The Florida Senate approved a constitutional amendment that would cap government spending, a variation of the “Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights,” or TABOR, Colorado instituted in 1992 but repealed in 2005.

The so-called “Smart Cap” measure, sponsored by Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, limits future state spending to growth based on population and cost of living and constrains borrowing. Voters in 20 other states have rejected similar measures.

Opponents of the proposed amendment argued that the state constitution already curbs state spending by requiring a balanced budget and that the spending caps could harm the state’s most vulnerable in economic downturns like Florida is now experiencing. Lawmakers are struggling to slash at least $3.62 billion from last year’s budget.

The Colorado measure also capped local government spending increases, something not included in Bogdanoff’s proposal, and resulted in a dramatic decline in education and social services funding.

“We already have a revenue limit in Florida. We have repealed as much as $19 billion in taxes over the last 12 years. We simply don’t need an even more restrictive cap in the state constitution,” Senate Democratic Leader Nan Rich of Weston argued. “If you think we’ve had hard choices to make…over the past few years,
TABOR will only make it worse.”

But Bogdanoff insisted her bill is necessary to rein lawmakers in.

“We already have a cap in the constitution. But it’s not working. We need one that’s going to work better,” Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, said. “This is not Colorado. We have learned from the mistakes of other states.
We didn’t want to repeat what they had done…If government takes less, the people have more. and I don’t know about you but I’m okay with that.”

The measure passed with a 27-13 vote. Two Republicans, Sens. Paula Dockery of Lakeland and Nancy Detert of Venice, voted against it; one Democrat, Sen. Bill Montford of Tallahassee, voted in favor.

The proposal is one of Senate President Mike Haridopolos’ top priorities. Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, is running for U.S. Senate, and, if approved by the House, could join him on the November 2012 ballot if he wins what is expected to be a crowded GOP primary.

The House has not yet voted on the bill (SB 958). It would require 60 percent approval by voters to get into the state constitution if it makes it on the ballot.

Senate President Mike Haridopolos’ opening speech for the 2011 legislative session began with an homage to Winston Churchill, wove in several biblical references and ended with a Shakespearean quote as he set the stage for the next 60 days.

The Merritt Island Republican and U.S. Senate candidate blasted the federal health care law, calling it reckless and arrogant. The Senate will debate one of Haridopolos’ top priorities later today – a proposed constitutional amendment letting the state opt out of the federal law.

Haridopolos, his wife Stephanie seated beside him, waxed biblical over a second priority – a proposed constitutional amendment known as “Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights,” or TABOR, that would cap state spending and debt.

“I call my plan Smart Cap, because it is both. But it could be called the Old Testament Option, as the concept was originally Joseph’s. In the good years, don’t eat all the corn. Save some, so that in the bad years you don’t have to eat sand. Very wise, and very much needed if we do not want our spending in the past to be the prologue for the future,” Haridopolos said.

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With Gov. Rick Scott and his wife Ann looking on, freshman Sen. Oscar Braynon II, a Miami Gardens Democrat, was sworn in this morning as the Florida Senate kicked off the 2011 legislative session.

Braynon, a former House member, replaced U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson in a special election.

The Senate has an ambitious opening-day agenda that includes debate on one of Senate President Mike Haridopolos’ top priorities – a constitutional amendment that would let the state refuse to comply with the federal health care law.

Scott will give his first state-of-the-state speech to a joint session of the legislature at 6 p.m. this evening.

House Speaker Dean Cannon, wrangling with the Florida Supreme Court since it killed three constitutional amendments pushed last year by the Republican Legislature, unveiled his latest idea Monday — overhaul the Supreme Court.

Cannon said the House will propose creating two, five-member Supreme Courts, one charged with overseeing civil matters, the other criminal cases. Justices from the current, seven-member court could form the core of the new, 10-justice lineup, but there would be no guarantees, he conceded.

The Winter Park lawmaker, during a briefing with reporters, also said he wants to change existing merit retention election standards. He’d require appellate justices to win the support of more than 60 percent of voters to stay on the bench. Currently, justices only need to secure a majority. (more…)

With the Florida Senate poised to approve a strict state spending cap possibly as early as next week’s opening days of the legislative session, opponents are trying to marshal forces.

