Category Archives: Florida

The New York Times quotes my colleague Patrick Gudridge's charateristic appraisal of the Florida legislature's hasty action in the Schiavo case. See In Florida Right-to-Die Case, Legislation Puts the Constitution at Issue. I especially like the comment that “It's beautifully badly drafted.”

South of the Suwannee is an excellent blog on Southern history and politics. And, for all that those of us in South Florida joke that “you have to go North to get to the South,” or “Miami is New York's sixth borough,” the fact remains that much of Florida, and much of its government, is Southern or at least Southern-like.

Today, South of the Suwannee offeres The Harvest of Shame Continues, which includes a pointer to a St. Petersburg Times column on how the state bought up agricultural land for $120 million to prevent agricultural run-offs that had destroyed a lake.

Closing down the farming meant throwing 2,500 very poor people out of work. The state set up a $5 million fund to help them — but implemented the program in a way that ensured almost none got any money, or indeed any help. Local officials instead diverted the money to other projects that don't have anything to do with helping the farmworkers.

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The Florida blog wonders why so few people, and so few newspapers, seem excited about the highly curious decision of the Florida Pension fund (Jeb Bush, future presidential candidate, proprietor), to bail out the financially unsound Edison Corporation (privatized-schools-'r-us) by buying 96% of its soon to be worthless stock, paying off its debts, and providing a line of credit for operating expenses.

I suppose Governor Bush likes the irony of using public school teachers' pension funds to prop up the folks trying to reduce if not eliminate the public schools. But that doesn't excuse making what appears to be at best a highly risky sweetheart investment, and at worst betraying a fiduciary duty.

In Legalizing Miss Daisy, my item on pigs' rights in Florida, I neglected to mention that pigs have state Constitutional rights in Florida—or rather, pregnant pigs will have state Constitutional rights as of 2008, thanks to an Initiative Petition adopted in the 2002 election.

Article X, § 21 of the Florida Constitution, bans “cruel and inhumane confinement of pigs [helpfully defined as 'any animal of the porcine species'] during pregnancy.” (Full text quoted below.) The initiative that produced this amendment was amazing. I have never been stopped so many times by so many passionate people who wanted my signature. On every occasion I refused, suggesting there were more important issues that we might be spending our time on. Most of the petition gatherers were politely incredulous at this reaction; only one or two were really rude about it.

Despite this example of voter silliness, on balance I actually think that the ballot initiative process has served the state of Florida well. For example, the voters have approved some environmental measures that might well have not gotten through a legislature in which well-funded businesses seem to have a lot of clout.

But the best example is the recent class size initiative.

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