A new survey by St. Pete Polls found just under half of Florida voters interested in another hurdle on constitutional amendments.
Pollsters asked voters the following question: “Would you support a state Constitutional Amendment that would require that new state constitutional amendments to be approved by voters in two separate elections before going into effect?”
They found just over 49 percent of voters in support of such a measure. Almost 30 percent of voters opposed to such a change.
Perhaps most significantly, more than 21 percent of voters remain undecided about such a proposal.
It takes 60 percent support for a proposed amendment to be enshrined in the Florida Constitution. That’s reachable by swaying just over half of undecided voters, according to the survey results.
The measure would only need to be approved once to pass.
Support for the concept didn’t vary tremendously based on party. Independents showed the strongest level of support, more than 51 percent. But 49 percent of Democrats and 48 percent of Republicans also favor the proposal.
Similarly, breakdowns by age, race and gender showed all demographics with between 47 and 51 percent support.
There seemed greater deviation in different media markets. In the Fort Myers market, for example, more than 56 percent of voters favor a “Pass It Twice” rule, as do 54 percent of voters in Jacksonville. Meanwhile, just 44 percent of Orlando voters favor the change, and less than 46 percent of Miami voters would vote yes.
The question matches to language pushed by Keep Our Constitution Clean.
The citizen initiative has found support, having turned in 215,768 valid signature of the 766,200 required to get a measure on the ballot.
That’s more than enough to have already triggered a judicial review by the state Supreme Court.
The political committee behind the ballot measure raised $100,000 toward a campaign for the initiative. Ore importantly, almost $3.9 million in in-kind services were provided through September in support of the “Pass It Twice” amendment.