Thursday, November 29, 2012

Judge: Pinellas term limits has merit, will proceed

Pinellas county commissioners who refuse to comply with Pinellas County's voter-approved 8-year term limits law are in denial. They had hoped for a summary dismissal as the citizen's case as 'frivolous.'
 
But on Nov. 28, Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge John A. Schaefer refused to dismiss the suit, suggesting that citizens may be correct that Commissioners Ken Welch, Susan Latvala, John Morroni and Karen Seel are serving on the Pinellas Commission in violation of the county charter.
 
In 1996, some 73 percent of Pinellas voters approved an 8-year term limits law which, according the Pinellas Charter, went into effect on Jan. 1, 1997. This gave commissioners an additional eight years in office before the term limit kicked in. However, commissioners refused to insert the term limits language into the charter and eight years later commissioners refused to leave.

Commissioners justified their rebellion by claiming county commission term limits are unconstitutional, citing a 2002 case in which the Supreme Court of Florida found term limits on constitutional officers to be unconstitutional.  Relying on this interpretation, they simply ignored a local Pinellas court decision in 2000 to the contrary without even bothering to appeal it!

The only trouble with the constitutionality excuse is that the Supreme Court never ruled on the issue of county commission term limits and when it did, in May of this year, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that, yes, county commission term limits are constitutional and always were. The Supremes even went so far as to overturn their previous split decision on constitutional officers. Oops.

Following the Supreme Court ruling, three Pinellas residents connected with Save Pinellas filed a suit to compel compliance with the term limits provision in the charter.

In yesterday's decision, the judge ruled that the Supervisor of Elections must be dropped from the suit and other minor changes, but that the core of the complaint had merit. It  is unlikely there will be any resolution of this until at least Spring 2013.

If the lawsuit is successful, the governor would have to appoint four new people to fill the vacant seats until the next election.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

2012 ELECTIONS: Florida joins national term limits sweep

Term limits won nearly everywhere they appeared on the ballot in the United States and Florida was part of the national trend.

Across the nation, term limits won in approximately 97% of the jurisdications where the idea appeared on the ballot, with voters either establishing new limits or protecting existing ones from attacks by incumbent politicians.

The big news in Florida is that the largest county in the state overwhelmingly adopted 8-year county commission term limits. Miami-Dade is the 12th of Florida's 20 charter counties to adopt term limits.

Meanwhile in Pinellas County commissioners continue to use taxpayer money to defend themselves from that county's voter-approved 8-year term limits law. But a judge will entertain a motion this week (Nov. 28) to summarily rule against the commissioners.

If you know of any other term limits measures in Florida on Nov. 6, please pass the info along and I will update the list:

BROOKSVILLE, FL -- Weaken 8-year term city council limits
28% YES
72% NO -- TERM LIMITS WIN!

DUNEDIN, FL -- Places 8-year term limits on mayor and city council
YES 70% -- TERM LIMITS WIN!
NO 30%

MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FL -- Establish 8-year county commission term limits
YES 77% -- TERM LIMITS WIN!
NO 23%