History of Initiative & Referendum in Florida
From Ballotpedia
Contents |
The History of Initiative & Referendum in Florida began when the Florida Senate passed an extremely restrictive version of I&R in 1912. The senate quickly rescinded even this weak bill.
In 1968, Florida adopted a new state constitution which included a provision allowing citizens to amend the constitution by initiative. (Initiating state statutes via the initiative process is not allowed.)
The initiative provision was first put to use in 1976, when voters adopted the Sunshine Amendment, sponsored by Governor Ruben Askew, requiring public disclosure of campaign contributions.
Initiative frequency
From 1976-2008, 29 initiated amendments appeared on Florida's ballots. Only five were rejected by voters.
Ballot backlash
After Askew's Sunshine Amendment passed in 1976, state legislators passed bills banning the collection of signatures at polling places and imposing a 10-cent-per-signature "verification fee" to discourage future initiative proponents.
Term limits
In 1992, Floridians passed term limits for the state legislature and in 2000 environmentalists won a major victory with the passage of an initiative, the Monorail Initiative, that established a statewide high-speed monorail system.
See also
- Florida 2008 ballot measures
- Laws governing the initiative process in Florida
- List of Florida ballot measures
Acknowledgments
This article is significantly based on an article[1] published by the Initiative & Referendum Institute, and is used with their permission. Their article, in turn, relies on research in David Schmidt's book, Citizen Lawmakers: The Ballot Initiative Revolution.[2]
References
- ↑ History of Florida's initiative
- ↑ Citizen Lawmakers: The Ballot Initiative Revolution Temple University Press, 352 pp., ISBN-10: 0877229031, October 1991
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History of I&R |
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| State histories |
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| Individuals |
Roland Patten · Smith · Sullivan · U'Ren |
| Groups |
Initiative and Referendum League of Maine · Popular Government League |
| Books |
Direct Legislation by the Citizenship Through the Initiative and Referendum · Citizen Lawmakers: The Ballot Initiative Revolution |
