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Citizen Initiatives Constitutional Amendments:
Anti Petition-gathering Bill

Our Position: oppose
Bill Number: SB720/SB 1244/HB773
Sponsor: Senator Bill Posey/Senator JD Alexander/Rep. Dudley Goodlette
Legislative Session: 2006

5/14/06:

These bills died: 5/5/05: SB720/SB1244/HB773: Anti-Petition Gathering bills; SB26: Supreme Court Subject Filter Citizen Initiatives:  SB1918/HB7165: Purifying (NOT) the Constitution: SB1436/HB7037 Fiscal Impact: (Citizen Initiatives and petition gathering survived). We can celebrate this victory as well. While we were fighting on a daily basis, it all came down to the internal fighting between leadership, and against the legislators themselves sponsoring so many constitutional amendments; many of the legislators sounded off on how hypocritical this was. Our hard line lobbying efforts and our Save the Voters Voice coalition work around the state was wonderful. Kudo’s to ACORN, FPIRG, Clean Water Action, Sierra, AFL-CIO, Florida LCV, Florida Consumer Action Network,  League of Women Voters of Florida, Common Cause, Panhandle Citizens Coalition and others. We did an excellent job working together, taking turns, sharing responsibilities and being there for each other.

Here is a brief summary of problems with both versions:

1. If a Publix doesn't want you to stand out front their store getting petitions signed for X constitutional amendment, because they don't like "x", this bill would allow them to stop you. But if they liked the "Y" constitutional amendment petition, then they can let you stand out front their store. This is what they refer to as "property rights" in the bill.

2. Standing language exists in the bill that would be used to decide which people get to object as to whether petitions are valid or not.

3. Revocation Process: every month following the supervisors office of elections verification of the batch of petitions they received, a "deep pocket" can access the addresses of those who signed the petition, send them a mailing, and try to convince them why they shouldn't have signed the petition. They would have included a detachable, postage paid, "revocation" signature request to be returned to sender or to the supervisors office. So, the petition sponsors would constantly have to check how many petitions they have, and make up for those that have been "revoked."

4. Everyone, paid or volunteer, only has 35 days to turn in the petitions for them to be valid. We don't think this is fair to have volunteers under the same time-table.

Status

5/5/06: Did not pass.

4/29/06: The Senate versions both failed to pass out of Committees' and the House Version has been on the House Calendar, second reading since April 11th. Unless the Chamber tries for amendments to different election related bills, the attempt to change petition gathering this year, is over...but again, it isn't over till sine die.

4/20/06: The Save the Voters Voice group made up of AFLCIO, ACORN, Sierra Club Florida Chapter, LWVFL, FPIRG, CWA, FCAN have reason to celebrate a victory, at least for the day...you never know if any bill is really "dead"  till they drop the hanky the last day of session, known as sine-die. We rounded up 4 NO votes on Senate Judiciary. Senators Villalobos, Campbell, Geller, and Aronberg voted NO and the bill died. We will be watching for the language to show up on other bills. We decided to only have one person speak for the group, because the agenda was very tight and we knew we had the votes to stop the bill, so taking up time to testify would have been counter productive. Click here for votes

4/19/06: Senate version; SB720 up in Senate Judiciary.

4/11/06: passed out of House State Administration Council, and will be available for the Floor soon.

4/4/06: HB773 passes House Comm.; 4/1/06: SB720 by Senator Posey replaced Alexander's Bad bill SB1244

4/4/06: House Transportation and Environment Appropriations Committee amended the bill today to map to Senator Posey's SB720.  The bills are not identical, but are getting closer. Click here to see how they voted.

3/15/06: Senate Criminal Justice: bill was Tabled again.3/12/06: The Senate Criminal Justice Committee voted 5-3 on this bill.  Committee Chair Stephen Wise voted no and left the bill pending reconsideration. Which means the bill will come back up again. But we will take this as our first correct vote for the session and a mini celebration. Now we need to make sure that the Senators who voted "NO" will vote no again when the bill comes back up.  So, please send a quick note to Senators Klein, Wilson, Smith, Lynn, and Wise thanking them for protecting the rights of citizens to gather petitions without fear of penalties.

No doubt this bill sponsored by Senator JD Alexander is caught up in the cross-fire that began when he and several other Senators decided to jump ship and not support Senator Villalobos as the next Senate President following Senator Pruitt (2007-2008). When that occurred, the gloves came off and there is a lot of backroom deals where bills are being held hostage. Which works in our favor.

Action Needed

4/14/06; 3/19/06; 3/12/06; 3/06/06,: Standard Message: Contact your legislators and tell them this legislation silences the voice of the citizens to create meaningful public policy and takes away our rights.

find your legislators by looking them up on the House or Senate Online website.

More information

Click here to find out who is on the House Judiciary Committee where 773 was temporaily postponed on 3/17/06.

Click here to find out who is on the Senate Criminal Justice Committee where SB 1244 was temporaily postponed twice...

Contact

For more content and explanation about the ANTI- Citizen Initiative legislation visit our allies website at the SaveVotersVoice website.

Background

4/1/06: SB720 is replacing the successfully stalled SB1244. The replacement passed out of committee the other day and we all agree it is better than the original, but we still oppose it.

1. A  challenge to signatures can still occur, in more ways than one, and the venue would be in Leon County.  Anyone can challenge verified signatures.

2. A petition gatherer, paid or volunteer, has to sign each petition and paid getherers have some restrictions, like wearing id's and disclosing they are paid.

3. Petitions can only be one sheet and spaces for email or phone numbers cannot be on it, only information that is required by statute.

4. It would be a third degree felony for turning in a voter registration card  later than what ends up being the time limit in the final bill.

5. Private property owners, like a store, can choose which petition/petitioners they want on their property...

Senator JD Alexander refiled the bill  SB1244 that will make it impossible for citizens to petition their government or participate in the citizen initiative process. This bill is apparently identical to last year's bill SB 1996 that places extreme restrictions on the petition gathering process.

The House companion is HB773 by Representative Goodlette. Once you are on the House page you can then click on the bill text, look at the vote activity, read the staff analysis, anything you want to read is available with a click of the mouse. This bill was scheduled for Friday, 3/17/06 and was tabled.

Nothing is "dead" till session is over. So keep up the great work and let the legislators hear from you in opposition to these anti-citizen bills.

3/10/06:The Bill purports to address a problem that does not exist! Dubbed the Petition Fraud, Voter Protection Act last session, this bill would create laws that would criminalize the petition gathering process by placing heavy fines on citizens who turn in petitions after 30 days and removes important quality control mechanisms such as photocopying petitions.

The bill was drafted by the Chamber of Commerce.

The SaveVotersVoice coalition has been working for months with Senator Alexander to modify his bill. While we cannot go into great detail here, we are trying to minimize the damage.