A preview of constitutional revision.

• Author: Kearney, Deborah K.
• Position: Florida

On May 5, 1998, the Florida Constitution Revision Commission filed its proposed amendments with the Secretary of State. The proposed revisions will be submitted to Florida electors at the general election on November 3, 1998. At the time this article went to press, 33 of the 187 proposals considered by the commission survived the lengthy deliberative process.(1) Members of the public participated throughout this process, from last summer's 12 statewide public hearings, which were the genesis of many proposals, to the final public hearings in March, when members of the public spoke on the more than 40 proposals that survived the first round of cuts. Public participation will culminate this November when voters register their opinions on the commission's final product.

The commission's Committee on Style and Drafting was charged with refining the proposals, recommending whether and how they should be grouped, and preparing ballot title and summary language. Ultimately, the 33 proposals were grouped into nine revisions, the form in which they will appear on the ballot. The revisions are as follows:

* Local Option for Selection of Judges and Funding of State Courts

* Basic Rights

* Public Education of Children

* Miscellaneous Matters and Technical Revisions

* Conservation of Natural Resources and Creation of Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

* BallotAccess, Public Campaign Financing, and Election Process Revisions

* Restructuring the State Cabinet

* Local and Municipal PropertyTax Exemptions and Citizen Access to Local Officials

* Firearms Purchases: Local Option for Criminal History Records Check and Waiting Period

Selection of Judges and Funding of State Courts

The issue of whether state trial court judges should be elected or selected and retained through a merit system has long been a topic of debate. Currently, only appellate judges are selected and retained through the merit system, while circuit and county court trial judges are elected. However, many of these trial judges are initially appointed through merit selection, depending upon the timing of the vacancy they fill. These appointed trial judges then become subject to subsequent elections. This revision would allow each circuit and county to determine for itself whether to continue electing its trial court judges or to adopt merit selection and retention. The electors of, each circuit and county would make an initial determination at the general election of the year 2000. The revision also allows for subsequent opting out of the merit selection and retention system.

The judicial revision also addresses the allocation of funding for the state courts system. When Article V was substantially revised in 1972, creating a state courts system .in place of the myriad of local tribunals and officers, it was largely promoted and accepted with the promise that local governments would be relieved of the costs of operating courts. Unfortunately, the state never fully assumed the costs. To that end, the revision assigns the state the responsibility of funding the state courts system, state attorneys' offices, public defenders' offices, and court-appointed counsel.

Funding for the offices of the clerks of the circuit and county courts performing court-related functions is to be provided by users of the courts through filing fees and service charges and costs. Counties, however, will be required to fund the costs of construction, lease, maintenance, utilities, security of facilities for the trial courts, public defenders' offices, state attorneys' offices, and the offices of the clerks of the circuit and county courts, as well as the costs of communications services, existing radio systems, and multi-agency criminal justice information systems.

The revision also increases county court judges' terms from four to six years and corrects the term of office for one of the members of the Judicial Qualifications Commission, which had been inadvertently omitted.

Basic Rights

The revision entitled "Basic Rights" deals with [sections] 2 of Article I, which bears the same name. The proposed amendment adds "national origin" to the existing list of protected classes, which consists of race, religion, and physical handicap. "Physical handicap" is changed to "physical disability," under the reasoning that the former has fallen out of fashion as a derogatory term for persons with disabilities. This was considered by the commission to be purely a technical change. Finally, the proposal adds that all natural persons, who are declared to be equal before the law, includes "female and male alike."(2) This would explicitly recognize the equality of women and men.

Public Education of Children

The education package includes two amendments to Article IX, [sections] 1, also known as the education article. The first is aspirational in nature. It declares the education of children to be a fundamental value of the people of Florida and adequate provision for education to be a paramount duty of the state. The second amendment requires that adequate provision be made for a "uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools."(3) If adopted, this revision would restore the state's duty to...