|
If our state Constitution truly meant what its words said, the
governor of Florida might well be in jail this morning. Police would
have raided his office in the Capitol and the Governor's Mansion,
armed with a contempt of court order.They would have commanded the
governor to obey the Constitution. If he refused, they would have
arrested him.
Why? Because the Constitution commands him to build a train.
But on Monday, Gov. Jeb Bush instead vetoed $7.2-million in the state
budget intended for the High Speed Rail Authority. Only a few dollars
remain for so-called "planning." The governor remains at large.
Now, it should be admitted up front: There are good, practical and
reasonable grounds for his veto. Times are hard, for one thing. The
state is low on money. A train is a bad priority. Having a choo-choo
train in the Constitution is kind of weird in the first place. The
governor's own stated reason was that he didn't like how the
Legislature has set up the rail authority. He is absolutely right.
But you know what? None of that matters.
The Constitution says he has to build a train. The voters ordered him
to do it in the 2000 election. He doesn't get to ignore it. He ran
for the job. He stuck his hand right up there in the air. He put his
hand on a Bible. And he swore a solemn oath to do what the
Constitution tells him to do. The oath did not say, "Except for
the stuff I don't like."
We have gone too far down this road of ignoring constitutional
amendments in Florida. It breeds cynicism and disrespect among the
frustrated citizens. Cynicism and disrespect destroy democracies. Our
governor and the Legislature have taken the position that it is up to
THEM, exclusively, to decide how to enforce - or not enforce -
constitutional amendments that reach the ballot by citizen petition.
The previous speaker of the House, the controversial Tom Feeney, was
quite open about this point. He argued that no court in the state had
the power to force the Legislature to carry out the public's
commands. "Only the voters can enforce the Constitution against
the Legislature," Feeney liked to say. He meant the only remedy
was political, not legal.
It is time to revisit this. If we are going to have amendments to the
Constitution, then they have to be real.
The way it works now, a citizen petition isn't allowed to affect
"multiple branches" of the government. A citizen petition
can't wreak "cataclysmic" change. This is enforced by the
Florida Supreme Court, which can kick petitions off the ballot. But
that means the voters never get their full say. They can never seize
control of the Legislature's power to appropriate money. They can
never stop the governor's veto. They can never really compel their
own government to act, as long as the Legislature and the governor
can ignore them.
So there ought to be an outside mechanism to force the Legislature
and governor to obey the citizens. The logical candidate is the third
branch of government, the courts. Isn't that a dangerous amount of
power to give to the courts? You bet it is. It would totally upset
the existing separation of powers between the branches of our government.
But what we have now is just as dangerous. If not worse.
What we have now is a tacit pact between the governor and Legislature
to disobey the parts of the Constitution they don't care for. That's
the message our elected leaders are sending to the citizens, and the
example they are setting for young people: It's okay to disobey laws
you don't like
-- You can reach Howard Troxler at (727) 893-8505 or at troxler@sptimes.com. |
