Floridians: NO on all constitutional amendments: YES to retain state Supreme Court Justices

[seafan]

Geniusofdespair at EyeOnMiami gives excellent advice to Florida voters:


September 25, 2012

Vote No On All The Constitutional Amendments and Vote Yes To Retain the Supreme Court Judges.


One or two of the State Constitutional Amendments are not so bad (if you want to help veterans (2) (9) but those are what they call "feel good amendments" purposely inserted only so you can't say NO to them all (Try explaining to your friends which ones are good or bad). Don't be fooled. Most of the rest are just SO VERY BAD, I am recommending a vote of NO on all the Amendments. I am not alone - THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OPPOSES THEM ALL too.

The State Republican Party have announced their plan to unseat the 3 Supreme Court Judges - R. Fred Lewis, Barbara Pariente and Peggy Quince - that are up for retention. If they succeed in removing them guess who gets to appoint the new ones? None other than Rick Scott our loser governor. Don't let this happen. Even Republican lawyers don't like this. Tell all your friends to vote to retain these 3 judges. Put it on your facebook pages.

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Here is the backstory on the latest Florida GOP legislative land mines awaiting us at the ballot box in November.


These jackals never quit.


But we can put a stop to their 14-year tyrannical rule over the House, Senate and Governor's office by voting a Democratic Legislature into power in November.

This is mandatory; it is the only way to put a check on Rick Scott in the middle of his miserable term.




NO on all constitutional amendments.


YES to retain the Supreme Court justices.


NO to all Republicans running for state, federal and local offices. (And here is a prime example of why.)



See you in November.

[seafan]

1. Florida GOP legislature trying to deceive with 11 sneakily crafted constitutional amendments

Today's Tampa Bay Times lays out the truth.


Just say 'no' to all 11 amendments

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Florida doesn't need a single one of the measures authored by the Legislature and presented with attractive but deceptive titles and dense summaries.

The amendments fall into two broad categories. One is a pernicious effort to sneak a conservative social agenda into the state Constitution by soft-selling the changes. The other is a raft of tax cuts that benefit arbitrary groups of people and interests. To the casual observer, these tax measures may sport the veneer of beneficent public policy, but they would only make Florida's property tax system more unfair. None is a good deal for the state or the average Floridian.

The kind of duplicity that afflicts many of the amendments is most apparent in Amendment 8. Titled by lawmakers "Religious Freedom," Amendment 8 actually constricts religious freedom by lifting limits on state funding for religious institutions and schools. It would result in Floridians being forced, through their taxes, to support faiths they reject — the very definition of religious compulsion.

Amendment 6, a direct assault on a woman's legal right to choose an abortion, is dressed up to look like palatable limits on public funding of abortion. And Amendment 5, titled "State Courts," is a power grab by the Legislature to wrest greater control over the state judiciary. The amendment's excessively wordy summary will confuse as much as enlighten, particularly when the real fallout of passage would be more politicized courts.

Six of the 11 amendments would shrink public coffers and handicap the ability of the state and local governments to invest in education, public safety, parks and essential services. Amendment 3 would implement a tax-cap scheme that Colorado has already suspended due to its devastating effect. Amendments 2, 9, 10 and 11 represent a cherry-picking approach to property tax breaks, where sentimentally favored groups such as disabled veterans, low-income senior citizens and surviving spouses of those killed in the line of duty, plus businesses, get special deals. And Amendment 4 would further complicate an already grossly unfair property tax system that can find like-situated owners of identical homes or businesses paying far different taxes.

Voters may be tempted to just skip the amendments altogether, but that may be what lawmakers had in mind. Passage requires only 60 percent of the votes cast for each measure, not 60 percent of all voters. Taking the time to vote "no" is essential to defeating them. (Voters in Pinellas County should take care and not confuse the amendments with a school funding measure, which is deserving of voter support.)

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(bold type added)




Florida voters, please take the time to vote NO on all of these amendments. We must push back against the duplicitous extremism of the GOP members of our Legislature.

