Florida Ballot Amendments 2022: Short But Not Simple

It's September in an election midterms cycle, so you know what THAT means!!!

PIZZAAAAAAA!!!!

...wait, I'm on a diet now. Back up, let's rethink this. Oh, now I remember.

STATE BALLOT REFERENDUMS!!!

I'm gonna do what I often do - link to Ballotpedia's page on 2022 Florida Referenda - and then provide a little commentary on why certain amendments deserve your vote and certain other amendments don't.

An interesting note about this year's referenda: There were no voter-petitioned (Initiated) amendments put on the ballot this cycle. Either the requirements for those type of amendments got stricter, or nobody had an issue that reached high enough voter interest to get enough signatures to make it. There is a possibility the pandemic made it harder during 2021-22 to get volunteers and registration tables set up to get those signatures. Still, I do wonder. If anybody in the know can tell me, please leave a comment.

Now, to the issues.

Amendment One: Disregard Flood Resistance Improvements in Property Value Assessments

The title is wordy and a bit confusing. The synopsis tells us a Yes vote means "authorizing the state legislature to pass laws prohibiting flood resistance improvements to a home from being taken into consideration when determining a property's assessed value for property tax purposes." Voting No obviously means it won't let the state do this.

What this involves is giving homeowners options to make flood resistance improvements without such expensive items impact the property value assessments that tax appraisers would use to increase the tax value of that house. Meaning a form of tax deduction on what people will owe on those properties.

On the one hand, it falls under the Far Right obsession with lowering tax revenues that the state could collect on, which IMHO hurts our state's ability to build up funds to pay for shit like schools, roads, clean water, social safety nets, etc. On the other hand, it provides a tax credit of sorts for those who DO redevelop their property to better withstand flooding issues.

It should be a huge warning sign that even state Republicans admit that climate change is getting severe enough that flooding is a bigger problem than ever. It'd be nice if they passed more laws to combat the root cause to ensure flooding recedes as a problem (aheh).

This would be a reasonable YES vote for most voters. I just wish we had better amendments that didn't focus on cutting taxes our counties would need.

Amendment Two: Abolishes the Florida Constitution Revision Commission

You might recall four years ago (2018) we had a slew of amendments on the state ballot that exceeded the number we'd see for normal referendum cycles. What happened was a constitution-required Revision Commission was at work that year. Every 20 years, that Commission shows up - filled with Governor-nominated political hacks - to put any number of amendments that the legislature may have wanted done but couldn't get past their 60 percent supermajority... and maybe any popular voter initiatives that couldn't get enough signatures.

Problem in 2018 was - and if you link back to what I posted about that cycle - the Commission crammed together a series of multi-issue referenda: Each Commission amendment had two or three disparate issues under consideration, meaning people who were voting Yes for one thing were forced to vote Yes for other things they would otherwise had voted No.

As I noted on one of the amendments that had non-related matters to vote on:

They're trying to get people to vote for the one thing that matters - the victims' rights - to one thing that the legislature ought to do itself - raise retirement age - and then to one thing that would make our legal system worse - denying courts from getting administrative input.

It angered a lot of people, even some of the Republicans, and it led to the Legislature agreeing to the idea of abolishing the 20-year Commission outright.

Here's the problem: The Commission itself is not a bad idea.

The reason for that Commission is obvious: Political logjams in the Legislature prevents certain popular issues from getting resolved; also the strict requirements for public initiatives are needed to prevent our ballots from getting swamped by extremists pushing bad agendas. The Commission is a third option, one that if applied properly could allow voters to pass needed reforms that our state government might not make.

What really went wrong in 2018 was that the Commission had no set guidelines on how to proceed - it sets its own rules rather than by court or legislative mandates - and so abused their power to cram - also called "bundling" as many unpopular and partisan ballot referendums alongside popular ones in an attempt to screw over the voters. Instead of abolishing the Commission, our state needs to reform it by setting rules and requirements to ensure it works properly.

We need to make it so that the Commission CANNOT cram multiple ballot issues onto one "bundled" amendment. Each issue should stand alone. That would be a major improvement right there. Then, there needs to be a set limit of Commission-based amendments - say, a top ten of amendments that passed their committee votes - so that way the ballot doesn't get overwhelmed, and then any left over by the Commission can be converted into public initiatives for signatures and hopefully make it onto the next election cycle's ballot. I would also argue that the membership of the Commission should not be by governor appointment (which allowed then-Governor Scott to fill it with hacks) but by popular vote: Have voters choose an open ballot of candidates in the previous election cycle, make it so each major party nominates UP TO 25 candidates (the candidates should have requirements to run to ensure no extremists get on ballot), and the top 37 vote getters go in meaning it will be an automatic mix of both parties.

Just those three fixes alone would work. Straight-out abolition of a reform method would hurt the state in the long run.

I would argue NO against this amendment. There are better ways to fix the Commission, not kill it.

Amendment Three: Yet Another Homestead Exemption for Certain Public Service Workers

If there's anything predictable about the Republicans in our legislature, it's that they want to create more and more exemptions to the Homestead Exemption on property taxes. Just keep on making it harder for counties to pay for themselves, Tallahassee! /headdesk

At some point I swear Florida Republicans will eliminate property taxes altogether, at which point everything will be paid through sales taxes that hurt the poor the most... /more headdesk

This time around, the exemption idea is for "Additional homestead property tax exemption on $50,000 of assessed value on property owned by certain public service workers including teachers, law enforcement officers, emergency medical personnel, active duty members of the military and Florida National Guard, and child welfare service employees." I thought they've already passed a ton of exemptions for law enforcement and military residents already, but hey let's give them $50,000 more of a tax cut shall we?

At least this time around they're providing tax cuts for the more "liberal" leaning professions like teachers and social workers, so this is not as bad an exemption push as the earlier ones. Any benefit to our beleaguered teachers and family welfare workers is a nice thing to consider

The only problem with this exemption? It doesn't seem to cover OTHER public service employees like county and city officials. LIKE LIBRARIANS!!!!!!! YES, I AM ANGRY I'M GETTING OVERLOOKED. I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE HYPOCRISY, I CARE ABOUT GETTING MY CONDO'S TAXES DOWN!!! AAAAUUUuuugggg.... cough cough... um, sorry about that, got a little self-serving there for a moment.

Look, previous experience has taught me that these Homestead exemption amendments are popular and tend to get passed in spite of my pro-tax (in moderation, in short "tax the rich 'cause they're the only ones who can afford to anymore") world-view. It's likely a lot of teachers and their families will vote for this, which is a broad voting base on its own. This ballot affects enough people in what they'll view as a positive that they'll likely support it.

I'll just sit over here grumbling to myself about the slight to librarians and tell you I'm personally a No on this.

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This is, as mentioned earlier, a relatively quiet amendment cycle for Florida. It should be relatively easy for everyone to remember. If anything, the amendment that means the most this term - Amendment Two abolishing the Revision Commission - is the one I really want voters to say NO to. That's what matters here.

Also, I want a huge Democratic / Blue Wave turnout this midterms to vote that asshole DeSantis and every other Republican out of office, but you should have learned that by now.

GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT, FLORIDA DEMOCRATS!