Opinion ID: 1572909
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Creation of a Right

Text: The deception commences with a misleading ballot title: Florida Growth Management Initiative Giving Citizens the Right to Decide Local Growth Management Plan Changes. (Emphasis supplied.) A right is defined as [a] power, privilege, or immunity secured to a person by law. Black's Law Dictionary 1347 (8th ed.2004) (emphasis supplied). The use of this word in the title clearly implies that if voters approve this amendment, they will have a right to vote on any proposed local-growth-management changes. However, one need look no further than the actual text of the proposal to reveal the deceptiveness of this title, for the text announces that the amendment only allows for  a limited opportunity for voters to approve or disapprove these plans or amendments. (Emphasis supplied.) Hence, even the sponsors recognized that the instant amendment does not create a right, but only a very limited opportunity which is contingent upon the occurrence of multiple preconditions. Such a false promise is patently misleading. This Court has previously stricken amendments from the ballot where the titles and summaries have purported to promote greater rights or impose additional restrictions on government, but have in fact actually limited existing rights or relaxed existing restrictions. In Armstrong, this Court held that a ballot title, which read United States Supreme Court Interpretation of Cruel and Unusual Punishment and a summary, which provided that the proposed amendment [r]equires construction of the prohibition against cruel and/or unusual punishment to conform to United States Supreme Court interpretation of the Eighth Amendment, were affirmatively misleading. See 773 So.2d at 16-17. This Court explained that although the title offered the impression that the amendment will promote the rights of Florida citizens through the rulings of the United States Supreme Court, the amendment actually restricted the rights of Floridians because the United States Constitution ban against cruel and unusual punishment provided fewer protections than the Florida Constitution ban on cruel or unusual punishment. See id. at 17. This Court ultimately concluded that the amendment flew under false colors because a citizen could well have voted in favor of the proposed amendment thinking that he or she was protecting state constitutional rights when in fact the citizen was doing the exact opposite i.e., he or she was voting to nullify those rights. Id. at 18. In Askew v. Firestone, 421 So.2d 151, 153, 156 (Fla.1982), this Court struck a proposed amendment from the ballot with a title, Financial Disclosure Required Before Lobbying by Former Legislature and Statewide Elective Officers, and a summary which provided that the proposed amendment would impose financial-disclosure restrictions on former legislators and elected officials who sought to lobby before any state government body. This Court concluded that the proposed amendment flew under false colors because the summary failed to note that the amendment would actually abolish an existing two-year complete ban on such lobbying activities: Although the summary indicates that the amendment is a restriction on one's lobbying activities, the amendment actually gives incumbent office holders, upon filing a financial disclosure statement, a right to immediately commence lobbying before their former agencies which is presently precluded. The problem, therefore, lies not with what the summary says, but, rather, with what it does not say. .... If the legislature feels that the present prohibition against appearing before one's former colleagues is wrong, it is appropriate for that body to pass a joint resolution and to ask the citizens to modify that prohibition. But such a change must stand on its own merits and not be disguised as something else. Id. at 155-56 (emphasis supplied) (footnote omitted). In the instant case, the title of the proposed amendment similarly flies under false colors with its false promise that it creates a right. The misleading nature of this title is further compounded by the fact that significant prerequisites and extreme limitations to referenda under the proposal render this purported right almost completely illusory.