The Tampa Tribune has this story about the April 18 amendment to the omnibus election law bill that makes it vastly more difficult for the presidential candidate of a new party to get on the Florida ballot. The bill, HB 1355, passed second reading on the evening of April 20, and will probably receive a vote on third reading on April 21.
The reporter who wrote the story tried, but failed, to find out which legislator inserted the ballot access amendment.
So this is what has become of Florida? Hiding in the shadows? Proposing amendments and legislation in secret? Obviously the fear of accountability is too much. I along with vast other Floridians will turn over every stone to find out just who this secret legislator is. This coward of a lawmaker one way or the other should have to answer for this bill which goes against democratic principles. And better yet…why they felt the need to remain anonymous after proposing it.
You can narrow the search field: look for a florida legislator with an (R) after the name.
Given that it was the large number of candidates in the 2000 presidential election that led to ballot crowding which elections officials tried to respond to in various creative ways, which may have resulted in the defeat of Al Gore, Jr., I’d suspect that it was a Democrat who inserted the language.
Ten candidates in the November 2000 Florida presidential election is not “ballot crowding.” Your state, Texas, had ten presidential candidates in the Republican presidential primary of 2008 plus a choice of an uncommitted slate, for a total of eleven choices, and no one thought that was “ballot crowding.”
Very good point Mr. Winger! Why do states assert that more than a couple choices is ballot clutter/crowding in the General Election or that it would cause voter confusion, when there are typically a good number more candidates for those offices on the Primary ballots? Do voters get dumber between elections or less able? Rhetorical questions of course, but seriously, its messed up.
Many more top 2 States coming soon ???
Approval Voting for all executive/judicial offices — vote for 1 or more *approved* candidates – highest win.
#4 10 plus a write-in, and both the presidential and vice presidential candidate and the party had to be indicated for each candidate. So that is 32 lines of text.
It directly led to the butterfly ballot in Palm Beach County, the two-page ballot in Duval County, and the one column plus one candidate format used on paper scanned ballots that used a card form factor.
If there had been fewer candidates would that have happened? No. You surely don’t disagree with that.
And many Democrats perceive that it led to the defeat of Al Gore, Jr. in 2000. Remember what happened in 2004. So it is logical that a Democrat would attempt to change the law to restrict the number of candidates.
This does not mean that Florida necessarily has a rational state interest, or that the Democrat was even acting rationally, but it certainly is a reasonable suspicion.
You had a large and complex and controversial omnibus bill (“omni” means all or everything, while a bus is large vehicle. An “omnibus bill” is thus a large bill that can contain all kinds of provisions. There were dozens of amendments offered on the floor. But the presidential provision was stuck in a committee substitute. The committee just votes on a new version, and the specific provisions that are changed may never be debated.
In the 2008 Republican presidential primary in Texas, there were no vice presidential candidates, no write-ins, and there was no need to included the party designation after each candidate.
#7, we can stop speculating that it was a Florida Democrat who inserted the amendment. First, the committee is controlled by Republicans, and all Democratic amendments were rejected. Second, the bill has no passed the House, on a party line vote, with all Republicans who voted voting “yes”, and all Democrats who voted voting “no.”
#8 The provision was inserted in a committee substitute. There were no votes on those changes. The original bill was 14 pages. The first committee substitute was 133 pages, the second committee substitute was 165 pages. You don’t know who wrote those 151 pages of legislation or suggested them to the legislative drafting staff.
While the Democrats were opposed to the overall bill, this was due to other provisions (see the Tampa Tribune blog). They didn’t try to amend the presidential provisions when the bill was debated in the House, even though they offered 32 amendments.
Knowing that they were going to lose on the issues of concern, Democrats had every reason to get provisions that they favored, and that were not unacceptable to the Republicans, inserted into the committee substitute. If they publicly offered an amendment, it might have been rejected. The Republicans may well have wanted to be conciliatory in order to get some Democratic backing for the bill.
It is quite plausible that a Democrat would get the particular language inserted in the bill. It is not directed at new parties. It applies to all minor parties.
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