PAPER TRAIL LEGISLATION AND ANTI CITIZEN INITIATIVE BILLS MERGED AS
TWO BILLS PASS THE LEGISLATURE, SENT TO GOVERNOR
HB537 Paper Ballots mixed with initiative deforms and SB 900 citizen
initiative deforms and SB1920 Property Rights allows a Publix to pick
who is allowed to set up for signature gatherings; these bills passed during
the final two days of floor action by the Florida Legislature May 3-4.
SB1920 passed 4/30/07.
On Thursday 5/3, the House unanimously accepted the
"Election Reform" train which included the HB537 Paper Trail reforms and SB900
restrictions against citizens' initiatives. On the last day of session,
the House backed down from its even more anti-citizen version of
Initiative Reforms and accepted the Senate's version, and both bills are heading
for the Governor's desk. At first glance, the two so-called "good
government" bills are opposites, with the latter bill including changes to only a
single statute and the former boasting comprehensive (and expensive) reforms
to a variety of elections related subjects:
a.. "Paper Trail" voting machines; funding and requirement of optical
scan machines and marksense technology replacing touchscreens in the fifteen
counties where they currently exist (and twenty-nine counties authorized for
ballot-on-demand for early voting sites); CONGRATULATIONS TO SO MANY
ALLIES ON THE ONGOING VOTING MACHINES' PAPER TRAIL!!
b.. Third party Voter Registration Organizations (similar to the
legislation declared unconstitutional previously);
c.. Citizens' Initiative restrictions against petition drives,
including an onerous and expensive, new process for gathering signatures AGAINST
petitions signed by citizens who would be singled out and lobbied to
subsequently "Revoke" the original petition signature;
d.. The earlier Presidential Primary date for the last Tuesday in January
2008;
e.. various Elections Commission changes, including weakening
citizen's complaints against possible violators;
f.. internal changes for political parties;
g.. changes in campaign contribution restrictions;
h.. streamlining the transfer of campaign contributions for political
committees and "committees of continuous existence," but also requiring
unions to list all dues-paying members in their reports;
i.. changes in eligibility and timing for different levels of
political candidates, including municipal, special district and federal
candidates;
j.. changes in early registration for young voters;
k.. removal of two of the identification documents to allow voters to
vote;
l.. NO Severability Clause, which appeared in earlier versions, and
which usually are necessary in legislative "trains" in order to protect the
other provisions if one or more sections of the bill are later found to be
Unconstitutional. This decision was deliberate to intimidate
supporters of Paper Trail legislation from participating in ANY legal challenge to
the remaining anti-citizen provisions of the bill.
m.. Effective date of January 1, 2008, unless otherwise indicated in
specific sections.
So, is this 80-page bill a Legislative TRAIN? You betcha. Parts of
this bill (there are 57 "sections") came from various bills and
amendments from both the Senate and House; the final bill looks very little like
the original HB 537 which passed the House floor on March 21 by a vote of
115-1; and, for example, when the bill was substituted for SB 960, which had
already become a train in the Senate, the legislation faced 20 floor
amendments during the last six days of session. The bill now changes
or creates 52 sections of Florida Statutes, ranging across 13 different
Chapters of Florida law.
This bill makes all future initiative campaigns very difficult to even
put new changes on the ballot anywhere in Florida (besides proposed
constitutional amendments). This restrictive new structure will
apply to Florida Hometown Democracy, as well as any future reemergence of
Redistricting Initiatives, or clarifications or strengthening of
Constitutional Rights, citizen-sponsored proposals for changes in
government financing or election opportunities, etc. The so called good
government bill changed dramatically for the worse on a 3-2 vote on April 24 when
Senators Fasano, Diaz de la Portilla and Webster voted to use the paper
trail bill against citizen initiatives.
SB 900 ANTI-CITIZEN INITIATIVE BILL PASSED ON FINAL DAY OF LEGISLATIVE
SESSION
This bill was stripped of several Bad provisions which had been passed
by the House. Since sponsor Joe Pickens and other supporters knew the
session was winding down, they chose to accept the Senate version rather than
get only the provisions in the HB 537 Elections Train which already passed
the previous day. Under statutory construction rules, the later-passed
bill supersedes, so the language in SB 900 would replace the new sections in
Florida Statute 100.371 as changed in HB 537. Significantly, the new
language in SB900 would go into effect on August 1, 2007 (as opposed
to 1/1/08 in HB537).
(SB 900 and HB 7009) did record opposition votes in both chambers:
SB900
passed the Senate 27-9 on 4/27, 82-35 on the House floor 5/2, and
again
96-22 on 5/4. HB 7009 came out of its Council of origin March 8
(Economic
SB 1920 SENT TO GOVERNOR MONDAY April 30
After the Senate passed the Publix/ Chamber's so-called private
property rights bill allowing mall owners to prohibit citizen petitioners on
4/27 , the House unanimously sent the bill on to the
Governor at the beginning of Week 9 by a vote of 119-0.
Overall, not a good week for issues critical to Democracy and the
Environment.
