In a decisive rebuke to the constitutional agenda of the Republican-dominated Florida Legislature, voters have rejected all but three of the 11 amendments put before them on the general election ballot.
Amendments 2, 9, and 11 passed the required 60 percent threshold of voter support. They each extend homestead exemptions to special classes of persons: respectively, wounded veterans, surviving spouses of servicemen and first responders killed in the line of duty, and low-income seniors.
The rest did not even pass with a simple majority. They were:
Amendment 1: a measure that would have signaled Floridians symbolic rebuke of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and prevented Florida from implementing coercive health insurance mandates.
Amendment 3: would have placed a stricter cap on the amount of revenue the state is allowed to raise and spend every year.
Amendment 4: would have provided additional homestead exemptions to new Florida homebuyers, and reduced annual tax increases on nonhomestead property.
Amendment 5: would have provided that gubernatorial appointments to the state Supreme Court have to be confirmed by the Florida Senate, and would have made it easier for the Florida Legislature to revise the court's internal rules of civil and criminal procedure.
Amendment 6: would have prevented state tax dollars from going to fund abortions, and would have allowed the Florida Legislature to require minors to obtain their parents consent before obtaining an abortion.
Amendment 8: would have further solidified the right of religious charities to apply for state grants.
Amendment 10: would have reduced the state tax on businesses tangible personal property.
Amendment 12: would have given every state universitys student government president the opportunity to be eligible to sit on the Florida Board of Governors, regardless of whether their schools are members of the Florida Student Association (a private lobbying organization).
The results are certainly interesting. I think the homestead tax is the tax that Floridians most closely associate with themselves, Abigail MacIver, director of policy and external affairs at Americans for Prosperity Florida, tells Sunshine State News. They see these exemptions as the way they can most easily give themselves a tax break.
MacIver says the results evince a disconnect between voters aversion to tax increases and their concomitant commitment to the welfare state.
On the one hand, Floridas citizens believe they should be paying less taxes, but on the other hand theyre not willing to put a cap on how much the state can spend, she says. At some point in time, thats going to have to balance out. If people want to pay less taxes, their government is going to have to stop spending so much, too.
Reach Eric Giunta at egiunta@sunshinestatenews.com or at (954) 235-9116.
