Supreme Court justices: Why we booted amendments

The Florida Supreme Court explains why it decided to boot two ballot initiatives that the Taxation and Budget Reform Committee had put on the ballot for November.

Read it here.

The court says: "We find the apellees' and the circuit court's construction of section 6(e) to be contrary to the plain and unambiguous language of the constitutional provision."

Also, the court drills down into TBRC's authority to propose laws dealing with taxation and budget, and saying that they "construe 'state budgetary process' to mean the process by which the state budget is developed."

"TBRC is a constitutional body that has only those powers which were specifically designated to it. If certain powers are not explicitly provided to the Commission, the Court cannot add to the constitutional limitations by expanding its authority beyond the provisions stated," they wrote.

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Comments

Crist better get back to work and develop meaningful reform of the insurance industry as well as tax reform.

There is no way that I am going to vote for anything GOP in this state if they do not introduce a major property tax reform plan before the election. They killed Amendment 5 so they can replace it with something better and I don't care what the chamber of commerce or whoever the GOP works for now tells them. I wish there was some decent democrats or Independents. I am sick of the big business GOP.

11:35 - Baaaaa, be a good sheep now.

[terminator]

haha!
Jeb and his buddy Patricia Levesque go down again!

The commission should have done Pariente's bidding for her as she warned.

All of their amendments would have made it through the Supreme Court, if they had been smart enough to protect the court's funding.

Kudos for the Florida Supreme Court and Justice Cantero's last two cases -- voting with the majority -- meaning seven to zero.

Three Jeb Bush Florida Supreme Court appointees told Jeb that he and his commission did the wrong thing.

The votes on these Florida Supreme Court decisions were seven to zero.

That includes Jeb Bush's three appointees.

Jeb must be bitterly disappointed that his appointees did not march to Bush's drumbeat.

[JOSEPH]

The closing paragraph of this story is that the tax payers "got scr**ed". The courts and judges have again proved to the citizens that the voting property owners are slaves to the state. The courts are supposed to protect the interest of the citizens fairly and in accordance with the law. I don't see that happening! Their rulings smell of corruption and favoritism to the money interest and business groups of this state, not to the voters. The court should be ashamed of themselves, because the citizens are embarrassed by these rulings.

These are florida supreme court judges?? too bad they get confused on ballot amendments the people of florida can understand and want. I guess it has to do with money for the courts. hope they all rot.

The People still need tax relief and tax reform.

The people need an honest commission.

[Rene de Miranda]

We need new judges.If there are enough signatures of voters to include the amendment proposal in the ballot the justice must abide to the will of the people. We must stop the concept of legislating from the bench. FIRE the SOBs. If the Judges were in the ballot box a different decision would have been made.