Florida voters will see numerous proposed constitutional amendments on their ballot in November thanks to the once-every-20-years work of the Constitution Review Commission.
Florida voters are likely to see more proposed constitutional amendments on this year’s ballot thanks to the once-every-20-years review process conducted by the Constitution Revision Commission.
Every 20 years, the Florida Constitution requires a committee to review the entire document and propose changes to voters. 2018 marks the third time such a review has been done since the process was mandated in the 1968 overhaul of Florida’s constitution. The reviewing committee is known as the Constitution Revision Commission (CRC) and has been meeting since the fall of 2017, holding community hearings and gathering information.
The CRC is composed of 37 members. The Governor appoints 15 members, the Florida Senate President appoints 9, the Florida House Speaker appoints 9, the Florida Chief Justice appoints 3, and Florida’s Attorney General is an automatic member. Its final public hearing was held March 13, 2018. The CRC has until May 10 to decide which proposals to submit to voters. The CRC’s proposals will appear on the November 6 ballot and must be approved by 60% of the voters in order to be adopted.
There are five ways to propose amendments to the Florida Constitution: 1) by the Florida Legislature; 2) by the CRC; 3) by citizen initiative; 4) by a constitutional convention; and 5) by a taxation and budget reform commission that, like the CRC, meets every 20 years. Past CRCs have proposed a total of 17 amendments, and voters have approved of 8 of them. Stay tuned to see which proposals will make the ballot this year.
For more information about the process, visit ProtectFLDemocracy.org and flcrc.gov