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· Current Circulating
Initiatives · Who’s Behind VoteSmartFlorida? · Nationwide Initiative
Process History of Florida’s
Initiative Use |
2004 Lookout Petitions Currently Circulating: What
Initiatives Might Make the 2004 Ballot? Tort Reform This
is probably a familiar issue because interest groups have been going back and
forth in a legislative war of sorts for years over tort reform. This term there
is a measure proposed by Citizens for a Fair Share (Doctors) and a series of
counter-initiatives proposed by Floridians for Patient Protection (Lawyers). Citizens
for a Fair Share have proposed a “measure providing all persons entitled
to recover damages in a civil action for bodily injuries/death may not
recover in the aggregate more than $500,000 (which excludes any economic
loss)”. Among those who support/compose Citizens for a Fair Share are
the Florida Medical Association, Floridians for Quality, Affordable Health
Care, Inc., Florida Surgical Society, Neurological Injury Compensation
Association, and the Collier County Medical Society. The Look
for the Doctors on the Web at www.citizensforafairshare.org and the Minimum Wage This
initiative creates a Florida Minimum Wage which will be applied to all
persons who are currently covered by Federal Minimum Wage beginning at
$6.15/hr six months after enactment and thereafter indexed for inflation
annually. Proponents
of this measure include primarily Florida Association of Community
Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the Justice Corps, a coalition of
organizations called Floridians for All (Public Action Committee), and more
generally some Florida Democrats, African Americans, Hispanics and minimum
wage workers. Opponents so far have included some Republicans and
corporations/business that employ a significant number of minimum wage
workers. Look
for a brief summary of Floridians for All’s position at www.floridansforall.org/index.php?id=97. Partial Repeal of Amendment 9: Class Size
Reduction The
Partial Repeal of Amendment 9 was supposed to appear on the 2004 ballot, but
some state lawmakers felt that support for the measure was still to strong to
pass a repeal so soon, so lookout for this initiative in 2006. The
initiative itself is a partial repeal of Amendment 9, a measure passed to
reduce class size. The new initiative will remove the maximum number of
students per classroom for grades 4-12 established when the initiative was
passed in 2002 while maintaining the restrictions for pre-K-3. The partial
repeal also notes that the state is not “fiscally responsible”
for local school districts. This
measure has found strong support in the Legislature, particularly among
Senator King, R-Jacksonville and Senator Smith, D-Gainesville. Outside of
these supporters, organizations like Florida Tax Watch have fallen behind the
measure, which was being placed on the ballot by the Committee for Better
Education, chaired by Burt Sanders. A number of local educational
organizations, including Citizens for the |
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