Thursday's column on Wednesday!

Here's Thursday's print column. I've written on this topic before, but tried to restrain myself so far this year until the Legislature came into session. I get a lot of disagreement from my friends in local government on this topic -- if the government doesn't "educate" the citizens on which way to vote, then who will?

Stop using our money to tell us how to vote

Here is something that ought to be a law in Florida, but isn’t.

Local governments should not be able to take sides in their elections.

What could be more basic? The government is the servant of the taxpayers, not their master.

And yet increasingly, Florida cities, counties and school boards spend public dollars to try to sway election results.

Maybe the government is supporting a tax, such as the Penny for Pinellas, or Pasco County’s local school tax.

Maybe the local government has a strong opinion in favor of or against a particular  amendment or measure on the ballot.

That’s what happened in Pinellas, where cities and the county government spent tax dollars fighting each other over amendments to the County Charter.

I remember opening my water bill, only to see that my city was telling me which way to vote on the charter amendments. Meanwhile, absentee voters received, with their ballot, a propaganda brochure from the county telling them to vote the opposite way.

More recently, St. Petersburg even wanted to hand out a letter to voters inside the polling place on Election Day, warning them that if they did not vote to re-elect a sitting City Council member, they would have to pay for an expensive second election. The city dropped that idea after complaints.

The common theme in all these examples is the itch of the government to “educate” the voters on which way they are “supposed” to vote. I guess that we have come a long way from the spirit of 1776.

This brings us to House Bill 195 and Senate Bill 532, filed in our current session of the Florida Legislature.

Both are sponsored by Pinellas County lawmakers, Janet Long in the House and Charlie Justice in the Senate.

The bills would make it illegal for local governments to spend public money in elections for any “political advertisement or electioneering communication.”

Let’s be crystal clear about two things.

First, the bills do not restrict the “free speech” of local politicians. They can do and say any thing they want. They can campaign all they want. They just can’t spend the public’s money to do it.

Second, the bills do not in any way take away the power of local governments to “educate” the voters in a truly neutral fashion.

Under these bills, local governments remain perfectly free to send out “factual” material about upcoming elections.

I know, I know. The word “factual” could cause problems. One person’s “fact” might be another person’s blatant political ad.

But at least these bills would make it clear local government could no longer blatantly tell people which way it wanted them to vote.

Long and Justice filed their bills last year too, but got a cool reception in Tallahassee. They were opposed by local governments, of course, but even some higher-up legislators didn’t see the need.

This year, maybe things will be different, especially now that the Legislature has seen how local governments tried to “educate” the citizens in opposition to the Legislature’s property tax cuts.

Look, we’re not talking about a revolution here.

We’re talking about a simple idea — in America, the government does not take sides in elections. I can’t imagine a more basic protection for our freedom.

Comments

[Doug]

Howard:

No comment on the column (great job) but one comment I have been meaning to make would be about improving the layout of your blog/website page and, in particular, the link to your columns. In my opinion, I think the link to your columns should be featured a little more prominently than it is now, notwithstanding (and recognizing) that your columns and your blog serve different purposes. Just a thought. Thanks.

[Doug]

Howard:

Ok, I do have one comment on your column. I'm sure it would have been detected before going to press but there's a typo in the following line:

Under these bills, local governments remain perfectly free to sent out “factual” material about upcoming elections.

I think you need to change the word "sent" to "send".

[jacki]

I 100% agree. Foung Charlie Crist wrong to spend $4million dollars and his smiling tan face, pushing his Amendment 1.

[20/20]

Proof reading not withstanding… dead-nuts-on, cognizant, and well written.

[Howard Troxler]

Thanks for catching the typo. I put the unedited version directly on the blog... I try to turn it in to the editors fairly clean, but as you can see, not always successfully.

[guy]

I dont want to rattle on, but it seems that if all the states were run by people with any common sense at all, they would run it like any successful business and have plenty of money to do what they needed to do.
But somehow they are all in the red all the time.
The Governor should be like a CEO and if not, someone with the talent to spend and tax correctly should replace him.
But here we are after 100 years still in debt, in every state in the country ~~~ sad.

[ed]

totally agree with your column-however, with such LOW VOTER TURNOUT, WONDER WHY THE POLITICIANS EVEN BOTHER!!!