Florida proposes new barrier to citizen ballot proposals

Florida Republicans are once again trying to make it more difficult for citizens to amend the state constitution through petition drives, this time by limiting contributions to political committees proposing a ballot initiative.

A bill setting the limit was approved by the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee on a party-line vote Tuesday. Political committees seeking to change the constitution would be limited to $3,000 individual contributions until their proposal is approved for the ballot — a limit that could have made it impossible for medical marijuana and an increase in minimum wage to get before voters.

Medical marijuana was approved by voters in 2016 and a gradual increase of the minimum wage to $15 an hour was approved last year. Trial lawyer John Morgan spent millions of dollars of his own money to get the items on the ballots. Republicans in the Legislature opposed those issues.

“The minimum wage...yes, a Floridian, John Morgan, spent $6 million of his own money to try to get that passed because we couldn't get it done at the Legislature,” said Democratic Sen. Annette Taddeo. “We don't listen to the voters. The voters have told us time and time again, ‘These are the things we want you to do,’ and yet we turn around and do exactly the opposite.”

But Republicans say they want to eliminate out-of-state money from contributing to changes in the constitution, and that many items approved by voters should be legislative issues, not constitutional issues.

“National and out-of-state political groups are not committed to Florida, but to their own special interests,” said Republican Sen. Ray Rodrigues, the bill's sponsor. “This proposal reinstates the experience, the integrity and the authenticity of the citizens initiative process.”

Last year Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill that raised the threshold for the number of signatures needed for a petition to be reviewed by the Supreme Court for inclusion on the ballot from 10% of required signatures to 25%.

In 2019, DeSantis signed a bill that requires paid petition gatherers to register with the secretary of state, outlaws paying gatherers based on the number of signatures they collect and creates fines if petitions are not turned in within 30 days. The petitions now also have to have the name and permanent address of the gatherer.

Separately, Republicans are also seeking a ballot measure that would ask voters to raise the threshold to pass a constitutional amendment from 60% of the votes cast to two-thirds.
President Biden on Tuesday signed into law an extension of a pandemic-era loan program designed to help small businesses stay afloat, hailing the legislation as a “bipartisan accomplishment” and crediting lawmakers from both parties during an event at the Oval Office of the White House.
Biden’s focus on the coronavirus comes a day ahead of his planned unveiling of a $2.25 trillion jobs and infrastructure package that could form a cornerstone of his economic agenda.
President Joe Biden is about to drop a lot of policy.

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In a Pittsburgh speech Wednesday, Biden will reveal the first part of his “Build Back Better” jobs plan, focused on traditional infrastructure and combating climate change. A few weeks down the road, he’ll reveal a second proposal emphasizing the “care economy,” including extensions of the newly enhanced child tax credit and paid family and medical leave. The twin packages, according to the Washington Post, add up to about $4 trillion in spending, offset by $3 trillion in proposed tax increases on the wealthy and businesses.

Now Democrats just have to figure out how to pass it—and what “it” ultimately will be.

The administration may have come up with its wish list, but the legislative strategy for making it come true is far from determined. No one expects, though, that the process will be as straightforward as the relatively seamless passage of the American Rescue Plan. There, Biden released a proposal for COVID relief, and Democrats in Congress essentially printed it out, tinkered with a few numbers, and moved it along the conveyor belt to completion.

This time, just because Biden is releasing his plan in two separate pieces doesn’t mean it will all be moved in two corresponding bills. Democrats—unless a creative, unprecedented rules interpretation from Sen. Chuck Schumer gets past the Senate parliamentarian, who’s not known for her receptivity to creative, unprecedented rules interpretations—have just one reconciliation bill, which allows them to bypass a 60-vote filibuster, remaining. And they still do not have the votes to eliminate the filibuster.

There’s also an appetite from Democratic centrists in both the House and the Senate to secure a bipartisan package, after having passed COVID relief along party lines in a contentious process. One idea, then, would be to try to cobble together a bipartisan package focusing on the broadly popular elements with a history of bipartisan cooperation, and then dump everything else into a reconciliation bill.

First, if Republicans negotiated an agreement on a major infrastructure package, giving Biden a big bipartisan win, and then watched Democrats pursue everything else they want in a reconciliation bill afterward, they would look like chumps. They’re aware of that. “If they decide to do that as a ploy to lure Republicans in to vote for the easy stuff and then do … the controversial stuff through reconciliation, I don’t think our guys are going take the bait on that,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune told reporters last week.

Democrats are also straightforward about wanting to pay for infrastructure through tax increases, including increasing the corporate tax rate from 21 to 25 or 28 percent. Republicans consider the 21 percent corporate tax rate, which they lowered from 35 percent in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, their signature legislative accomplishment of the Trump era. As Donald Schneider, a former GOP House Ways and Means Committee staffer, told the Washington Post, “it’s like Republicans saying, ‘We’ll do infrastructure, but pay for it by reversing the Affordable Care Act.’ ” It’s an absolute nonstarter on the Republican side of the aisle.
The Montana Senate advanced Tuesday a bill that would ban transgender athletes from participating in school and college sports according to the gender with which they identify.

Supporters of the measure say male-born athletes are naturally more capable than those born female, and the measure would prevent an uneven playing field for female-born athletes. Opponents say the bill would hurt transgender athletes’ physical and emotional wellbeing, and would harm the state’s economy.

The bill passed in a 29-21 vote in the GOP-controlled Senate. The Senate is expected to vote on the measure for a third time before sending it back to the House for final approval. Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte has not commented on whether he would sign the bill into law.

The Senate first amended the bill to be voided if the U.S. Department of Education withholds federal education funding from the state, a threat stemming from an executive order signed by President Joe Biden prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity.

Similar bans have been introduced in more than 20 states this year. Republican governors in Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi signed them into law this month. A federal court blocked a similar law in Idaho last year.
 A nationwide poll conducted by the Beaumont Foundation showed whether people would consider taking the COVID-19 vaccine based on their political party.

According to the study:

33 percent of Republicans expressed they would not get vaccinated and another 20 percent said they were not sure
10 percent of Democrats said they were opposed to getting vaccinated and 19 percent were undecided
Pollster Frank Lutz who also helped with the study stated that politics and health seemed to have mixed due to one’s experiences during the pandemic.

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Samuel Reyes who is a local democrat said politics should not mix with health.

“It’s not a political decision, it shouldn’t be a political decision,” he said in the study.

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According to Reyes, the decision to take the vaccine or not should be a health decision.

“It’s a decision that people