Carlos Guillermo Smith wants to make it easier to pass ballot initiatives in Florida

TALLAHASSEE, FLA. 11/30/21-Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando, asks a question during the House Health Care Appropriations Subcommittee, Tuesday at the Capitol in Tallahassee. COLIN HACKLEY PHOTO

After initiatives to protect abortion rights and legalize marijuana failed in November, Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith filed a joint resolution to make it easier for voters to pass future constitutional amendments.

Under SJR 864, the threshold for ballot initiatives to pass would get lowered from 60% to 50%.

“We deserve a fair, democratic process for amending Florida’s constitution, but politicians + special interests put their thumb on the scale, blocking citizen-led initiatives to protect the status quo,” Smith, an Orlando Democrat, said on X.

The pro-abortion rights Amendment 4 initiative captured 57% of the vote, just short of the 60% supermajority to pass. Amendment 3 to legalize marijuana also failed with about 56% of the vote.

Smith is unlikely to make much progress in a Republican-controlled Legislature since it was Republicans who supported raising the bar to 60% in the first place.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, in fact, has recently pushed for making changes that would make it more difficult for citizen-led groups, like the abortion rights initiative, to get on the ballot

Once the Republicans seized control of the Legislature in 1996, they became concerned as voters approved initiatives about class-size limits, universal pre-K and a high-speed rail system connecting several cities, all of which lacked funding mechanisms to pay for them, University of Central Florida political science assistant professor Aubrey Jewett previously told Florida Politics.

What pushed Republicans to act was one ballot initiative over protections for pregnant pigs in 2002.

“But really pregnant pigs, is that the kind of thing that should be in the Florida Constitution?” was the mindset back then, Jewett said.

In 2006, the Legislature asked voters to raise the approval rating to 60% for future ballot measures. The Legislature’s initiative to create the supermajority requirement passed — ironically with only 58% of the vote.