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Initiative
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Secretary of State's Initiative and Referendum Historical Information |
Florida's
best-known initiative and referendum backer of the Progressive Era was retired
U.S. Senator Wilkinson Call. The closest the Florida legislature came to
approving statewide I&R was the state senate's passage, in 1912, of a version so
restrictive that it would have made it virtually impossible to put an initiative
on the ballot. The senate quickly rescinded even this weak bill.
In the late 1960s, following the transformation of
Florida from a southern state to a sunbelt state populated largely by
transplanted northerners, the legislature passed an amendment authorizing
initiative constitutional amendments only - not initiatives or referendums on
statutes. The new provision was successfully employed for the first time in
1976, when Governor Reuben Askew sponsored an initiative requiring public
disclosure of campaign contributions. After this measure passed, infuriated
state legislators passed bills banning the collection of signatures at polling
places and imposing a 10-cent-per-signature "verification fee" to further
discourage future initiative proponents.
In 1992 Floridians passed term limits for the state
legislature and in 2000 environmentalist won a major victory with the passage of
an initiative that established a statewide high-speed monorail system. However,
since the adoption of the statewide initiative process, only 16 initiatives have
made it on statewide ballots. This is due primarily to the high rate of
initiatives that are invalidated because they violate the state’s outrageously
stringent single subject provision for initiatives. It has become almost
impossible to get the proper clearance from the state supreme court necessary to
place an initiative on the ballot.
This state history is based on research found in
David Schmidt's book, Citizen Lawmakers: The Ballot Initiative Revolution.
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