CRC Deliberations Complete, Ballot Proposal Almost Ready

After a marathon session on Monday (April 16^th), the vicennial meeting of the Constitution Revision Commission (CRC) concluded.  During their deliberations, the commission considered 781 proposals submitted through the FLCRC.gov website, more than 1200 submitted through the other means, as well as 103 proposals submitted by commission members.

Of the nearly two thousand proposals, the commission chose to move forward with the 103 proposals submitted by commissioners, though some reflected citizen concerns and were duplicates of those submitted by citizens.

After multiple town hall meetings to take public input and then hours spent debating the proposals, 25 of the 103 were referred to the Style and Drafting Committee for further review and refinement.  One proposal was withdrawn in the committee and the remaining 24 proposals were combined into 11 initiatives.  Two of the initiatives were defeated, one was withdrawn from further consideration by the whole commission on the final voting, so eight will appear on your ballot.  These will be after the five the legislative approved to be on the ballot.  The public will have the opportunity to vote on a total of 13 amendments in the general election. 

Of interest to AHA and our volunteers were two proposals: Proposal 94 to that would enable the legislature to determine the level of appropriations for the advertising and marketing efforts of Tobacco Free Florida.  Ultimately, it died.

Also of interest was proposal 65, which would prohibit vapor generating electronic devices in enclosed indoor workplaces, just as smoking tobacco is prohibited.  Proposal 65 passed.

Ultimately, proposal 65 and proposal 91 relating to offshore drilling were combined into proposal 6004 and sent to the Secretary of State for certification to the November ballot.  This combined proposal will be the 9^th proposal on your ballot.  The ballot summary for PCP 6004 is below:

PCP 6004 - Prohibits Offshore Oil and Gas Drilling; Prohibits Vaping in Enclosed Indoor Workplaces by Style and Drafting Prohibits Offshore Oil and Gas Drilling; Prohibits Vaping in Enclosed Indoor Workplaces; A proposal to amend Section 7 of Article II of the State Constitution to prohibit the drilling for exploration and extraction of oil and natural gas in specified coastal waters and amend Section 20 of Article X of the State Constitution to establish a general prohibition on the use of vapor-generating electronic devices in enclosed indoor workplaces.