Your voice is needed at one of the four upcoming historic hearings of the 2017-2018 Florida Constitution Revision Commission (CRC) scheduled during the next few weeks. As you may know, the CRC only gathers once every 20 years to review the state constitution. As part of this process, the CRC proposes constitutional amendments which citizens will be able to vote on in the November 2018 election.
The CRC recently completed its committee work. It narrowed down the number of proposed amendments from an initial 1,000 proposals by the public to 100 undertaken by members of the CRC with 37 currently approved by their committees.
The next phase of the CRC is a second round of public hearings. Those hearings are currently scheduled in Melbourne on 2/19, Jacksonville on 2/20, Pensacola on 2/27, and St. Petersburg on 3/13. Details on these locations can be found below.
The first public hearing in this second round of CRC hearings occurred this past week in Fort Lauderdale, one of the most liberal cities in the state. The forum was packed with what appeared to be 500-600 people who were very hostile to life, parental rights and school choice. During the hearing, opponents were very rude, disruptive and did not respect the Chairman’s repeated requests to be civil and to not cheer, clap, or otherwise disrupt the forum or another speaker’s time. Citizens who support life, parental rights, life and school choice need to attend these upcoming hearings and present better, respectful, more persuasive (not to mention truthful) arguments to this historic commission.
UPDATE ON PROPOSAL 22 ON PRIVACY
The privacy amendment, Proposal 22 (see www.FLPrivacy.org), is designed to fix our state constitution’s privacy clause and require the Florida Supreme Court to interpret it in accordance with the original intent of the Legislature (which placed it on the ballot) and the people who adopted it. Florida’s privacy clause was intended for informational privacy and not for abortion. Sadly, Proposal 22 died recently in its second CRC committee, the Judicial Committee. However, if 15 CRC members vote to revive the proposal the matter can still be heard and voted on by the entire commission.
You can watch CRC Commissioner John Stemberger’s argument for Proposal 22 before the CRC Judicial Committee here starting at 1:06:53.
You can read the latest article on the status of the Privacy Proposal by the Orlando Sentinel here.
The bottom line is that the CRC needs to hear from you. Virtually every speaker on the Left either grossly misrepresented the issues or outright lied about the effect of certain CRC proposals at this last meeting. The CRC needs to hear from you and your like-minded friends and family members on the below parental consent laws and educational reforms.
We recommend you respectfully encourage the Commission to vote yes on the following proposals:
1) Proposal 22 – VOTE YES. Support bringing Proposal 22 to the full body of the CRC to fix Florida’s privacy clause to allow the Legislature to enact laws that would require parental consent before a minor girl undergoes an abortion surgery.
2) Proposal 4 – VOTE YES. Repeal the anti-Catholic motivated Blaine Amendment (no-aid) provision in Florida’s Constitution. Repealing this provision would prevent religious discrimination and allow educational vouchers to be issued so that parents can use their own tax dollars to direct the education of their children to the school of their choice—whether a public, private, charter or home school.
3) Proposal 45 – VOTE YES. Specifies that no provision of the state constitution may be construed to limit the Legislature from making provision for other educational services that are beneficial to Florida’s children and families.
4) Proposal 71 – YOTE YES. Allows the Legislature to establish charter schools without the courts striking down the laws for various reasons.
5) Proposal 43 – VOTE YES. Establishes term limits for school board members so that they cannot serve for more than two four-year terms (totaling eight years of service).
For an in-depth review of all 37 proposals currently before the CRC, download this PDF.
Public participation guidelines for the CRC hearings have just been issued and can be downloaded here.
Locations and times of upcoming CRC public hearings
MELBOURNE
Monday, February 19, 2018
1:00-7:00 PM EST
Eastern Florida State College
Maxwell C. King Center
3865 North Wickham Road
Melbourne, FL 32935
JACKSONVILLE
Tuesday, February 20, 2018
1:00-7:00 PM EST
University of North Florida
Herbert University Center
12000 Alumni Drive
Jacksonville, FL 32224
PENSACOLA
Tuesday, February 27, 2018
1:00-7:00 PM CST
University of West Florida
Conference Center & Ballroom
11000 University Parkway, Building 22
Pensacola, FL 32514
CAPE CORAL
Monday, March 05, 2018
1:00-7:00 PM EST
The Westin
5951 Silver King Boulevard
Cape Coral, FL 33914
ST. PETERSBURG
Tuesday, March 13, 2018
1:00-7:00 PM EST
University of South Florida – St. Petersburg
University Student Center
200 6th Ave S
St. Petersburg, FL 33701