On Wednesday, former Democratic House Leader and recently defeated attorney general candidate Dan Gelber criticized remarks made during Tuesdayâs organizational session by the newly minted House Speaker, Dean Cannon, calling them a âcalculated effortâ to intimidate Floridaâs high court.
In his speech to open the new House, Cannon expressed his frustrations over the courtâs decision to strike from the ballot three amendments to the Florida Constitution that had been approved by the legislature earlier this year, including one he had personally argued for before the justices that would have nullified the redistricting reforms voters approved on Nov. 2.
From the Orlando Sentinel:
In his prepared remarks, Cannon also blasted President Obamaâs health-care reform law and singled out the Florida Supreme Court for tossing three of the Legislatureâs proposed constitutional amendments off the ballot â including one that would have undercut successful citizen-backed efforts to constrain the way lawmakers draw their own districts.
A five-judge majority of the high court ruled over the summer that the amendments were misleading or ambiguous, violating a constitutional requirement that amendment summaries and ballot language be clear and unambiguous.
âWhen five unelected justices of the state Supreme Court take that off the ballot, theyâve literally deprived 18 million Floridians of the right to vote and stifled our constitutional powers,â Cannon told reporters, adding he hoped he would have âa good dialogueâ with the high court going forward.
Gelber, who lost the A.G. race earlier this month to Republican Pam Bondi, claimed in his response that the amendments in question were poorly written and went so far as to say that those pertaining to redistricting were explicitly drafted in such a way to confuse voters.
Gelberâs comments in full:
A threat to freedom? A threat to our liberties?  Yesterday Dean Cannon, the Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, called the Florida Supreme Court a threat âto freedomâ and to âour liberties.â He was apparently angry that the Court tossed a handful of legislatively crafted constitutional amendments because the amendments were misleading or confusing to voters. I am personally fond of Dean, but believe his comments should not be dismissed as merely a childish tirade, but rather seen as a calculated effort to intimidate a coequal branch of government.
The truth is the Florida Supreme Court is a centrist if not center-right court, with a majority of its members appointed by Republican governors. The legislature crafted a handful of amendments that were poorly written or, in the case of its redistricting amendments, purposefully written to confuse voters. The Court did its job. I have sometimes agreed with their outcomes, and other times disagreed, but what separates our democracy from lesser forms of government is our respect and fidelity to the rule of law.
Sometimes you donât get your way. But it is far beyond the bounds of propriety for the Speaker of the Florida House to declare the Supreme Court of his state to be a threat to our freedoms or liberty. Speaker Cannon should know better and ought to apologize.
