Citizens Initiatives Restrictions Moves Forward in House
April 18th, 2019 by Jake Stofan
Sponsors unveiled a less onerous bill designed to make it harder to get constitutional amendments on the ballot.
Gone is a provision that only Flordia residents who register with the state can gather petitions, but the bill still requires more financial disclosure on the ballot including language that the desired change could have been enacted by lawmakers.
Rep. Dianne Hart questioned the motivation.
“Why are you putting all these obstacles in peoples way? Why can’t they just go out and gather petitions how ever they get them. You’ve clear said there is no fraud that you know of,” said Hart.
“Our constitution shouldn’t be open to the world, or open to different parties or ideologies to find some billionaire to go fund something to put into our constitution,” said bill sponsor Rep. James Grant.
The legislation keeps a provision that petition gatherers can’t be paid by the petition as is the case now.
It passed the committee Thursday on party lines.
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