TWO BILLS PASS THE LEGISLATURE, SENT TO GOVERNOR
HB537 Paper Ballots mixed with initiative deforms and SB 900 citizen
initiative deforms and SB1920 Property Rights allows a Publix to pick
who is allowed to set up for signature gatherings; these bills passed during
the final two days of floor action by the Florida Legislature May 3-4.
SB1920 passed 4/30/07.
On Thursday 5/3, the House unanimously accepted the
"Election Reform" train which included the HB537 Paper Trail reforms and SB900
restrictions against citizens' initiatives. On the last day of session,
the House backed down from its even more anti-citizen version of
Initiative Reforms and accepted the Senate's version, and both bills are heading
for the Governor's desk. At first glance, the two so-called "good
government" bills are opposites, with the latter bill including changes to only a
single statute and the former boasting comprehensive (and expensive) reforms
to a variety of elections related subjects:
a.. "Paper Trail" voting machines; funding and requirement of optical
scan machines and marksense technology replacing touchscreens in the fifteen
counties where they currently exist (and twenty-nine counties authorized for
ballot-on-demand for early voting sites); CONGRATULATIONS TO SO MANY
ALLIES ON THE ONGOING VOTING MACHINES' PAPER TRAIL!!
b.. Third party Voter Registration Organizations (similar to the
legislation declared unconstitutional previously);
c.. Citizens' Initiative restrictions against petition drives,
including an onerous and expensive, new process for gathering signatures AGAINST
petitions signed by citizens who would be singled out and lobbied to
subsequently "Revoke" the original petition signature;
d.. The earlier Presidential Primary date for the last Tuesday in January
2008;
e.. various Elections Commission changes, including weakening
citizen's complaints against possible violators;
f.. internal changes for political parties;
g.. changes in campaign contribution restrictions;
h.. streamlining the transfer of campaign contributions for political
committees and "committees of continuous existence," but also requiring
unions to list all dues-paying members in their reports;
i.. changes in eligibility and timing for different levels of
political candidates, including municipal, special district and federal
candidates;
j.. changes in early registration for young voters;
k.. removal of two of the identification documents to allow voters to
vote;
l.. NO Severability Clause, which appeared in earlier versions, and
which usually are necessary in legislative "trains" in order to protect the
other provisions if one or more sections of the bill are later found to be
Unconstitutional. This decision was deliberate to intimidate
supporters of Paper Trail legislation from participating in ANY legal challenge to
the remaining anti-citizen provisions of the bill.
m.. Effective date of January 1, 2008, unless otherwise indicated in
specific sections.
So, is this 80-page bill a Legislative TRAIN? You betcha. Parts of
this bill (there are 57 "sections") came from various bills and
amendments from both the Senate and House; the final bill looks very little like
the original HB 537 which passed the House floor on March 21 by a vote of
115-1; and, for example, when the bill was substituted for SB 960, which had
already become a train in the Senate, the legislation faced 20 floor
amendments during the last six days of session. The bill now changes
or creates 52 sections of Florida Statutes, ranging across 13 different
Chapters of Florida law.
This bill makes all future initiative campaigns very difficult to even
put new changes on the ballot anywhere in Florida (besides proposed
constitutional amendments). This restrictive new structure will
apply to Florida Hometown Democracy, as well as any future reemergence of
Redistricting Initiatives, or clarifications or strengthening of
Constitutional Rights, citizen-sponsored proposals for changes in
government financing or election opportunities, etc. The so called good
government bill changed dramatically for the worse on a 3-2 vote on April 24 when
Senators Fasano, Diaz de la Portilla and Webster voted to use the paper
trail bill against citizen initiatives.
SB 900 ANTI-CITIZEN INITIATIVE BILL PASSED ON FINAL DAY OF LEGISLATIVE
SESSION
This bill was stripped of several Bad provisions which had been passed
by the House. Since sponsor Joe Pickens and other supporters knew the
session was winding down, they chose to accept the Senate version rather than
get only the provisions in the HB 537 Elections Train which already passed
the previous day. Under statutory construction rules, the later-passed
bill supersedes, so the language in SB 900 would replace the new sections in
Florida Statute 100.371 as changed in HB 537. Significantly, the new
language in SB900 would go into effect on August 1, 2007 (as opposed
to 1/1/08 in HB537).
(SB 900 and HB 7009) did record opposition votes in both chambers:
SB900
passed the Senate 27-9 on 4/27, 82-35 on the House floor 5/2, and
again
96-22 on 5/4. HB 7009 came out of its Council of origin March 8
(Economic
SB 1920 SENT TO GOVERNOR MONDAY April 30
After the Senate passed the Publix/ Chamber's so-called private
property rights bill allowing mall owners to prohibit citizen petitioners on
4/27 , the House unanimously sent the bill on to the
Governor at the beginning of Week 9 by a vote of 119-0.
Overall, not a good week for issues critical to Democracy and the
Environment.
HB. 537- The Bill Is 80 Pages Long Read It HERE
FOR MORE INFO ON SB. 900 AND SB. 1920 CLICK HERE
For More Go To: http://www.ChangeInTallahassee.com
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