The League of Women Voters warns that the so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) that Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, is looking to put before voters next year could doom Florida to years of inadequate financing of health and social service programs.

Critics say the state’s tough revenue picture is only going to get more brutal if TABOR is OK’d by voters.

“This is like telling people who are dying of thirst in the desert that they need to have flood insurance,” said Ben Wilcox, a league lobbyist.

Florida already has a revenue cap in the state constitution, approved by voters in 1994. But the latest proposal tightens it from being based on personal income growth to a new standard tied to population growth and inflation, while also limiting future borrowing.

It doesn’t apply to cities and counties. 

 Colorado approved the nation’s first TABOR in 1992, but later suspended it do to government cash-flow problems.  Haridopolos, a candidate for U.S. Senate, says TABOR is needed to restrain state government — especially when the recession eases and tax collections return to earlier levels.

Former Gov. Charlie Crist and former Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink will lead a bipartisan rally today to support a constitutional ban on offshore drilling today.

Crist, a Republican-turned-independent, and Sink, a Democrat, will appear with lawmakers and others at an event at 12:30 on the steps of the Old Capitol in Tallahassee.

Crist called lawmakers in for a special session last year to pass a similar amendment to put on the November 2010 ballot, but they snubbed him. The legislature met briefly and adjourned without doing anything after Crist abandoned the GOP and became an independent to avoid a Republican primary in the U.S. Senate race, which he eventually lost to Marco Rubio.

Before leaving office in January, Sink struggled to get BP claims czar Ken Feinberg to improve his claims process after tens of thousands of Panhandle residents, and hundreds of Floridians throughout the state, complained about problems with his Gulf Coast Claims Facility.

That system remains troubled as Feinberg is set to begin making final payments to more than 500,000 applicants for damages caused by the April 20 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster.

Yesterday, senators discussed creating a state system for victims of BP’s massive oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico to expedite the claims system.

Next Friday, Feinberg will appear before a House committee at the behest of House Speaker Dean Cannon. Hundreds of Panhandle officials and residents are expected to show up. Complaints about Feinberg’s payments from the $20 billion fund set up by BP include delays, an inability to find out where claims are in the process, and inconsistencies in who gets paid and how much.

A federal judge recently ruled that Feinberg is not independent of BP, as he contends, and ordered him to quit saying that he is.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood is so fed up with Feinberg’s erratic claims system that on Monday he asked a federal judge to take it over “to facilitate the timely and just processing of claims.”

Supporters of two voter-approved constitutional amendments changing the way Florida lawmakers draw Congressional and legislative districts filed a lawsuit today demanding that Gov. Rick Scott move forward with the federal approval needed to implement the changes.

Shortly after taking office, Scott put the brakes on predecessor Charlie Crist’s request to the U.S. Department of Justice for the “pre-clearance” required whenever Florida makes changes to its elections laws affecting voters’ rights.

Scott reappointed Kurt Browning as Florida’s secretary of state. Browning, originally appointed by Crist, left his post last year to lead the fight against the “Fair Districts” amendments approved by voters in November that now bar lawmakers from drawing districts that favor political parties or incumbents.

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UPDATE: A spokesman for Gov. Rick Scott responded to his withdrawal of redistricting amendments for federal approval.

“Consistent with Governor Scott’s effort to assess the rules, regulations and contracts of the previous administration, he has withdrawn the letter requesting a DOJ review of Amendments 5 and 6. Census data has not been transmitted to the state yet and the Legislature will not undertake redistricting for months, so this withdrawal in no way impedes the process of redrawing Florida’s legislative and congressional districts,” Scott spokesman Brian Hughes said in an e-mail.

In his first few days on the job, Gov.Rick Scott quietly withdrew the state’s request for a federal go-ahead to move forward with two redistricting amendments overwhelmingly approved by voters in November.

