A.G. Gancarski
A poll released Thursday by Quinnipiac suggests that an “all-time high” number of Floridians want legalized, adult-use cannabis.
“Florida voters support 65 – 30 percent, an all-time high in the state, allowing adults to legally possess small amounts of marijuana for personal use. Republicans are divided 48 – 48 percent, as every other listed group supports the measure. Voters would support 61 – 34 percent the sale of legal marijuana in their community,” the pollsters assert.
Even voters over 65 years of age back legalization, at 52 percent of the cohort. Whites, African Americans, and Hispanics all support legalization with between 66 and 68 percent.
Other polls, such as one by the University of North Florida, shows statewide conceptual support for legalization over the 60 percent threshold. These numbers track with national polling on the issue, which routinely tops 60 percent support now.
This level of support would seemingly bode well for a citizen’s initiative to legalize in 2020.
However, the push for the 2020 ballot thus far has started low and gone slow.
With just 62,911 signatures presented, organizers are still roughly 14,000 shy of the threshold for a judicial and financial impact review, and roughly 700,000 below getting a ballot position.
Sensible Florida raised just over $8,000 in May. With just over $20,000 on hand, petition collection will be a challenge.
Efforts in the Florida Legislature to get legalization bills through stalled in 2019.
While those bills will be back in 2020, the dynamics likely won’t change from the year before, making a citizen’s initiative the clearest path to policy change that polls say Floridians want.
6 comments
gary
June 20, 2019 at 5:36 pm
NO!
Sam
June 23, 2019 at 7:42 am
YES!
Christopher Kennard
June 20, 2019 at 7:14 pm
What is going on in Washington D.C. is going on here in Florida. Volunteers in North Central Florida are taking steps to counter damage done by our legislators and Governor who passed a bill, [HB 5], to hinder and end the right of citizens to use the ballot initiative petition process to create, support and approve “our” laws that our politicians refuse to pass. As necessary, we will file a legal challenge to end this sneak attack against citizen’s rights in Florida . . . a shot for freedom from tyranny to be heard around the state in every nook and cranny and under every rock that politicians will seek to hide.
A Washington Post article [Sunday, June 10, 2019] and other news stories echo what I tried to say to folks regarding the HB 5 bill passed by the Florida Legislature and signed by Governor Ron DeSantis. Not everyone at the June 7th-9th Orlando Democratic Party’s Leadership Conference may have understood how to turn this set-back around to use, but many saw collectively, we in effect can change the game on the ground. Anyone who really cares can sign or hand out petitions.
People do see and feel positive change happening right before their eyes and in their lives! Petitions going from one voter to another, to be signed and mailed or handed in weekly. But this must be done statewide to succeed! The following two paragraph quote succinctly states the case I have raised with folks around the State of Florida.
“Progressive voices have long relied on the ballot initiative process as their best last resort. In recent years, they have successfully mobilized voters to restore voting rights to felons, legalize medical marijuana, and reduce class sizes. But they now face laborious signature-gathering requirements and hundreds or thousands of dollars in fines for errors.
The Miami Herald reported that DeSantis led the charge to get the ballot initiative bill, known as HB5, signed into law. Per the Herald, it had languished earlier in the 2019 legislative session until the Republican governor intervened at the eleventh hour to amend it to an unrelated piece of legislation.”
Progressive Independent voters such as myself try to engage with the all political parties, the Democratic Party included, to achieve our mutual goals. This is one occasion to do so. We register voters; gather the 766,200 petition we need; find and support good candidates, and then go vote in 2020. Voters can print out three petitions, sign one and pass two on to help.
But only If we accept this challenge to do so! Every signed petition; every conversation with voters creates momentum. This building momentum will carry the day and the 2020 elections to victory! Now is the time to do this! We have until the end of this year to collect petitions (December 2019) and build momentum up for the 2020 election.
We have the Medicaid Coverage To Eligible Low-Income Adults in Florida [Ballot Initiative Serial # 18-16] and Raising Florida’s Minimum Wage [Ballot Initiative Serial # 18-01] (both are the initial “starting steps” in Florida to pass national policies), as well as one of the most comprehensive yet short and concise legal cannabis laws in the country, sponsored by the non-partisan statewide citizen volunteer groups, Florida Cannabis Action Network (FL CAN) and Floridians For Freedom (FFF). RIGHT OF ADULTS TO CANNABIS, [Ballot Initiative Serial # 15-20] petitions are found at FloridiansForFreedom.com to print out, sign, share with others and hand to us within our county groups or mail in. We groups in all 67 Florida counties.
