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For the seventh time in eight years, a Palm Beach County legislator is still trying to make it virtually impossible for voters to amend their Constitution.

You have to give Rep. Rick Roth credit for persistence in trying to suppress citizen participation in democracy in Florida.

Back to his old tricks, backed by the same old powerful business groups, Roth wants to increase the threshold from 60% to 67% for passage of a constitutional amendment.

Roths proposal (HJR 335) would impose another giant barrier to direct democracy in Florida, while empowering an even smaller minority of one-third of voters to decide the outcome of a statewide election.

This is a sinister ploy to silence the voices of Floridians in the last place where they still have an impact: at the ballot box.

If Roth had his way, Florida would never have raised the minimum wage in 2020, or restored the right to vote to convicted felons (2018), or demanded fairness in how politicians draw congressional and legislative districts (2010).

All three of those are in the constitution after clearing the 60% hurdle, but none reached the lofty 67% that Roth seeks.

Even the wildly popular Save Our Homes amendment, which since 1992 has capped annual assessment increases on homesteaded property at 3%, would never have become law.

Roths rationalization for the higher threshold rests on the premise that voters arent smart enough to figure out the risks of cluttering up the constitution.

The real purpose of the constitution is to protect citizens from our own government, Roth told members of a House subcommittee this week. So I see raising the bar as making sure that the constitution continues to protect you.

Protect us? From what?

Roths gobbledygook tells us nothing. He further weakened his case by noting that voters approved a legislative amendment in 2018 that requires a supermajority vote of two-thirds in the House and Senate to impose or raise state taxes or fees.

Guess what? That didnt reach the 67% threshold, either. It passed by 65.7%.

Florida is already the nations most difficult state for citizens to attain ballot access, as Rich Templin of the Florida AFL-CIO reminded lawmakers in a hearing on Monday. The voters approved the 60% threshold nearly two decades ago.

A Florida ballot initiative now requires nearly 1 million valid signatures, which is an exhausting and expensive undertaking. The Legislature has repeatedly made it more difficult by shortening the lifespan of valid signatures and prohibiting petition circulators from being paid by the petition. (There have been abuses in the signature-gathering process, but a responsible Legislature would promote civic engagement, not try to destroy it.)

But in a tightly scripted House, where every Republican-sponsored bill that reaches the calendar is assured of passage, Roths fellow Republicans raised no insightful questions and rubber-stamped his bill at its last committee meeting Tuesday.

The party-line vote was 11-6, with the no votes cast by five Democrats joined by Republican Rep. Linda Chaney of St. Pete Beach. The local members of the Ethics, Elections and Open Government subcommittee are all Democrats, and voted no, including Rep. Jennifer Rita Harris, Rep. Lavon Bracy Davis and Rep. Kristen Arrington.

As for Roth, the West Palm Beach grower has never come close to winning 67% approval from voters in an election.

In a conservative, rural district stretching across the northern tier of Palm Beach County, he has won four House races with 58, 55, 56 and 60% of the vote against weak opposition. He never came close to reaching the 67% threshold that he wants to impose on others.

Facing term limits in November, Roth has announced plans to run for a state Senate seat.

Roths raising of the bar for democracy requires approval from three-fifths of the House and Senate. If it reached the ballot it would require 60% approval from voters. That may appear hypocritical, but thats the law in Florida.

The good news is that not one senator has filed the same bill, and the 60-day session will reach the midway point next week, so it appears for now that Roths record of futility will remain intact. But with this Legislature, you can never be sure.

The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board includes Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson, Opinion Editor Krys Fluker and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writer Martin Dyckman and Anderson. Send letters to insight@orlandosentinel.com.

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Editorial: Renewing the annual assault on democracy in Florida - Orlando Sentinel

Dear Editor: I am a grandparent concerned about the future for my children and grandchildren.

This countrys representative democracy is at a critical point. If we citizens do not act, we may lose freedoms we now enjoy.

