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Dave Rauschkolb

Beach Fanatic
Jul 13, 2005
1,006
790
Santa Rosa Beach
VETO

DeSantis should stand with voter initiative process, veto House Bill 5 | Opinion


When I was one of several conservatives leading Florida ballot initiatives to cut taxes and protect taxpayers, I would have never imagined that Republican legislators would one day try to take away the voices of ordinary Florida voters.

Back then, the party of Reagan had a healthy distrust of government and a strong desire to empower ordinary citizens. And while most conservative voters still feel that way, too many Republican legislators have joined the ranks of the governing class and become devoted to centralizing more power in Tallahassee and advancing the agendas of corporate interests, rather than the principles of economic, religious, political and personal freedom.

There’s no greater example of this than House Bill 5, the obvious intent of which is to render useless Florida’s citizen initiative process.

The initiative process allowed me, working with many others, to pass the “Save Our Homes” amendment in 1992 – which caps annual homestead assessments to no more than 3%. Ordinary voters saw a problem that politicians refused to fix. Too many seniors were literally being taxed out of the homes they raised their families in and forced to leave communities that they loved.

The elected politicians didn’t care. They just sat back and counted the money. Fueled mainly by volunteers, our effort has saved Florida taxpayers billions — and more importantly, it has saved many families the heartache of being taxed out of their homes.

Had HB 5 existed back then, our campaign would have never gotten off the ground. Nor would the initiative we led to require a two-thirds vote for any constitutionally imposed tax. Back then a powerful House appropriations chairman famously said that a state income tax in Florida “is not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.” Thanks to the initiative we introduced and voters approved, there has been zero talk of ever having a state income tax.

We weren’t the only ones. Florida businessman and Republican leader Phil Handy led a citizen initiative to enact term limits in Florida. As I read the news coverage of HB 5, I couldn’t help but see the irony that the young man leading the charge to end citizen initiatives only had the opportunity to run for the Legislature because of the term limits amendment that voters, not politicians, put on the ballot.

Notwithstanding all the nonsense spoken about out-of-state interests and liberal groups, as best I can tell, much of the work done by citizen initiatives was neither of those. Public servants who loathe the idea of the citizens having a small say in their own governance are in the wrong business.

Our new governor seems to be his own man. Let’s hope he continues to stand up to powerful special interests and sides with ordinary citizens by vetoing HB 5.

David Biddulph is a semi-retired Florida entrepreneur and citizen activist who has been a leader since 1992 in empowering citizens to vote for state and national constitutional amendments.
 
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