The Governor Vetos The Anti-Petition Bill

My June 19 column argued that Gov. Charlie Crist should veto Senate Bill 900, which tries to crack down even further on citizen petitions in the state of Florida. The most offensive part of the bill said that petition signatures would be valid for only 30 days before they had to be turned in -- a ridiculous restriction.

The governor vetoed the bill on Tuesday. It was the last day he could act before it would have become law automatically. Here's a copy of his veto letter: [Download sb_900_veto.pdf] I really liked this paragraph:

 

As my column pointed out, we already have imposed three important restrictions on petitions and we should give them time to work:

* It takes 60 percent to pass a constitutional amendment.

* Petitions have to be turned in by Feb. 1 of an election year.

* In another law just passed by the Legislature and signed by Crist, citizens have the right to REVOKE their signatures as well.

That's enough. Senate Bill 900 was just piling on. If you want to see the attitude at work, go read some of the outraged insider comments (made anonymously, of course) on my sister-blog, The Buzz, where Crist is basically getting called a Commie for sticking up for the right to petition.