Opinion ID: 4679985
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Summary of Core Analysis

Text: Our precedent correctly states that a ballot summary must simply and accurately summarize the change in Florida law that would occur if a proposed amendment is adopted. This implies— and we have expressly held—that the summary need not address secondary issues or ramifications, including federal law. See Advisory Opinion to Atty. Gen. re Use of Marijuana for Certain Med. Conditions (Medical Marijuana I), 132 So. 3d 786, 808 (Fla. 2014) (“This Court has . . . never required that a ballot summary inform voters as to the current state of federal law [or] the impact of a proposed state constitutional amendment on federal statutory law . . . .”). The fallacy in the majority’s conclusion that this summary misleads as to federal law when accurately explaining the Florida law change proposed in the amendment is most easily illustrated by analogy. If, for example, you and I were instructed on a onequestion final exam to summarize the predominant compounds present in the earth’s atmosphere and answered that the earth’s atmosphere is predominantly comprised of nitrogen (approximately 78%) and oxygen (approximately 21%), our summary should be - 21 - viewed as correct because the rest of the gases combined account for only about 1% of the earth’s atmosphere. UCAR Center for Science Education, https://scied.ucar.edu/shortcontent/earthsatmosphere (last visited Apr. 15, 2021). We would be quite upset, and rightfully so, if we were told by our professor that we had failed the exam because our answer was misleading in that it did not explain that the sun’s atmosphere is different. 4 Our justifiable confusion would be even more profound if the test instructions had plainly stated that our summary need not list predominant compounds in the sun’s atmosphere and need not explain differences between the earth’s atmosphere and the sun’s. There is no logical difference between my hypothetical professor’s illogical explanation for an unjustifiable failing grade and the majority’s explanation for “strik[ing] the proposed amendment on the ground that the ballot summary is affirmatively misleading.” Majority op. at 1. 4. Our sun’s atmosphere is predominantly comprised of hydrogen (75%) and helium (24%). Katharina Lodders, Solar System Abundances and Condensation Temperatures of the Elements, 591 The Astrophysical J. 1220, 1220 (2003) (rounded number to the second significant figure). - 22 -