(return to media page)Tallahassee Democrat, August 8, 2007
Growth showdown may be headed for 2008 state ballot
By Aaron Deslatte
FLORIDA CAPITAL BUREAU
Businesses and developers have already poured money this summer into
fighting the Florida Hometown Democracy group that wants to stop local
governments from rubber-stamping development.
Now they have a new weapon.
Buried in a sweeping elections bill lawmakers passed last spring is a
change that gives voters the right to revoke signatures they've given
to petition-gathering groups trying to amend Florida's Constitution.
And several business-backed groups are already organizing to use the
new tactic to open a new front against Hometown Democracy.
''We're going to use every tool available to ensure this bad policy
does not make it into Florida's Constitution,'' says David Daniel,
vice president with the Florida Chamber of Commerce, which helped
organize one such group this summer, called Floridians for Smarter
Growth.
The group raised $841,000 between April and June from companies like
U.S. Sugar, the National Association of Home Builders and developers
Lykes Bros. and Barron Collier.
Their main aim: put another, more business-friendly alternative to
Hometown Democracy on the November 2008 ballot.
But the group will also try to get Hometown signatures thrown out to
keep the group from meeting the Feb. 1 deadline for collecting the
611,000 signatures needed to qualify the ballot.
The new law requires that anyone trying to revoke signatures register
with the state as a political committee. Then, the group can look at
any initiative group's submitted signatures and target voters who
signed with direct-mail or phone banks to coax them into changing
their minds.
''It's traditional mail outreach, and the reason it's so attractive is
the numbers are much more manageable in terms of direct outreach,''
said Michael Caputo, a longtime signature-gathering specialist
fronting for Floridians for Smarter Growth.
Still, he called the tactic ''untried and untested.''
''While we'll probably experiment in that arena, it won't be a central
focus,'' he said.
Another political hand taking an interest is veteran elections lawyer
John French. He has filed corporate documents for a group called Save
Our Constitution that lists its directors as Barney Bishop, the
president of Associated Industries of Florida; former House Speaker
John Thrasher, now a lobbyist with Southern Strategy Group; and former
state GOP chairman Al Cardenas.
While it's still organizing, French said his committee aimed to ''do
some revocations.''
''Hometown would be our primary interest here,'' French said without
offering specifics.
French and two Florida Chamber officials convinced the Florida
Division of Elections last month to change its emergency rule so
Hometown Democracy signatures gathered as early as last March could be
challenged.
The law gives voters 150 days after signing a petition to revoke support.
The agency had drafted a version of its rule making the change that
would have exempted any signatures gathered earlier than the Aug. 1
effective date of the law.
But French and two chamber officials argued at a July 23 workshop that
if the law took effect Aug 1, any signatures gathered 150 days before
then should be fair game.
When the state issued the emergency rule last week, the division's
elections lawyer had agreed and changed it.
Spokesman Sterling Ivey said the reversal wasn't ''in direct relation
to anything that Hometown Democracy was doing.''
But Hometown Democracy organizers are irate and say they're
considering a lawsuit.
''That was just outrageous. They changed it because the chamber asked
them to,'' said Hometown co-founder Lesley Blackner, a Palm Beach
County lawyer.
Blackner said her group had been told ahead of the hearing that their
signatures submitted before Aug. 1 would be un-revocable under the new
law.
''That was the state position until the chamber got a hold of them and
worked their magic,'' she said.
Tallahassee lawyer Ross Burnaman, another co-founder, said it was
obvious the business groups had lobbied for the retroactive
application so they could go after more Hometown signatures.
''I'm disappointed, but not surprised,'' Burnaman said. ''I don't have
any doubt in my mind they'll attack. The question is when.''
Although he plans to work against Hometown Democracy this fall, French
said he was offering the Division of Elections a straight legal
reading of what lawmakers passed.
''They have a right to be wrong,'' French said.The new law requires
that anyone trying to revoke signatures register with the state as a
political committee. Then, the group can look at any initiative
group's submitted signatures and target voters who signed with
direct-mail or phone banks to coax them into changing their minds.