Donald Trump is central to this issue. A jury has determined he committed sexual abuse, which the judge termed rape. A court has determined him to be a cheat and a fraud. He has been charged with numerous federal felonies related to his role in the January 2021 U.S. Capitol riots and to his misappropriation of national security documents. He and his right-wing media supporters continue to mislead and lie about the facts in these matters. He brags about his actions, which led to the elimination of reproductive health rights of women. He has promised to be a dictator.

Admittedly, the state of our politics has been deteriorating for decades and is at an all-time low. It will get downright destructive if Trump returns to the White House.

I care about America and its promise for my and your children and grandchildren. I implore you to get involved, talk with your family and friends, and vote to ensure that Donald Trump is not elected again to the presidency of the United States.

Gene Lillge

Madison

Send your letter to the editor to tctvoice@madison.com. Include your full name, hometown and phone number. Your name and town will be published. The phone number is for verification purposes only. Please keep your letter to 250 words or less.

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Letter | Trump would erode democracy | Letters to the Editor | captimes.com - The Capital Times

By Acorn Staff | on February 03, 2024

Luis P. Sanchez, a Moorpark attorney with offices in Thousand Oaks, has announced the formation of the Madison-Lincoln Initiative, a pending not-for-profit organization whose purpose is to help preserve the nations democratic republic by providing workshops throughout the education community on the history, purpose and basic structure of the U.S. Constitution, and on how to foster civil discourse and civic engagement among our youth.

Sanchez holds a juris doctorate and a masters degree in business and tax law from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law. He has more than 20 years of legal experience and has taught in law classrooms for more than 20 years.

Sanchez will present a discussion on pertinent legal topics at any high school or college in America, in person or by Zoom, without cost wherever six or more students or faculty are willing to assemble for a 90-minute workshop.

He was twice honored as Outstanding Instructor of the Year by students at Sierra College, and has written two textbook supplements on California business law. His Madison-Lincoln Initiative is named after James Madison, the fourth U.S. president and chief architect of the Constitution, and Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president whose leadership during the Civil War culminated in the adoption of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to purge slavery from the Constitution.

Sanchez says he started his not-for-profit organization because of his concern that the American republic may not survive the bitter partisan differences that threaten to divide the country, unless, he says, we re-learn how to engage in respectful discourse with our fellow citizens and deepen our understanding of and commitment to the U.S. Constitution the supreme pact to which we are all pledged.

Sanchez also is offering to help interested students form their own Madison Lincoln Club to promote civic engagement and civil discourseacross partisan and ideological linesat their campus. Students and educators who are interested in having attorney Sanchez speak at their class or elsewhere at school, or if they would like to see a video synopsis of his presentation, email him at lpsanchezlaw@gmail.com or call him at (805) 770-1477.

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Initiative in the interest of democracy - Moorpark Acorn

When youre stuck in the wilderness, Bear Grylls wouldnt suggest you prioritize searching for Wi-Fi. Instead, survival experts would likely tell you to focus on Maslows hierarchy of needs. In other words, you should be trying to address physiological needs before you start thinking about self-actualization. Theres also a hierarchy of democratic needs, but its been forgotten by modern advocates for a more participatory and responsive democracy.

Before explaining further, I should make clear that I wholly support efforts to improve our democracy through thoughtful changes, such as open primaries and campaign finance reform. I applaud and encourage those individuals and organizations working on such causes. But Im increasingly concerned that were putting Wi-Fi before water. More specifically, Im concerned about the 48 million adults (or 23 percent) who struggle to read and the 70 million people (or about 20 percent) who live in or may soon live in a news desert. Absent addressing literacy and access to hard news the first two levels of the hierarchy of democratic needs electoral reforms will not be as impactful as intended.

Lets start with literacy and why its the first step toward democratic actualization. In a democracy, the people are the depository of the ultimate powers of the society, according to Thomas Jefferson. If we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, he continued, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education."

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Jefferson wasnt alone in tying education and, by extension, literacy to the capacity of we, the people to fulfill our democratic responsibilities. According to historian Alan Talor, the Founders viewed education as "a collective, social benefit essential for free government to endure."

