Opuscula Prohibit Multi-subject Amendments

I THOUGHT IT WAS ILLEGAL to bundle multiple, often unrelated topics into a single constitutional amendment.

Apparently, in Florida this bundling is Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).

November’s Florida ballot contains a dozen questions for which Florida voters are asked – in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole – to vote Yes/Si/Wi or No/No/Non.

This begs the question: If the voters cannot comprehend English, how can they safely drive when non-pictograph signs are in English, the nominative language of the U.S.?

Many of the amendments on the ballot have two issues, issues what often have nothing to do with each other. As examples:

SAMPLE QUESTIONS

Rights of Crime Victims; Judges	Prohibits Offshore Oil and Gas Drilling; Prohibits Vaping in Enclosed Indoor Workplaces
Creates constitutional rights for victims of crime; Raises mandatory retirement age of state justices and judges to 75 years.	Prohibits extraction of oil and natural gas beneath all state-owned waters. Adds use of vapor-generating electronic devices to current prohibition of tobacco smoking in enclosed indoor workplaces.

The examples' text in the table have been abbreviated.

Perhaps I’m missing something, but I cannot see the relationship between

Rights of crime victims and judges’ retirement age or
Offshore oil and gas activities and “vaping” (use of electronic “cigarettes”).

Isn’t “enclosed indoor” redundant? (Vaping amendment description in table.)

I might be in agreement with both questions in an amendment, but then again, I might agree with one part and disagree on another.

To my simple mind, it appears as if the amendments’ writers are trying to “slip one by the voters.”

One issue per amendment.

Clear language.

The League of Women Voters (LWV) published a “translation” of the “amendment-ese” for voters smart enough to use public libraries. To its credit, the LWV’s “translation” did not (seem) to promote a for or against vote.

It will be interesting to see what percentage of voters cast a pro or con vote on each amendment (in addition to the political candidates and the local issues). we'll never know – it's the American way – if those voting on the amendments actually understood the amendment questions.

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