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Initiative On Gay Marriage On Ballot

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By BILL KACZOR, The Associated Press

Published: February 2, 2008

TALLAHASSEE - A citizen initiative to ban gay marriage will be on the November ballot, the only one of more than 50 active petition drives that qualified Friday at the deadline for signature verification.

Hometown Democracy, which would have required voter approval of local growth-plan changes, was the only other proposal that appeared to have a chance before the 5 p.m. deadline, but it missed the mark.

Officials, though, ran out of time before they could process all signatures because of a deluge of petitions submitted in the past month and the diversion of county election workers to preparing for and carrying out Tuesday's presidential primaries.

It could not immediately be determined whether there were enough unprocessed signatures to have placed Hometown Democracy on the ballot.

Each proposed state constitutional amendment required 611,009 signatures. That is 8 percent of Florida voters who cast ballots in the last presidential election. The 8 percent criteria also had to be met in at least 13 of Florida's 25 congressional districts.

The same-sex marriage ban was certified with 649,346 signatures - 38,337 more than the minimum. Hometown Democracy, which was opposed by developers, businesses and many local officials, failed by 65,182 signatures.

Hometown Democracy's backers said they will continue their drive and seek certification for the 2010 ballot, possibly within the next couple of months. Petitions are good for four years.

The Letter Of The Law

Secretary of State Kurt Browning rejected a request by the Florida chapter of the Sierra Club, which supports Hometown Democracy, to delay ballot certification until all signatures submitted before Friday's deadline are checked and counted if they are valid.

"The Florida Constitution requires ballot placement to occur on Feb. 1, and the Division of Elections has a rule that requires the state to base placement on the total number of signatures received by the state before 5 p.m.," said Browning spokesman Sterling Ivey.

In a request to Browning and Gov. Charlie Crist, Sierra Club officials said a delay would be justified because of the primary, which moved up this year from March, as well as problems in the state's electronic counting system and the verification process in some counties.

Opponents of Hometown Democracy, including developers and other business interests, jumped the gun and declared the proposal that would require voter approval of changes in local growth plans was dead, at least for this year.

Sponsors of the single-gender marriage ban announced in December that they had obtained enough verified signatures. State officials then lowered the count because of a glitch in the Division of Elections' electronic reporting system, which had double counted some signatures.

Browning shut down the system and stopped posting daily updates on the division's Web site. The last official posting, on Jan. 14, showed that the gay marriage amendment was 21,989 signatures short. Hometown Democracy needed 109,479 more signatures.

The next closest proposal as of Jan. 14 had less than half of the necessary signatures.

After finding out it was short, Florida4Marriage.org submitted 92,000 more signatures, said the group's leader, Orlando lawyer John Stemberger.

Glut Of Petitions

Hometown Democracy submitted nearly 800,000 signatures, said the group's leader, Palm Beach lawyer Lesley Blackner.

Some of Hometown Democracy's opponents proposed an alternate growth-management initiative, but Floridians for Smarter Growth acknowledged before the deadline that it did not have enough signatures. Its petitions, though, contributed to the glut that kept Hometown Democracy off the ballot.

Michael Caputo of Floridians for Smarter Growth said its backers, including the Florida Chamber of Commerce, have not decided whether to seek certification for the 2010 ballot.

Caputo acknowledged that the campaign he was managing was designed to keep Hometown Democracy off the ballot this year so opponents would have more time to organize for 2010.

Blackner said the law gives election supervisors too much discretion and some have given signature verification low priority. She also blamed the Legislature's decision to move the presidential primary from March to January.

Another anti-Hometown Democracy group, Save Our Constitution, tried to get voters to revoke their signatures under a recently passed law.

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