In short, democratic governance places power in the people, but to fully exercise that power individuals must have the requisite skills and knowledge. The alternative failing to empower individuals to make informed choices about how to wield their power is akin to giving someone a tennis racket without telling them the rules of the game and teaching them how to serve.

How to exercise that discretion is also contingent on knowing what choices are available thats where access to hard news comes in. Hard news conveys information important to citizens ability to vote, evaluate policies and identify issues in their communities. The Founders addressed this democratic need by creating an expansive postal system and subsidizing the production and dissemination of newspapers that contained more hard news than advertisements.

Today, in contrast, nearly a fifth of Americans live in a news desert, a community, either rural or urban, with limited access to the sort of credible and comprehensive news and information that feeds democracy at the grassroots level. To make matters worse, the creation and spread of AI-generated content has the potential to pollute our information ecosystem making it harder to find democratically salient information. That's why I've called for a "right to reality" that requires subsidies for local and reliable news institutions. This financial boost would make quality journalism more available in every part of the country and, as a result, would dilute the effect of content meant to distract rather than inform.

How best to fully address these needs is a topic for another article. The key takeaway for now is that literacy and access to hard news must be at the top of our reform agenda because theyre at the foundation of the hierarchy of democratic needs. The sooner we focus our resources and attention on these foundational issues, the sooner we can build larger and more inclusive coalitions and movements.

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Literacy, news form the base of the hierarchy of democracy needs - The Fulcrum

As former President Donald Trump edges closer to clinching the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, our political science research has shown that a second Trump presidency is likely to damage American democracy even more than his first term did. The reason has less to do with Trump and his ambitions than with how power dynamics have shifted within the Republican Party.

In our forthcoming book, The Origins of Elected Strongmen: How Personalist Parties Destroy Democracy from Within, we explain the dangers that arise when leaders come to power backed by political parties that exist primarily to promote the leaders personal agenda, as opposed to advancing particular policies.

In general, typical political parties select new leaders at regular intervals, which gives elites in the party another chance to win a nomination in the future if the party is popular. And typical parties tend to select leaders who rise up the ranks of the party, having worked with other party elites along the way.

But so-called personalist parties, as political scientists like us call them, are a threat to democracy because they lack the incentives and ability to resist their leaders efforts to amass more power.

From 1990 to 2020, in countries all over the world, elected leaders backed by personalist parties have gone on to undermine democracy from within. There are three reasons personalist parties are harmful to democracy, all of which have clear parallels to experiences with Trump and the Republican Party.

Personalist party elites are loyal to the leader. A classic indicator of party personalization is the ouster of politically experienced people in the party elite, who are often highly qualified and more independent of the leader and their replacement with less experienced people who are personally loyal to the leader. These people are more likely to view their political success as being intertwined with that of the leader rather than the party. They therefore are more likely to support the leaders agenda, no matter how harmful it may be for democracy.

In Turkey, for example, Recep Tayyip Erdogans Justice and Development Party, known in Turkish as the AKP, initially included elites who were established politicians, such as Ali Babacan, Abdullah Gul and Bulent Arinc. As time passed, however, Erdogan weeded out these veterans and replaced them with more loyal supporters. This paved the way for Erdogan to consolidate control, including among other things shifting power in 2018 from the parliament to the presidency and expanding his powers considerably.

In personalist parties, elites endorse the leaders actions, cueing voters to do the same. Ordinary citizens who support personalist parties often go along with leaders efforts to dismantle democracy, even if they care about democracy, because they are highly receptive to signals provided by the party elite. When the party higher-ups endorse rather than condemn the leaders undemocratic inclinations, supporters get the message that nothing is wrong, and they fall in line.

In Brazil, for example, then-President Jair Bolsonaro generated doubts among supporters that the 2022 presidential elections would be fair, suggesting that electoral officials might manipulate the results in his opponents favor. The political elite, including members of Brazils Congress, amplified these claims.

