elections to midterm years, rather than presidential years. Later, they would cement these changes in the Constitution.
The Democrats fooled themselves. In 1964 the Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater not Richard Nixon, and LBJ swamped him in Florida and could have provided coattails that year. In 1966, the first year Florida held its governors race in the off-year, Republican Claude Kirk beat Democratic Miami Mayor Robert High to become the first Republican governor since Reconstruction.
Kevin Cate, a capable Democratic operative, has advanced the idea of a constitutional amendment on the 2016 presidential ballot that would move the election of the state officeholders, including the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, CFO, and agriculture commissioner to the same year in which the president is elected.
Unlike the last time the Constitution was amended on this subject, today an amendment to the Constitution consolidating the two election dates on the same day would require 60 percent of the vote, and therein lies the problem with Cate's plan.
Even in a presidential year, Democrats would have trouble winning 60 percent for so boldly partisan a proposal. Lets recall that Obama carried the state by 1 percent and McCain by only 2.8 percent. Florida is neither a red nor a blue state but indeed a deep-purple state. Looking at the glass as half full, the Democrats candidate for governor, former Gov. Charlie Crist, who now bears the distinction of being the only man in Florida history to lose statewide as Republican, Independent and Democrat, only lost the governorship by 65,000 votes; on the other hand, winning 60 percent for such a proposal is unlikely.
The fact that this switcheroo of election dates would require 60 percent of the vote underlines the best reason why Florida voters raised the bar to require a 60 percent majority for constitutional amendments to begin with: to avoid political mischief. Without the higher barrier, frivolous and boldly partisan changes in the Florida Constitution could be approved by the thinnest of majorities. The Cate plan, while ingenious, is DOA.
Roger J. Stone Jr., with offices in Florida and Washington, D.C., is a legendary political consultant and lobbyist who specializes in opposition research for the Republican National Committee. He has played a key role in the election of Republican presidents from Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan to George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. He is also the author of "Nixon's Secrets: The Rise, Fall and Untold Truth about the President, Watergate and the Pardon" and earlier, "The Man Who Killed Kennedy -- the Case Against LBJ" (both by Skyhorse). This column is exclusive to Sunshine State News.
