Jim Rosica
A proposed constitutional amendment would ensure that future governors could appoint new judges and justices up to their last day in office.
But John Stemberger, the member of the Constitution Revision Commission who filed the amendment Thursday, said he was temporarily withdrawing the proposal to correct a drafting error.
The amendment would make certain that judicial terms end the day before a new governor takes over from a sitting one.
“The proposal should have had an effective date of 2020, well beyond the current legal dilemma that potentially presents itself in January of 2019 when the new Governor is sworn in,” he wrote in an email early Friday.
Attorneys are set to argue a related case against Gov. Rick Scott before the Florida Supreme Court next Wednesday.
“I am not seeking to interfere with the circumstances of legal battles for the judges currently set to retire in 2019, but merely to avoid this miniature constitutional crisis into the future by simply changing the dates so they do not coincide together,” he added.
Progressive groups have challenged Scott’s authority to appoint three new Supreme Court justices on the last day of his term in 2019.
Stemberger, an Orlando attorney and president of the conservative Florida Family Policy Council, aims to “revise the date on which the term of office begins for judicial offices subject to election for retention.”
The amendment aims “to avoid the ambiguity and litigation that may result by having the terms of judicial officers and the Governor end and begin on the same day.”
It would change the start and end dates of judicial terms from “the first Tuesday after the first Monday in January” following the general election, to “the first Monday in January.”
The League of Women Voters of Florida (LWVF) and Common Cause sued Scott this summer. They seek a “writ of quo warranto,” a court action against government officials to demand they prove their authority to perform a certain action.
Liza McClenaghan, state chair of Common Cause of Florida, said Stemberger’s amendment “thwarts the will of the people and makes government less accountable.” Oral argument in their action is set for next Wednesday morning.
The age-required retirements of three justices—R. Fred Lewis, Barbara Pariente and Peggy A. Quince—occasioned the suit. They are considered the more liberal-leaning contingent of the high court.
Scott, a Naples Republican, has said he plans to name their replacements the morning of his last day in office—Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019.
His attorneys have argued that the justices’ age-mandated retirements also will become effective that Jan. 8.
The League and Common Cause counter that Scott can’t replace those justices because he’ll be out of office earlier on the same day they retire, and their terms last till midnight.
If the commission eventually decides to place Stemberger’s amendment on the 2018 statewide ballot, it still would have to be approved by 60 percent of voters to be added to the state constitution.
The 37-member board is convened every 20 years to review and suggest changes to the state’s governing document. Stemberger was named to the panel by House Speaker Richard Corcoran, a Land O’ Lakes Republican.
One comment
Christopher M. Kennard
October 27, 2017 at 9:05 am
Valid state constitutional amendments have come forth from the people of Florida because the current crop of politicians do not respond to the majority of the state’s voters.
Instead, our politicians are selected, elected and fed from the hands of a corrupt cabal of corporate and industrial interests whose flow of corrosive campaign cash and secret slush funds are undermining our elections, our local, state and federal government’s ability to properly function and the future fate of our nation.
I have commented on the RIGHT OF ADULTS TO CANNABIS [Initiative Serial # 15-20] a state constitutional amendment to legalize cannabis in the State of Florida, first proposed in 2015 by a group of committed Floridians who use cannabis medicinally, to cure and/or alleviate the symptoms of their medical conditions. This group and others inspired the medical marijuana movement to follow the path of the state constitutional amendment ballot initiative process — whereby Florida voters, themselves, can introduce, approve and implement their own state constitutional law without politicians able to derail, deny or defeat the will of the people, once we pass strong clear, concise and effective laws with the necessary safeguards to ensure full implementation.
Errors were made in the Medical Marijuana Amendment and have resulted in the mess being made and the profits reaped for a relatively small powerful, wealthy network of political insiders. It is why this new law is currently in Florida court — to enforce the right of patients to utilize medicinal cannabis by therapeutically “smoking” it for near immediate relief of symptoms related to numerous medical conditions, like ALS, Parkinson’s Disease, pain relief (instead of using addictive pharmaceutical opiates), etc.
I was one of those volunteers on the ground collecting signed petitions from registered voters back in 2012, and since 2015, working with some of the original group to enact new a state constitutional amendment law providing for the right of adults in Florida over the age of twenty-one to possess, use and grow their own cannabis on private property.
This new law establishes legal cannabis status “to the cannabis plant” as well as to restores the right and freedom we once had as American citizens, to “pursue life, liberty and happiness” and the right of adults to our privacy on private property, within our homes, use cannabis.
Go to FloridiansForFreedom.com to print out a copy of this petition to read, and if you agree, to sign one. We ask everyone supporting this right of adults in Florida to possess, use and grow cannabis for medicinal and/or for personal use, to simply relax and enjoy in the privacy of your own home, to please make two or more copies to pass out to other Florida registered voters to sign and pass along two or more copies to others — a statewide cannabis “daisy chain” link generating signed petitions to create this law.
Hope you join the effort.
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