These elite cues signaled to Bolsonaro supporters that his actions were compatible with a healthy democracy, ultimately setting the stage for them to resort to violence when Bolsonaro lost the election in a contest that independent observers considered free and fair.

Leaders of personalist parties polarize the societies they govern.

While many kinds of leaders demonize their political opponents, we have found that personalist party leaders anti-democratic behaviors such as attempting to overturn an election theyve lost split society into polarized factions: those who support them and everyone else.

When opponents of the leader raise concerns that the leaders actions are harmful to democracy, as the Democrats regularly have since Trump won office in 2016, supporters dig in their heels in defiance, incredulous that there is cause for concern. Affective polarization, where citizens increasingly dislike their opponents, deepens. With the opponents vilified, the leader has the political support to take actions to keep the other side out of power, even if those actions undermine democracy in the process.

Take Venezuela, historically one of the most stable democracies in Latin America. Former President Hugo Chavezs power grabs splintered Venezuelan society, dividing citizens over what the rules of the game should be and who should have access to power. As the chasm between his backers and the opposition grew, so did the abuses of power his supporters were willing to accept to ensure his continued rule. Chavezs actions, which faced no resistance from those in his party, polarized society, ultimately pushing the country toward dictatorship.

The present Republican Party closely fits the personalist mold.

Conventionally, a party leader rises through the party ranks. But Trump didnt do that, and before seeking the presidency, he didnt have strong, collegial relationships with key Republican figures in government. Rather, he switched party allegiance several times and before becoming president had never held any elected office.

Since 2016, Trump has increasingly sidelined the traditional party establishment to remake the party into an instrument to further his own personal, political and financial interests. As an indicator of this, the party elite have grown fearful of diverging from his agenda, so much so that the 2020 GOP platform essentially amounted to whatever Trump wants. Today, the main qualification for a Republican candidate or appointee appears to be loyalty to Trump himself, not fealty to longstanding GOP principles. Traditional parties, including the pre-Trump Republican Party, offer voters a bundle of policy positions hashed out among multiple elite factions of the party.

Trumps supersized control over the Republican Party has transformed other leading party figures into sycophants, always seeking Trumps favor. Even Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, after experiencing ridicule and abuse from Trump, endorsed the former presidents bid to return to the White House.

The personalist nature of the Republican Party means that if Trump were to win office again, he is unlikely to face pushback from the party on any issue. All signs indicate that Trump, if reelected, is likely to pursue an authoritarian power grab by, for example, purging professional bureaucrats, expanding the Supreme Court or using the Insurrection Act to deploy the military against protesters. Party members may even support him in that power grab.

Most elected leaders are ambitious and, like Trump, seek to gain and hold onto power for as long as they can. Indeed, very few elected leaders resign voluntarily. The octogenarians who fill Congress attest to many politicians unwillingness to relinquish the power they have.

We have found that what matters for democracy is not so much the ambitions of power-hungry leaders, but rather whether those in their support group will tame them.

As our research shows, the most danger comes when personalist ruling parties hold legislative majorities and the presidency, meaning opposition parties in the legislature cant stop the ruling party from dominating. In those circumstances, there is little that stands in the way of a grab for power. For instance, if Republicans won a slim Senate majority, they might abolish the filibuster. That would limit Democrats ability to hold up legislation they opposed.

Elected leaders backed by personalist parties are therefore often successful in dismantling institutional checks on their power, whether from the legislature or the courts. Leaders of personalist parties have attempted to curb judicial constraints in countries as different as El Salvador, Hungary and Israel, with the ruling parties doing little to stop their efforts.

Long-standing and wealthy democracies, like the U.S., are remarkably resilient to the challenges that confront them. But ruling party personalism helps elected leaders undercut these protective guardrails. Because the Republican Party has taken a personalist turn under Trumps spell, democracy in the U.S. would suffer should Trump win a second term.

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Why Trump's control of the Republican Party is bad for democracy - The Conversation