NOTE: FFF says “sign all legal cannabis petitions for a choice at the ballot box when we vote, if you agree with the new law being proposed”. There is one other active ballot initiative, REGULATE FLORIDA [Ballot Initiative Serial # 16-02] supported by cannabis businesses, plus two Medical Marijuana ballot initiatives, but neither are very active collecting petitions; Marijuana Plants for Medical Marijuana Patients [Ballot Initiative Serial # 18-02] and Expanded Medical Marijuana to Include Mental Health [Ballot Initiative Serial # 18-05].
Due to the HB 5 bill’s new restrictions on petition gathering, until challenged, we may now have to hand or mail in all signed petitions every week to the sponsor group supporting each separate petition, so they have enough time (30 days) to submit each voter signed petition to the Elections Office in the county where the voter lives and is registered to vote.
Three simple steps. (1) We mobilize a majority of voters to sign petitions who do not like losing their right to write laws under which they agree to live and abide by. Particularly from politicians who have refuse to pass laws the majority of Floridians support, forcing us to do it ourselves, through petitions, then voting on Election Day. (2) We find, vote and elect good honest people in Florida who support our state constitutional rights along with the laws we approve by 60% of the vote to serve us on the local, state and federal level. (3) We reverse to remove this HB 5 law from Florida law.
These 3 steps will do it!
In Florida, we can wait no longer. We must act now, as we can. We use three public policy ballot initiative petitions to move us forward in Florida. By using our ballot initiative petitions to “breach the wall of privacy” we can approach and open up discussions with Florida voters over the next year as to who the best candidate for President in 2020 may be. We collect the required 766,200 Florida voter signed petitions in order to vote to approve these provisions. We find and elect those true honest progressive candidates with integrity who campaign in Florida and will support all of the proposed laws we intend to pass. We vote to approve these laws in 2020.
We thereby offer hope and build the firm belief within voters that we can achieve significant gains while electing good people to office to support them. We have still have the time to do this. We just need to do it! We just need to collect the signed petitions. It is why signing one, passing two on to collect when signed by voters who do the same, “sign one, pass two along,” collect and mailing even three petitions helps. We then elect our candidates to support our laws . . . 1,2,3 !!!
We will have copies of all these proposed ballot initiative laws. Call for pick-up of signed petitions, pre-paid mailing arrangements for 100 or more signed petitions and new petition pick-up sites. Better yet, please, if you can, make [exact] copies yourself for others to sign! This is a volunteer movement. Most folks do what they can to help. In every county of Florida, folks can do the same. To succeed, we need you to help us. The effort we make benefits us all now and in the future. Although this new law is likely to be successfully contested in court, it is best be prepared and get moving now!
Contact and join us! We could sure use your assistance to build a better tomorrow! Upon electing Bernie Sanders President and other progressive candidates in Florida, we intend to counter and roll back this effort to end the Florida citizens ballot initiative process. In this regard, the wave of our changes continue on to 2022!
The Medicare Medicaid Coverage To Eligible Low-Income Adults in Florida [Ballot Initiative Serial # 18-16] is a volunteer petition drive, sponsored by groups like Florida Voices for Health, SEIU, Planned Parenthood, Organize Florida and Indivisible, among others, intending to assist those who have little to no medical care or coverage. You can make copies.
The RIGHT OF ADULTS TO CANNABIS [Ballot Initiative Serial # 15-20] is also a volunteer citizens coalition formed under the name FLORIDIANS FOR FREEDOM (FFF) that initially arose from the FLORIDA CANNABIS ACTION NETWORK (FL CAN) who provided much of the medical information used to pass our 2016 Medical Marijuana Amendment and other legal cannabis proponents. Petitions can be found @ FloridiansForFreedom.com.
Print out, read . . . if you agree, please sign one and pass two along to other voters. Ask them to do the same, sign one, pass two along to create our “daisy chain” of all three Florida voter signed progressive petitions we can vote to approve in 2020. Five signed petitions per stamp and envelope can be mailed to the address noted below or to the sponsor’s addresses contained on the petitions themselves for each separate group and issue. We must submit them by end of December 2019, to be verified by the Florida Division of Elections by February 1st, 2020. Contact us for pick-ups!
Christopher M. Kennard Nancy Hauser Jason Lundock
North Central Florida Volunteer Petition Coordinators
BERNIE SANDERS 2020 VOLUNTEER OCALA FLORIDA HEADQUARTERS
@ 4315 SE 10th Place, Ocala Florida 34471
(Petition Site and Regional Office)
Cogent Observer
June 21, 2019 at 9:56 am
The foregoing is irrelevant, as well as a dumb tirade. Much like Bernie.
Sam
June 23, 2019 at 7:44 am
WRONG!
Sam
June 23, 2019 at 7:45 am
WRONG!
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