Vote against all state GOP candidates as well, as all of Florida's House and Senate seats are up for election next week. After the past 14 years of the GOP Legislature holding Florida's people as economic hostages, it is time to banish them from power.


Only after that will Florida even begin to recover from these years of malicious abuse by the wanton greed of a few.

[seafan]

2. A kick for Florida's election eve: NO on all amendments. YES on Supreme Court Justices

All of these lengthy and purposely deceiving amendments were crafted by the GOP-controlled Legislature to confuse voters into voting against their best interests, and to further clog voting lines and hours spent in line to vote.


Then, jettison every Republican on the ballot.

[seafan]

3. Carl Hiaasen: Florida voters won’t be fooled again — or will we?

One of our iconic Florida writers, Carl Hiaasen, in the Miami Herald on November 3, 2012, on the eleven deceptive constitutional amendments loading up the Florida ballot, put there by the GOP-controlled Legislature:

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The most deceptive is Amendment 8, which is fraudulenty captioned “Religious Freedom.” If passed, it would open the door to taxpayer funding of private religious schools and institutions, a dangerous mixing of church and state that has been prohibited here for 126 years. ..... Amendment 8 was concocted by Republican lawmakers who support a student-voucher system that would benefit private schools and church schools while bleeding critical funds from state education revenues.

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Jeb Bush has been pushing to destroy the legal separation of church and state for years. We haven't forgotten his role in crafting this deceitful amendment, and directing the GOP Legislature from the shadows to force it onto the ballot yet again in 2012.




Hiaasen:

Another terrible ballot measure is Amendment 6, an anti-abortion manifesto that would punch holes in the privacy clause in Florida’s Constitution. If anything deserves a legal shield of privacy, it’s a woman’s personal and often difficult choices about birth planning.

Christian conservatives in the Legislature are exasperated because their attempts to restrict abortions have stalled in the courts because of the privacy issue. Their solution is to rewrite the Constitution to exclude abortion-related matters from that protection.

By weakening privacy rights, Amendment 6 would set the stage for politicians to interfere in a broad range of medical and family decisions in which they should have no say, no influence, no presence whatsoever.

Who can forget their disgraceful theatrics during the Terri Schiavo case?

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We certainly haven't forgotten that whole sorry mess, which was entirely a Jeb Bush-led debacle.


The NY Times was disgusted with the entire disgraceful episode and said so at the time.

And Jeb Bush was so incensed, mind you, that he fired off a warlike editorial back at the Times, defending his egregious actions.


Problem was, there WAS no defense for this opportunistic, nakedly partisan political grandstanding, at the expense of a private citizen, her husband and family. Jeb never got over the public rejection by the NY Times, apparently.



Hiaasen:

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To demonstrate their contempt for taxes, lawmakers have also larded the ballot with several amendments that would amount to a mugging of city and county governments.

Among them is Amendment 3 ...... Amendment 4 is even worse than Amendment 3, a gift to wealthy owners of second homes in Florida. It would cut by half the cap on property-tax assessments for non-homesteaded properties, at a projected cost to city and county governments of between $600 million and $1 billion over the first three years.

This should bother you only if you care about your local police and fire protection, ambulance service, city parks. You know, the little stuff.

Also, Amendment 5, which would give legislators ultimate power over Florida's judiciary--- to require Senate confirmation of all Supreme Court Justices; allowing a simple majority vote in the legislature to change procedural rules for the courts; and to allow the House Speaker access to the confidential files of the Judicial Nominating Commission. Nothing like polluting the state court system by power-hungry Republicans. You see, after the past 14 years in power, the current GOP-dominated legislature is assuming they will maintain permanent power over Florida's government.


The people have the power to change that. Today. November 6, 2012.



Hiaasen:

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All these rotten amendments were written and captioned for the ballot in ways to appear harmless and even reformist, but they aren’t.

And they won’t pass unless 60 percent of Florida’s voters are fooled.

Will Florida be fooled again?