Florida bill CS/HB497 has passed several committees in the House, and is currently in the Development & Community Affairs Policy Council. It would outlaw paying initiative circulators on a per-signature basis. It would not apply to people who circulate petitions for candidates. Of course, the only candidate petitions remaining in Florida are petitions in lieu of filing fee, and petitions for independent presidential candidates. It is always peculiar when legislators introduce a bill that is supposedly needed to protect the signature-gathering process, and then that legislator makes the bill applicable only to one type of petition. Thanks to Richard Moroney for the news.
Another attempt to make it more difficult to put things on the ballot so the establishment politicians can keep more power for themselves.
An omnibus election bill has now emerged in the state senate (SB 956) and it includes the paid petitioner provisions contained in CS/HB497. As this year’s omnibus bill, this legislation seems very likely to pass. Anyone opposed would be well advised to get busy with heavy lobbying immediately.
Interesting, I thought Florida did away with petition requirements for ballot access via a ballot measure.
I mean I can understand the need to have regulation over ballot (and public debate) access, but ….
The courts have generally looked on pay-per sig bans with disfavor, striking the bans down in most cases. Most recently Ohio’s ban fell in Citizens for Tax Reform v Deters where the 6th circuit said: “By making speech more costly, the State is virtually guaranteeing there will be less of it.”
For an update, see here:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/legislature/article993043.ece