Florida
By a 7-5 vote, the committee approved a measure (SB 1504) limiting the ability of courts to knock constitutional amendments sponsored by the Legislature off the ballot, while also imposing new standards on citizen-initiative groups. That proposal would direct the Secretary of State to rewrite ballot summaries for legislative amendments if a court rules the language out of bounds; place new limits on who can gather petitions for citizen-initiative groups and bar petition gatherers from being paid according to the number of signatures they collect.
Voters swept Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez out of office by a stunning margin Tuesday, capping a dramatic collapse for a politician who was given increased authority by voters four years ago to clean up much-maligned county government but was ushered out in the largest recall of a local politician in U.S. history.
It’s the greatest municipal recall in US history, and the most significant recall election since California voters ousted former governor Gray Davis in 2003. An astounding 88 percent of voters said Tuesday that they wanted to recall Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez from office. According to the New York Times, voters were angry that the Republican mayor of America’s ninth most populous county raised taxes and increased the salaries of his aids at the height of the recession.
A recall may be on the horizon for a pair of Miami-Dade officials. A Miami Herald poll suggests that the majority of voters want the county’s mayor and one of its commissioners recalled. According to the poll, 67 percent of voters surveyed want Mayor Carlos Alvarez recalled, 18 percent say he should keep his job, while 15 percent are undecided.
Florida, a Peninsula dubbed the Sunshine State, a state known for its agriculture along with its lengthy growing season, does not have a stated commitment to renewable energy. A state known for its low taxes and therefore an ideal place for corporations and startups to locate is not even in the game with regard to clean tech innovation and deployment which are the jobs and economy of the 21st century.
The group trying to prevent private development on the Ocean Strand property with a ballot initiative is taking their fight to a judge. The group, Keep Your Boca Beaches Public, has been collecting signatures to get an initiative on the ballot for the March municipal election that would prevent private development of city or Beach and Parks District property between the Intracoastal and the Atlantic Ocean.
Members of Keep Your Boca Beaches Public, the group seeking to bar private development at Ocean Strand have hit a snag with their proposed ballot initiatives. The measures are intended to bar private development on city and greater Boca Raton Parks District land between the Intracoastal and the beach, but Boca Raton’s city attorney says the question is unconstitutional because the language would ask the city to regulate the parks district.
We blogged previously about the petition signature campaign in Miami, Florida to recall Carloa Alvarez, the city’s mayor. The signatures are now collected, counted and approved:
Setting the stage for a recall election of Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez, Clerk of Courts Harvey Ruvin announced Tuesday that the necessary signatures have been legally collected to require a vote.
Mayor Carlos Alvarez of Miami-Dade County faces a recall after opponents gathered enough signatures to force an election. The drive came after the county raised the property-tax rate to balance its budget. The county commission must call an election in 45 to 90 days, Harvey Ruvin, clerk of courts, said Tuesday.
Citizens in Tampa Bay, Florida want to crack down on the homeless panhandling. The city council apparently has yet to act, so the citizens are gathering signatures to put the measure on the ballot:
Last month during a discussion regarding a possible ordinance cracking down on the homeless in Hillsborough County, Tampa resident Spencer Kass, the president of the Virginia Park Neighborhood Association, said that if the Tampa City Council didn’t want to pass such a law, city residents would demand it in the form of a ballot initiative.
An effort to recall the mayor of Miami looks like it will go to court as the subject of the recall effort attempts to block the petition on a technicality:
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez is suing over the campaign to remove him from office. Alvarez, furious over the effort financed by billionaire Norman Braman, has moved to have the more than 112 thousand recall petition signatures wiped out of existence citing a legal technicality. He claims one signature - the signature of the person who approved the petition form - is invalid. He said a letter approving the petition was signed by a deputy courts clerk, not the clerk himself.
Lake-Sumter Community College’s TV channel is airing another forum on one of the proposed state constitutional amendments on the ballot, Amendment 8, the initiative that would ease rules regarding school class sizes. Amendment 8 and other proposed amendments will go before Florida voters on Nov. 2 as well as in early voting that is under way.
Attorneys for a statewide teachers’ union will go before the Florida Supreme Court Wednesday in an attempt to boot from the November ballot a proposed amendment dealing with school class sizes. The decision on whether Amendment 8 can go before voters is expected to be the last before the tally of amendments that voters will have a say on is final. Several proposed initiatives have been challenged in court, but all have been either rejected or given the OK with about a month now to go before Election Day.