Scott sent the request to the U.S. Department of Justice, which has to sign off on any changes to Florida elections laws affecting voters’ rights, on Jan. 7, just two days after he announced the reappointment of Department of State Secretary Kurt Browning. After Browning left Gov. Charlie Crist’s administration last year, he headed up a political committee that fought Amendments 5 and 6, aka the “Fair Districts” amendments. Crist’s temporary secretary of the state department submitted the application for “preclearance” to DOJ officials on Dec. 10

Scott’s move, offered with no explanation to the feds and no public announcement, left Democrats and supporters of the amendments hopping mad, and the state’s top Democrat is demanding Scott resubmit the preclearance application.

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The Florida Liberty Alliance – a coalition of tea party activists – is pushing Senate President Mike Haridopolos to pass a law similar to Virginia’s that would exempt Floridians from the federal health care law requiring individuals to purchase health insurance or pay a fine.

The group wants Haridopolos and the Florida Legislature to pass something similar to Virginia’s “Health Care Freedom Act” and make it one of the first things they do when they convene in March.

Haridopolos has already sponsored a constitutional amendment by the same name that would allow Florida to opt out of the health care law, now under scrutiny by a federal judge in Pensacola.

But the alliance doesn’t want to wait until the 2012 election when the proposal would go on the ballot.

“We respectfully ask that all expeditious measure be taken to introduce legislation to create Florida law, as was crafted so well in Virginia, to secure these protections by statute for Floridians as one of the very first legislative initiatives in the new session,” wrote a group of tea party activists in a letter to Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, released today.

“We believe that if Governor Scott, as one of his first acts on taking office, were to sign such legislation into law, the citizens of Florida would see that our elected Representatives not only take their oath of office to protect the Constitution seriously, but it would send a very strong message to Washington and the entire nation,” the letter goes on.

A federal judge in Virginia last week overturned the “individual mandate” portion of the law requiring that individuals and families have health insurance coverage or pay a fine. That case is likely headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson in Pensacola this week heard oral arguments in a challenge filed by Attorney General Bill McCollum and 19 other states. The Florida case also contends that the individual mandate is unconstitutional and that the federal government overreached its authority with sweeping changes to the federal-state Medicaid program included in the law.

While former Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Jorge Labarga retained his seat on the Florida Supreme Court last week, a tea party-connected group is patting itself on the back, saying its efforts gave him the lowest approval rating in state history.

In a press release this morning, the Orlando-based Citizen2Citizen said the 58.9 percent vote Labarga received on Tuesday is the lowest margin since the merit retention system began in 1978. They attributed the low margin to their efforts to unseat Labarga after he and four other justices voted to throw a Amendment 9 off the ballot.

The group, connected to the Central Florida Tea Party Council, also targeted Justice James E.C. Perry, who also voted to strike the amendment. Sixty-one percent of voters supported the retention of Perry.

“While we are disappointed that Labarga and Perry were retained, the fact that we made history is significant,” said Citizen2Citizen founder Jesse Phillips.

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TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A state constitutional amendment that would have drastically changed the development approval process in Florida has been rejected by voters.
With 21 percent of the expected vote counted, Amendment 4 had been rejected by 65 percent of voters.
Amendment 4 on Tuesday’s ballot would have required voter approval to change city, town and county comprehensive land-use plans.
Backers called the measure “Florida Hometown Democracy.” They included environmental organizations, civic associations and slow-growth advocates. They said Amendment 4 would protect the environment and reduce congestion and urban sprawl.
Opponents included business groups, developers and some labor unions. They said Amendment 4 would seriously damage the economy, cost jobs and make it more difficult to lure companies to the state.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will visit Florida to voice support for Amendments 5 and 6 to the Florida Constitution, which are on the Nov. 2 ballot.

Bloomberg will join former Miami mayor Manny Diaz, who is also chairman of FairDistrictsFlorida.org, at a news conference Friday in Miami.

Bloomberg has been a vocal advocate of redistricting reform in New York and California.

Amendments 5 and 6 would add new rules for politicians to follow in redistricting and are meant to end the practice of political parties designing electoral districts to ensure their candidates being elected in those districts.

