(03-29-2023, 03:10 PM)copycat Wrote:

(03-29-2023, 01:09 PM)mikesez Wrote: I think that's an attractive solution, however, the point where one bill becomes two bills is a judgement call.  And who gets to make the judgement?

In theory it should be easily distinguished but I can see where funding a specific project could blur the lines.  Probably how we arrived at the mess we are currently in.  I guess if there were a challenge in that regard the courts would have to decide.

Here's a practical example.
About 25 years ago, environmentalists came up with a plan to restore the everglades while bypassing the state legislature.  It was a constitutional amendment.  The FL Supreme Court was hostile.  The plan was to constitutionally mandate a minimum penny per pound tax on sugar produced in FL.  The legislature would be allowed to raise the tax, but not lower it.  The money would be required to be spent on buying up sugar farms and restoring them, the legislature would be unable to divert it or store it up.  As you see, that's all a system of ideas that all have to go together.  On their own, they are pointless.  The FL Supreme Court decided that this system violated the one topic rule for constitutional amendments, however.  They let the amendment proposal stay, after they split it into two ballot items.  Predictably, people thought the fund for glades restoration sounded pretty good, and that became law.  But the people decided that minimum tax rates sounded bad, and nixed that.  So we had this nice fund with no money in it.  A dog with no legs.  

All of this mucking around happened because it was obvious to the activists that Florida legislators, even though they have term limits, even though more of them come from tourist areas than farming areas, even though they come from both parties, effectively all of them are bought and paid for by Big Sugar.  

So we did term limits, and competitive elections, and reduced gerrymandering, and none of it worked.  Then this "common sense" constraint to limit referenda to one topic frustrated our attempt to work around it.

Yet you better believe that if the Legislature or the CRC wants to amend something, there is no single subject rule.  That's for us, not them.

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