June 02, 2004
Why does Jeb! hate democracy?
Jeb!'s attempt to thwart a popular citizen initiative - a mandate that the voters sent to Tallahassee which the GOP has all but ignored - is moving forward.
A proposed ballot measure to kill Florida's voter-mandated high-speed rail project reached its first milestone Tuesday, garnering enough signatures to warrant review by the state Supreme Court.Elections officials have verified nearly 55,000 petitions submitted by Derail the Bullet Train, a campaign led by Florida Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher. That's more than 10 percent of the 488,722 needed to make the ballot.
All citizen initiatives must get a green light from Florida's high court.
The court doesn't consider the merit of the proposed constitutional amendments but reviews them to make sure they deal only with one subject and are fairly described in their ballot title and summary. That review isn't triggered until a campaign has 10 percent of the signatures needed.
In 2000, voters approved a ballot measure ordering the state to build a high-speed train. The first leg of the proposed rail network would run from Orlando to Tampa. The plan is for the train to connect Orlando, Fort Lauderdale and Miami.
Gov. Jeb Bush, a persistent and loud critic, and Gallagher are pushing for a repeal through a petition drive that seeks to make the 2004 ballot.
The irony here is that Jeb! and Gallagher are high governmental officials who have expressed disgust at the whole citizen initiative process, yet they see no conflict in using the very process that they tried to kill to fool the people into derailing a program which Jeb! doesn’t like.
Posted by Norwood at June 2, 2004 06:30 AM