Here is an editorial from the Herald Tribune on why you should vote NO
on both county charter amendments dealing with initiatives/petitions.
Kindra Muntz of SAFE has endorsed a NO vote, as have I, Anthony Lorenzo
of the Coalition for Instant Runoff Voting in Florida (CIRV). Please
call your friends and tell them to VOTE NO tomorrow. This is a very low
turnout election and it is ESSENTIAL we get our friends to the polls to
vote no. You can vote on this one issue even if you are not a
registered Democrat or Republican (it is a partisan primary election
day). I think this was a tactic to ensure more conservative voters, who
might be more likely to support this issue, show up and vote. Viva La
Revolucion!

Web Site:
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080816/COLUMNIST/808160336/2312/OPINION&t\
itle=Amendments__price_is_too_high
Contact: editor.letters@...


Amendments' price is too high


Published: Saturday, August 16, 2008 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, August 15, 2008 at 7:20 p.m.

Citizens of Sarasota County live under three governments with powers
(and limits on power) established by three documents -- the Constitution
of the United States, the constitution of the state of Florida and the
Sarasota County Charter.

The U.S. Constitution took effect in 1789. It can be amended by vote of
two-thirds of each house of Congress with the approval of three-fourths
of the states. The latest amendment, the 27th, was proposed in 1789 and
was ratified in 1992 -- 203 years later.

Florida's first constitution was adopted in 1838. The current
constitution was approved by the Legislature and voters in 1968. Until
2006, it could be amended if a majority of voters approved a change
proposed by the Legislature or by a petitition signed by the necessary
number of voters.

But, in 2006 -- in one of the dumbest moves ever made by voters in free
elections anywhere in the world -- Floridians passed a constitutional
amendment requiring future amendments to be approved by 60 percent of
the voters.

A 60 percent majority is a virtual landslide and will be achieved only
when huge numbers of voters in both parties are really, really upset,
and get upset soon enough to collect the many thousand signatures
necessary to get an initiative on the ballot.

Voters got snookered

I have never understood how we got snookered into passing this
amendment. It was put forward because legislators and lobbyists got
tired of having mere voters messing around in the affairs of government,
and it was promoted by an expensive and deceptive advertising and public
relations campaign. Still, we should have been smart enough to see
through the propaganda.

Under county home rule authority granted by the state, the first
Sarasota County Charter was adopted by voters in 1971 and was replaced
by a new charter passed in 1980.

Amendments to the charter can be proposed by the Legislature, the County
Commission, the Charter Review Board or by citizen initiative.

Two amendments proposed by the County Commission will be on the Aug. 26
ballot.

I suggest county voters will be doing themselves a big favor by voting
NO on both amendments.

I should make it clear I do not know who drafted these amendments, or
why, but it should be at least noted for the record that not many
charter amendments resulting from citizen initiatives have received
enthusiastic support from the commission. Look, for example, at the
citizen-initiated amendment requiring a paper record of votes and random
audits of electronic machine counts.

It is unlikely there would have been a paper-ballot amendment if these
two proposals had been part of the charter in 2006. But the amendment
did get on the ballot, it was approved, and in the Aug. 26 election we
will use a new voting system which may well provide official results
very close to the actual vote.

The County Commission and the supervisor of elections fought that
amendment, and are still fighting it, in court, long after many, though
not all, of the legal issues involved were moot.

Private citizens have spent more than $100,000 defending the validity of
the paper-record amendment, and Sarasota County taxpayers have spent an
undetermined amount in support of the legal attacks by the commission
and elections supervisor.

If the provisions contained in Amendments 1 and 2 on your Aug. 26 ballot
had been in effect in 2006:

The County Commission could have filed suit to seek judicial review of
the proposed amendment and kept appeals going long after the next election.

Signatures on the petition would have expired in two years, by which
time the court case was still unsettled, so it appears everything would
have to go back to Square One.

Citizens backing the initiative proposal would have to raise tens if not
hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for the legal defense of the
initiative -- dollars that would be hard to raise for an initiative not
yet on the ballot.

The County Commission would have the right to call for a study of the
financial impact of the proposed amendment. Who would perform this study
is not specified, but you can bet the family ranch that any "expert"
hired by the commission would report back for any amendment not favored
by the commission that the financial impact would be dauntingly great.

Amendments' cost

As a matter of fact, the cost of implementing the paper-record amendment
did run into seven figures, and was worth every penny, but a properly
motivated expert could have run up a number 10 times higher by
considering all available systems, and undoubtedly would have required
several months of study, during which the proposed amendment would be on
hold.

In the spirit of providing an estimate of the cost of proposed charter
amendments, I will tell you that the cost of the two on the Aug. 26
ballot would be very high -- not in dollars, but in damage to the
ability of citizens to exercise their right of self-government to the
fullest.

While the upcoming election is referred to as a "primary," all voters in
Sarasota County -- Republicans, Democrats and independents -- can vote
on these charter amendments.

I urge you to do it.

Waldo Proffitt is the former editor of the Herald-Tribune. E-mail:
wproffitt@... <mailto:wproffitt@...>