It’s not two, but six amendments Floridians will be voting on in November
By Johannes Werner
Original Air Date: October 4, 2024
Host: You have probably heard about constitutional Amendment 3 and Amendment 4. Recreational marijuana and guaranteed access to abortion will be on the ballot Nov. 5. But — those two citizen-initiated referendums aside —- there are four state-initiated amendments. We talked to Frank Alcock, political science teacher at New College and a former candidate for the state legislature.
Johannes Werner: He is worried Amendment 1 is not getting the attention from voters it deserves. Making school board races partisan will have a big impact on schools, Alcock argues.
Frank Alcock
Frank Alcock: Only voters within the parties can weigh in on those decisions. And then at the end, there’ll be a general election, which the school boards will be way down on a very crowded ballot. And you’ll have many more low information voters there, and that tends to benefit the political party that has the registration advantage in a particular county. What this ultimately does, I think, is limits competition for the school board races and really has significant impacts on accountability.
If this amendment were to pass, I think that accountability shifts into … you’re accountable to the primary voters in each political party, and you’re going to get more extreme candidates that again, have a different sense of accountability than we currently have.
JW: The other state legislature-initiated amendments are: No. 2, about a constitutional right to hunt and fish; No. 5, is about anchoring the homestead tax exemption in the constitution; and No. 6 is about ending public funding of electoral campaigns.
FA: There’s a bunch of folks that don’t think that there should be any public financing for political races. Pragmatically, in the state of Florida, these are not difference makers for the governor’s race, but for some of the other cabinet offices, it gives certain candidates viability that they don’t have. And to the extent that folks think there’s too much money in politics and like a little bit more of a level playing field, they’re supportive of the current clause in the Constitution, which citizens put in there in the late 90s.
JW: Meanwhile, the Amendment 3 and 4 campaigns seem to be on a roll. Sarah Parker, the Sarasota-based executive director of Voices of Florida, says volunteers and paid canvassers have knocked at 200,000 doors, and are reaching millions of Florida voters with texts and calls. Parker says she is confident about the outcome.
Sarah Parker: I know that we’re going to win. I feel it in my bones. I feel it in my heart. This is not a fake sense of security that I’m putting out there. I’ve gone on radio. I’ve been like, “We need to collect petitions,” and you can tell in my voice that I was anxious. Last few weeks, I’ve been calm. It’s been serene because we are confident we’re going to win. We just need all hands on deck and the community is really coming out swinging.
JW: Alcock says Gov. Ron DeSantis’ strong involvement in trying to block the two amendments is “unprecedented”. So it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that recent polls suggest it will be a close call. Victory Insights, a Republican-led polling outfit, in a survey published this week put support for the two citizen-initiated amendments at around 50%, well short of the 60% they would need to pass. They add that both still have a path to winning, if they are able to mobilize the 17% voters who have yet to make up their minds.
Alcock, the political science teacher, believes both Amendments 3 and 4 stand a good chance.
FA: My own sense as a political scientist: they’re going to be close. They’re not going to be too far away from 60%. I think both of them will be easily over 50% of the voters will approve. But you’re probably looking at something in the high 50s to the low 60s. So I think it’s going to be close.
JW: Even if the amendments don’t pass, the mobilization of thousands of volunteers and paid canvassers, and the people they reach are having a lasting impact. Sarah Parker:
SP: We actually go to hardcore and metal shows, and usually it’s a very apathetic environment when it comes to voting. And we’re seeing a lot of younger people not want to vote and after talking to them about yes on four and telling them like what’s on the line and explaining to them that there’s a six week abortion ban, which actually a lot of people did not know.
And it scares me to think that people are going to the clinics, not having any idea that there is a six week abortion ban and being six weeks in one day. So to see it, first off, to see the look in their eyes of fear and then taking that and then telling them, “No, there’s a solution,” and then watching their eyes light up and watching them get excited, watching bands that would normally don’t talk about any kind of politics, getting on stage and telling the crowd to vote yes on four and watching that electricity flow through the crowd and flow through the hardcore and metal music scene. It’s beautiful. It’s beautiful.
JW: And, Alcock predicts, they will try again if they fail this time.
FA: It is possible that one or both fall short of the 60%. If that were to happen, but it were close, I just don’t see the supporting networks behind these issues disappearing. They would likely try again, as expensive as it might be there. And there’s a lot of infrastructure in place. And so I don’t think these issues are going away if one of the two amendments were to finish below 50% [sic]. Then there would be pause with respect to the proponent network, but if they pass or if they come really close, I think the impact will be lasting
JW: Johannes Werner, WSLR News in Sarasota.
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