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Court Consistent With County Mayor Ruling

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By DAVID CATON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 6, 2008

This concerns The Tampa Tribune Aug. 2 story, "County Mayor Not Likely To Make Ballot." I have helped lead numerous petition efforts throughout Florida, one of which was ended by a very similar court ruling. It is encouraging to see the court rule in the county mayor case in a manner that is consistent with how it ruled in our 1995 city of Tampa referendum case.

The proposed county mayor charter language says an election for the mayoral post "shall be held in even number years, beginning with the general election held in the year 2008." Sponsors of the charter amendment intended for the amendment authorizing the county mayor to appear on the 2006 ballot which, if approved by voters in 2006, would have properly set a time line for the next election cycle of 2008 to hold a vote on the first mayor. However, the authorizing amendment for county mayor did not make it on the 2006 ballot. Therefore, if the charter amendment authorizing the new county mayor position did not make it on the 2006 ballot there would be no way that the first election for county mayor could legally occur in 2008.
Circuit Court Judge James Arnold correctly ruled that the letter of the law, in this case the election date specified in the proposed amendment, could not be lawfully fulfilled.

Judge Arnold's ruling is consistent with a ruling issued by Manuel Menendez, Jr. in March 1995 regarding a referendum that Florida Family Association sponsored. Citizens for Fair Tampa filed a lawsuit against the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections to challenge our referendum to repeal the city of Tampa's Sexual Orientation Amendment, which was placed on the March 7, 1995, ballot. The suit alleged that the Tampa City Council illegally altered the ballot question from what appeared on the citizens' petition that had authorized the repeal amendment.

Judge Menendez agreed with the plaintiffs' position and struck the repeal referendum from the ballot. Our legal counsel asked the judge to authorize placing the ballot question as it appeared on the petition during the next election when all polls in the city of Tampa would be open. We asked the judge to consider this because it was the Tampa City Council's fault, not the petition signers or our political committee, that illegally altered the ballot question.

However, Judge Menendez disagreed with our request to allow the ballot question to appear on any other election because our authorizing petition specified that the repeal referendum would be placed on the March 7, 1995, city of Tampa ballot. Even though the Tampa City Counsel's meddling with our ballot question was the sole reason why the judge struck our referendum, Judge Menendez ruled on the letter of the law, in this case the date specified in the petition could not be fulfilled and the court did not have the authority to change the date.

We appealed Judge Menendez's ruling to the Second District Court of Appeals. The Second District Court of Appeals "per curium affirmed" Judge Menendez's ruling. Our referendum could not proceed because the date specified in the authorizing petition could not be lawfully fulfilled.

Our campaign supporters and petition signers felt at the time in 1995 that the courts' rulings put form over substance and disenfranchised the bigger picture that the 15,000 petition signers called for in their petition. However, after emotions settled we saw what the bigger picture really is that all registered voters, not just a small percentage that signed the petition, expect our courts and elected constitutional officers to follow the letter of the law exactly as it is printed even when the letter of the law is a proposed amendment initiated by the people.

David Caton is the executive director of the Florida Family Association.

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