TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A bill sought by business interests to make it
more difficult for citizen groups to amend the Florida Constitution
received Gov. Charlie Crist's signature Wednesday, just a day after he
vetoed another anti-initiative measure.
Crist signed a bill (SB 1920)
into law that will allow stores, shopping malls and other businesses to
prohibit petition drives for citizen initiatives on their property.
They could be selective, though, barring some and allowing others.
The
vetoed legislative (SB 900), also sought by businesses, would have
required initiative sponsors to get signatures verified by election
officials within 30 days of collecting them. It also would have let
voters revoke their signatures within 150 days of signing.
Florida
in recent years has taken steps that make it harder to amend the
constitution because of legitimate worries that it was too easy, Crist
said. That includes an amendment adopted last year requiring voter
approval of future constitutional changes by at least 60 percent
instead of a simple majority. 'It is a sacred document and we need to
protect it, but I don't want to protect it so much from the people that
they don't have the option to amend their constitution,' Crist said of
his veto.
The governor wrote a letter to Secretary of State Kurt
Browning explaining his decision to sign the other bill, saying it
highlighted the tension between private property rights and the right
of citizens to engage in political discourse.
Crist wrote that
he's sympathetic to those who want to excise their political rights but
'the solution to that problem cannot be to force all grocers,
shopkeepers and restaurateurs to acquiesce to potentially disruptive
political activity.' The petition bill was one of 37 measures Crist
signed into law Wednesday.
The governor let another bill (HB
1047) - to loosen rules for Las Vegas-style slot machines in Broward
County - become law without his signature. It will expand casino hours,
increase the number of machines from 1,500 to 2,000 and provide ATMs at
gaming facilities.
Bills Crist signed include measures that will:
-
Allow veterans groups and other charities now permitted to hold bingo
games to also sell instant bingo tickets similar to the state's instant
lottery tickets (SB 500).
- Make it a first-degree felony to perform female genital mutilation on girls under 18 (HB 1441).
-
Allow state wildlife officials to require people who own Burmese
pythons and other nonnative reptiles to pay up to $100 for a license
and establish conditions for keeping the creatures to prevent them from
being released into the wild (SB 2766).
- Permit staffers at a
non-prison facility in Arcadia where violent sexual predators are
detained to use non-lethal force, including Tasers and chemical agents
(SB 2866).
Crist vetoed the signature verification bill Tuesday night.
The
Florida Chamber of Commerce, which also supported the 60 percent
amendment, issued a statement expressing disappointment, saying it
'would have reduced fraud and provided a paper trail for people to know
that their petition was counted, an additional step in restoring
confidence in the integrity of the initiative process.' Brad Ashwell ,
a consumer advocate with the Florida Public Interest Research Group,
praised the veto. 'The bill was a pure power grab by the Chamber of
Commerce,' Ashwell said in a statement. 'These special interests
already dominate the legislative process and they just can't stomach
the thought that citizen groups can bypass that forum and go directly
to the ballot.' Environmentalists, the Florida League of Women Voters,
Common Cause and other groups had urged Crist to also veto the bill
allowing businesses to exclude petition drives. 'This bill will make it
harder for citizen to engage in direct democracy,' Sierra Club
officials wrote in a letter to Crist.
Crist vetoed two other bills late Tuesday and another Wednesday.
One
(HB 7183) would have revised the state's Administrative Procedures Act
in ways that would have halted the enforcement or implementation of
laws based on unproven allegations, Crist wrote.
Another (HB 981)
would have sidestepped hunting and tenant farming limits in state
management plans for the huge Babcock Ranch Preserve in southwest
Florida, according to Crist's veto message.
The Babcock Ranch
bill included a provision that would have given Florida National Guard
members half-price admission to state parks. Crist said they'll still
get the discounts under an executive order he signed Tuesday.
The
bill (SB 1758) vetoed Wednesday would have put a moratorium on
licensing offsite hospital emergency departments until July 1, 2009,
except for those currently in the process of being established. Crist
wrote that the bill would reduce competition and consumer options.