The news conference will be at the Hotel Intercontinental at 11 a.m..

John Lantigua

Worried that Kendrick Meek can’t beat GOP candidate Marco Rubio, a group of Democratic leaders is asking the congressman to pull out of the U.S. Senate race and throw his support to Gov. Charlie Crist who says he is the only one who can beat Rubio.

Members of the People’s Choice of Palm Beach County PAC voted Monday to send County Commissioner Burt Aaronson a letter, asking him to relay their concerns to Meek, said Jay Weitz, president of the PAC that he says represents 80 to 85 percent of the Democratic clubs in the county.

Aaronson, who has been flirting with the idea of endorsing independent candidate Crist, is to meet with Meek on Wednesday to decide which of the two candidates will get his support.

In the letter, members of the PAC agreed to ask Aaronson to urge Meek to get out of the race “for the good of the Democratic Party,” Weitz said.

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Politicians are foxes guarding the hen house or bank robbers protecting the banks when it comes to drawing their own districts, a new ad by the backers of Amendments 5 and 6 accuses.

The amendments would change the way Congressional and legislative districts are drawn by prohibiting them from favoring incumbents or political parties.

Opponents of the measures are fighting back – they’ve enlisted the help of former NAACP president and civil rights icon Benjamin Chavis to boost their argument that the proposals would make it harder for minorities to get elected.

Supporters of Fair Districts, the group that collected the petitions to put the amendments on the ballot and is running the ad, include the NAACP, the League of Women Voters and national groups – including ACORN – that traditionally back Democrats who’ve pumped millions of dollars into Fair Districts’ campaign fund.

But the amendments are pitting minority leaders against one another and Democrats.
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The Florida Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on a proposed constitutional amendment watering down class size limits on Oct. 6.

A circuit court judge rejected the Florida Education Association’s challenge to the amendment, placed on the ballot by the legislature, earlier this month. The FEA appealed.

The high court tossed three other amendments proposed by lawmakers, ruling that they were confusing to voters.

The Florida teachers’ union filed a lawsuit today to keep a constitutional amendment watering down class size restrictions off the ballot in November.

The GOP-dominated legislature put Amendment 8 on the ballot to allow school districts flexibility with constitutionally-mandated class size restrictions voters approved in 2002.

The class sizes have been eased in over time and this year are set to go from school-level averages to individual classroom pupil/teacher limits.

The proposed amendment, if approved by voters in November, would keep the averages at the school level.

But Ron Meyer, the lawyer representing the Florida Education Association and who filed the lawsuit this morning, contends that the amendment is really about stiffing taxpayers by not adequately funding education as the state constitution requires.

Lawmakers failed to put $354 million needed to comply with the class sizes into the budget this year, Meyer said.

The ballot title and summary don’t tell voters that the real aim of the amendment is to cut back on education spending, he accused.

“The failure of the legislature to be honest with parents – to tell them that Amendment 8 cuts funding to public schools which will result in crowded classrooms once again – is what makes this lawsuit necessary,” Meyer said in a press release.

Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, a Democrat running for governor, said she supports the amendment because it gives flexibility to school districts.

Read the lawsuit here.

It’s taken seven years and as many court challenges, but the Florida Supreme Court today cleared the way for the Hometown Democracy proposed constitutional amendment to be on next year’s November ballot.

The court at last accepted that the cost of the citizens initiative, the brainchild of West Palm Beach land use lawyer Lesley Blackner and Tallahassee lawyer Ross Burnaman, is “indeterminate.”

The proposal would require that citizens approve changes to local comprehensive growth management plans before they can go into effect.

Two previous financial estimates conducted by state economists predicted the change would cost “millions of dollars” statewide, a premise the court rejected because that assumed that local governments would schedule special elections for the comp plans referenda.

Critics, including the Florida Chamber of Commerce and business-backed associations, of the Hometown Democracy initiative charge that the proposal will effectively halt growth around the state. They’ve got their own ballot initiative that would require allow voters to challenge comp plan amendments – but only if 10 percent of affected voters sign petitions at the local supervisors of elections office within 60 days of the changes being approved by local governments.

