1. How & Why to vote on the 2024 Amendments:
Amendment 1 – Partisan School Board Members – Vote NO
Ironically, another ballot measure, approved by Florida voters in 1998, mandated in the state Constitution that school board races be nonpartisan. After 6 years of DeSantis implementing Project 2025 in FL, we can see the ugly results and trends in politicized schools.
Amendment 2 – Right to Hunt and Fish – Vote NO
When lawmakers moved it onto the ballot (HJR 31), it received only one vote in opposition, from a Democrat questioning why it was needed. On closer examination however, ask “What problems are the Republicans trying to solve” when we already have the right to fish and hunt in Florida? After all, I too like fishing and have little objection to legal hunting.
The real “problem” the republicans are proposing to solve is to legalize “Traditional fishing methods” which includes gill net fishing that is illegal per FL Constitution since 1994 because it is so destructive for non-targeted species like turtles, crabs, and sea mammals! – see NoTo2.org. If they had included language to say it will not overturn the 1994 gillnet fishing law, I would have recommended to vote for it.
Amendment 3 – Recreational Marijuana – Vote YES
Floridians approved medical marijuana in 2016, with more than 71% of the vote, but DeSantis opposed it. Marijuana laws have hit the black and poor community particularly hard over the years and arguably has been used to target them, leading to life-long crime records that severely limits their pursuit of the American dream.
Amendment 4 – Abortion Access – Vote YES
Women’s right to make personal decisions about their own medical and reproductive health issues is a fundamental freedom rights issue. It is abhorrent to know that some people, sitting in a remote office from women that are facing these highly sensitive and personal issues, figuratively demand access to their bedrooms to not only partake in the discussion, but to dictate what the women shall do.
This is not a pro- life or pro-abortion issue; it is about the freedom to make that choice based on a women’s personal value system and medical needs.
Amendment 5 – Homestead Annual Inflation Adjustment – Vote NO
The republicans have held a trifecta majority in governing FL since 1996. Thus, any and all regulatory problems we now have, lands squarely on them only. To mention only the gross infrastructure deficit mess that they are pushing off on the citizens, the tax dollars needed to bring infrastructure back into balance is enormous. Amendment 5 will reduce much needed tax income for cities and municipalities by many $ millions.
Amendment 6 – Repeal Public Campaign Financing – Vote NO
Public campaign financing was enshrined in the state Constitution after a 1998 amendment — the same one that made school board positions nonpartisan. A 2010 constitutional amendment that tried to repeal the financing failed. If passed, this Amendment will severely limit campaign financing available for local offices where republicans get $millions from ultra-wealthy corporate interest groups. Vote No will be part of a wider campaign finance reform of the status quo that severely distorts the will of the people.
2. Why to Vote Against Incumbent Will Robinson
The flooding with Tropical Storm Debby happened because Will Robinson signed legislation since 2018 to for practical purposes, strip the cost for infrastructure charged to Developers so that they could make bigger profits. You, the citizens, now own that deficiency while the Developers and Will wash their hands off it and insurers fled the State. Each and every year from now on, if you vote for him again, you will continue to pay $Tens-of-thousands out of your own pocket (as with storm Debbie) for the resultant damages whenever a tropical storm or more severe passes by even 100 miles from your home. The solutions are easy to recognize for me as a Professional Civil Engineer, and while the problems created by decades of Developer pandering are enormous, it is not too late to start fixing it, without financially hurting our citizens that are continuing to be harmed by these fools.
