The Tampa Bay Times has recommended against Florida
residents voting in favor of Amendment 1, an opportunity voters will have to
assure funding is available for environmental protection for the next 20 years.
What are they thinking!!
They said the constitution is no place to house funding
options that are more appropriately that of the legislature and governor.
TBT apparently has not been listening to itself over the
last three-plus years as Craig Pittman and others have described time and again
how T-Town’s tea-bagging conservatives gutted and dismantled over 40 years of carefully
developed environmental protections which, by the paper’s own claims, are
crucial to the state’s economic future.
The editorial published in Sunday’s edition correctly identifies
the public’s frustration with Tallahassee’s pathetic attempts to declare its concerns
for all things environmental while systematically destroying the state’s ability to
protect its crucial natural systems. It is no less than stunning that the paper
has somehow forgotten that this legislature and governor halted environmental
land acquisition, decimated the environmental protective capacities of Florida’s
primary agencies responsible for protecting the environment – the Florida
Department of Environmental Protection and the five water management districts
- and blatantly caters to the moneyed demands of special interests.
TBT has gotten so wrapped up in some archaic
narrow-principled idea of proper government it has forgotten why the constitutional
amendment process exists in the first place.
For one thing, instead of frustrated people taking up sticks and stones
against bad government, Florida allows its citizens to use the power of their
right to vote to amend the constitution by referendum, and send a very clear
and strong personal message to the People’s representatives that Tallahassee’s
insulated governor and legislators are not properly representing the People’s
interests. This amendment is a way of
sending them to the corner for a 20-year “time-out,” at least as it relates to
taking care of Florida’s unique natural environment. Amendment 1 is appropriate and badly needed,
and it involves no sticks or stones.
TBT also points out, incredibly, that the Amendment is
somehow flawed because it could lead to further legislative game-playing and funding
skullduggery. This is exactly why the
People are forcing the issue and telling Tallahassee they’ve had enough such
political nonsense. How can it be worse
than what this governor and legislature have already done?
Amendment 1 is a message that, if ignored, Tallahassee does
so at its own political risk. The People should not listen to the Tampa Bay
Times. They should vote for Amendment
1.
