It's the biggest election story in Florida that you haven't seen.
This would be Amendment 4, usually known as Florida Hometown Democracy. If you think that Bill McCollum and Rick Scott ran some nasty ads, those may look like Saturday morning cartoons compared with the savaging that awaits Hometown Democracy, given the stakes for the groups determined to kill it.
But if voters approve the amendment, some of the shrillest and most deep-pocketed opponents will have only themselves to blame.
As soon as Florida's postwar population boom began in the 1950s, certain developers and their political fixers began working local governments. Bulldoze the mangroves. Dredge and fill wetlands to make way for condos. Cram as many units as possible onto a piece of property. All in the name of tax revenue.
Environmental and civic groups pushed back, arguing that Florida needed to plan for all this growth, so that it didn't create subdivision sprawl from coast to coast, like peanut butter on a slice of bread. In 1985, the Legislature passed the Growth Management Act. Cities and counties had to draw up comprehensive plans, and governments weren't supposed to allow development unless public services - roads, water, parks, fire-rescue - would be in place to support the new residents.
For some developers, though, the focus simply shifted to changing the comprehensive plans. They pushed in cities. They pushed in counties. They pushed in the Legislature to weaken the Growth Management Act itself. For those developers, a growth boom wasn't enough. Florida's boom became a bubble that burst, helping to push unemployment to nearly 12 percent. As the Wall Street saying goes, Florida went from getting fat to getting slaughtered.
Now, with the state really needing real estate to recover, comes Amendment 4. It would require a public vote on every plan change, no matter how small or proper. It is as tempting as warm fudge - put the people in charge, not the developers. It was cooked in the oven of public anger at a system that too often favored the few at the wider community's expense.
And it's a terrible idea, a mix of overreaction and unintended consequences. Imagine having to hold a family conference every time someone needed to go $2 over the weekly food budget. Imagine election ballots the size of small phone books when voters in large counties have to rule on a dozen or two plan changes "explained" in documents that read like rental car contracts. Imagine all the expense if some counties don't wait for the normal election cycle and hold votes every time a county or city changes its plan.
Led by the Florida Association of Realtors, which has donated almost $2 million, the campaign to defeat Amendment 4 has raised roughly $7 million and spent little. Through Aug. 19, Florida Hometown Democracy had raised about $1.7 million and spent nearly all of it. More than half has come from just two people, one of them Lesley Blackner, the Palm Beach lawyer who is a co-founder of Hometown Democracy.
So there's the money mismatch. And the fact that every business group in Florida opposes it. And the fact that amendments need 60 percent to pass. What, then, does Amendment 4 have going for it?
The times.
Some voters are mad at every "establishment" out there. To them, if business groups favor Amendment 4, that's a reason to vote against it. They hear Florida Chamber of Commerce President Mark Wilson say, "If you like the recession, you'll love Amendment 4," and see a vote for Hometown Democracy as a way to shake up a system that favors insiders. Similar rage in 1992 gave Florida term limits in the Legislature, which has put Tallahassee's lobbyists in charge, and Save Our Homes, which has made a mess of the state's tax system.
You can understand that anger. It's hard to argue against Amendment 4 because you first have to acknowledge that those who oppose it invited it through their greed. And it continues.
Developers have been rushing plans to local government, to get approvals in case Hometown Democracy passes. But even as it became clear that Hometown Democracy would make the ballot, developers still pushed in the Legislature to weaken growth management rules and build new "towns" in rural areas.
A spokesman for the coalition opposing Amendment 4 says "we hope to be up soon" with TV commercials. If will be in Floridians' interest if they can put aside the fact that the special interests are paying for the campaign and do what the special interests haven't done - think about what's best for the state.
Randy Schultz is the editor of editorial page of The Palm Beach Post. His e-mail address is [email protected]