That proposal is still hundreds of thousands signatures short of the required 676,811 needed by Feb. 1 to get on the ballot.

A West Palm Beach lawyer who was repeatedly raped by a neighbor when he was 7 years old and the mother of a man who committed suicide 20 years after he was sexually molested by his Boca Raton karate teacher are desperate.

After five years, they’ve given up trying to get legislators to do away with the statute of limitations on civil and criminal punishment for child molesters that are now protected by time in Florida state law.

Their chief opponent, they say? The Catholic Church.

Now West Palm Beach Lawyer Michael Dolce is trying to get voters to do what lawmakers would not. He’s launched a petition drive to get a ballot initiative on next year’s November ballot.

Lantana resident Patti Robinson, whose only child Jeff Smith killed himself on Christmas morning in 2001, is tapping her grief to help Dolce get the law changed.

“I felt this would be the best way that I could memorialize him so we would maybe save somebody else from having to go through the pain and suffering he did,” Robinson said.

Read the full story here.

Florida voters will probably face a major decision in 2010 about future development now that backers of a proposed constitutional amendment have won a major court victory.

But the battle over growth, whether at the ballot or in the courts, is far from over.

The Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down a law that let residents revoke their signatures on constitutional amendment ballot petitions. The ruling clears the way for the Hometown Democracy initiative to get on the ballot next year.

The amendment would require that all changes to a city or county long-term growth plan be approved by voters.

“I personally don’t think it’s that radical, but it does go to the heart of the developer power which has the ability to get what they want from city and county commissions,” said Palm Beach lawyer Lesley Blackner, co-author of the proposal. She has spent almost six years and nearly $1 million of her own money to get the initiative on the ballot.

Opponents, including the Florida Chamber of Commerce, persuaded the legislature to pass the signature-revocation law specifically to try to thwart Hometown Democracy. They warn that the amendment would cause a permanent recession by halting development.

The high court has not yet issued a written opinion outlining the reasons for its 4-2 decision. But it upheld an appellate court ruling that found the signature-revocation law unconstitutional.

Now, voters may face a virtual Pandora’s box of ballot proposals for 2010.

Floridians for Smarter Growth, backed by the Florida Chamber of Commerce, is considering a counter-initiative. It would let residents vote on a growth-plan change only if 10 percent or more of a community’s registered voters signed a petition.

Meanwhile, the business-backed group Save Our Constitution, funded mainly by Associated Industries of Florida, wants to get an amendment on the ballot that would allow voters to put signature revocation into the constitution.

The competing ballot items are likely to yield one of the nastiest constitutional amendment showdowns in recent history.

“Hometown Democracy is essentially a proposal to freeze the status quo in place. … To say this is an economic catastrophe is probably a gross understatement,” said Ryan Houck, executive director of Floridians for Smarter Growth. “We believe this proposal is so bad for Florida’s economy that we will run a full-on campaign to defeat it at the polls.”

Associated Industries CEO and President Barney Bishop said his group is awaiting the Supreme Court’s formal opinion before deciding whether to ask for a rehearing.

Blackner and her supporters “were unabashed in their willingness to do anything and everything to get this on the ballot,” Bishop said. “But just be prepared. We’re going to use the same tactics they did. So better sleep with one eye open. ‘Cause we’re coming at you.”

The Florida House this morning approved a constitutional amendment for the 2010 ballot that, if voters approved, would let school districts keep current class size caps at the school average instead of individual classrooms.

The 78-41 vote included a few Democrats crossing over to join Republicans: Jim Waldman of Coconut Creek, Debbie Boyd of Newberry and Leonard Bembry of Greenville.

The debate over the measure, sponsored by Rep. Will Weatherford, a Wesley Chapel Republican hoping to become speaker in 2012, also offered a few contenders for Quote of the Day, including this one that earned a “Hey!” from Speaker Larry Cretul.

“Hypocrisy knows no bounds in this chamber,” said Rep. Scott Randolph, D-Orlando.

The Senate companion (SB 1828) is scheduled for its final committee hearing next week.