Advisory Opinion to the Attorney General-Save Our Everglades, GENERAL--SAVE

• Decision Date: 26 May 1994
• Docket Number: GENERAL--SAVE,No. 83301,83301
• Citation: 636 So.2d 1336
• Parties: 19 Fla. L. Weekly S276 In re ADVISORY OPINION TO THE ATTORNEYOUR EVERGLADES.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 1336

636 So.2d 1336

19 Fla. L. Weekly S276

In re ADVISORY OPINION TO THE ATTORNEY GENERAL--SAVE OUR EVERGLADES.

No. 83301.

Supreme Court of Florida.

May 26, 1994.

Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen. and Louis F. Hubener, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, Jon L. Mills and Fletcher N. Baldwin, Jr., Gainesville, for Save Our Everglades Committee.

W. Dexter Douglass and Gary L. Printy of Douglass, Powell & Rudolph, Tallahassee, for Florida Audubon Society, in support of petitioner.

Cecilia F. Renn, Vice President and General Counsel, and Julian Clarkson and Susan L. Turner of Holland & Knight, Tallahassee, for Associated Industries of Florida, opposing proposed amendment.

Howell L. Ferguson of Landers & Parsons, Tallahassee, Bruce S. Rogow and Beverly A. Pohl, Ft. Lauderdale, and William B. Killian of Steel, Hector & Davis, Miami, for Flo-Sun, Inc., opposing proposed amendment.

Stanley James Brainerd and Kenneth R. Hart and R. Stan Peeler of MacFarlane, Ausley, Ferguson & McMullen, Tallahassee, for Florida Chamber of Commerce, opposing proposed amendment.

Terry Cole and Timothy P. Atkinson of Oertel, Hoffman, Fernandez & Cole, P.A., Tallahassee, for Florida Fruit and Vegetable Ass'n, opposing proposed amendment.

Joseph W. Little, Gainesville, and Judith S. Kavanaugh of Earl, Blank, Kavanaugh & Stotts, P.A., for The Florida Sugar Cane League, Inc., opposing proposed amendment.

Robert P. Smith of Hopping, Boyd, Green & Sams, Tallahassee, for Sugar Cane Growers Co-op of Florida, Inc., opposing proposed amendment.

Cass D. Vickers, Robert S. Goldman and Thomas M. Findley of Messer, Vickers, Caparello, Madsen, Lewis, Goldman & Metz, P.A., Tallahassee, for U.S. Sugar Corp., opposing proposed amendment.

Arthur J. England, Jr., Barry S. Richard and Christopher L. Kurzner of Greenberg, Traurig, Hoffman, Lipoff, Rosen & Quentel, P.A., Miami, for Florida Farmers for Fairness Committee, opposing proposed amendment.

SHAW, Justice.

The Attorney General has requested this Court to review a proposed amendment to the Florida Constitution. We have jurisdiction. Art. IV, Sec. 10; art. V, Sec. 3(b)(10), Fla. Const. We find the proposed amendment defective and order it stricken from the ballot.

I. FACTS

The Florida Attorney General has petitioned this Court for an advisory opinion on the validity of an initiative petition circulated pursuant to article XI, section 3, Florida Constitution, by a group known as Save Our Everglades Committee. See Art. IV, Sec. 10, Fla. Const.; Sec. 16.061, Fla.Stat. (1993). The petition seeks to amend the Florida Constitution by creating a trust to restore the Everglades funded by a fee on raw sugar. The full text of the petition reads as follows:

TITLE: SAVE OUR EVERGLADES

SUMMARY: Creates the Save Our Everglades Trust to restore the Everglades for future generations. Directs the sugarcane industry, which polluted the Everglades, to help pay to clean up pollution and restore clean water supply. Funds the Trust for twenty-five years with a fee on raw sugar from sugarcane grown in the Everglades Ecosystem of one cent per pound, indexed for inflation. Florida citizen trustees will control the Trust.

FULL TEXT OF PROPOSED AMENDMENT:

(a) The people of Florida believe that protecting the Everglades Ecosystem helps assure clean water and a healthy economy for future generations. The sugarcane industry in the Everglades Ecosystem has profited while damaging the Everglades with pollution and by altering the water supply. Therefore, the sugarcane industry should help pay to clean up the pollution and to restore clean water. To that end, the people hereby establish a Trust, controlled by Florida citizens, dedicated to restoring the Everglades Ecosystem, and funded initially by a fee on raw sugar from sugarcane grown in the Everglades Ecosystem.

(b) Article X, Florida Constitution, is hereby amended to add the following:

"Section 16. Save Our Everglades Trust Fund.

"(a) There is established the Save Our Everglades Trust Fund (Trust). The sole purpose of the Trust is to expend funds to recreate the historical ecological functions of the Everglades Ecosystem by restoring water quality, quantity, timing and distribution (including pollution clean up and control, exotic species removal and control, land acquisition, restoration and management, construction and operation of water storage and delivery systems, research and monitoring).

"(b) The Trust shall be administered by five Trustees. Trustees shall be appointed by the governor, subject to confirmation by the Senate, within thirty days of a vacancy. Trustees' appointments shall be for five years; provided that the terms of the first Trustees appointed may be less than five years so that each Trustee's term will end during a different year. Trustees shall be residents of Florida with experience in environmental protection, but Trustees shall not hold elected governmental office during service as a Trustee. Trustees may adopt their own operating rules and regulations, subject to generally-applicable law. Disputes arising under this Section shall be first brought to a hearing before the Trustees, and thereafter according to generally-applicable law. Trustees shall serve without compensation but may be reimbursed for expenses.

"(c) The Trust shall be funded by revenues which shall be collected by the State and deposited into the Trust, all of which funds shall be appropriated by the Legislature to the Trustees to be expended solely for the purpose of the Trust. Revenues collected by the State shall come from a fee on raw sugar from sugarcane grown within the Everglades Ecosystem. The fee shall be assessed against each first processor of sugarcane at the rate of $.01 per pound of raw sugar, increased annually by any inflation measured by the Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers (U.S. City Average, All Items), or successor reports of the United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics or its successor, and shall expire twenty-five years after the effective date of this Section.

"(d) For purposes of this Section, the Everglades Ecosystem is defined as Lake Okeechobee, the historical Everglades watershed west, south and east of Lake Okeechobee, Florida Bay and the Florida Keys Coral Reef, provided that the Trustees may refine this definition.

"(e) Implementing legislation is not required for this Section, but nothing shall prohibit the establishment by law or otherwise of other measures designed to protect or restore the Everglades. If any portion of this Section is held invalid for any reason, the remaining portion of this Section shall be severed from the void portion and given the fullest possible force and application. This Section shall take effect on the day after approval by the electors."

Our analysis of this proposed amendment is limited to two inquiries: whether the amendment addresses but a single subject, and whether the amendment's title and summary are sufficiently clear.

II. SINGLE SUBJECT

Article XI, section 3, Florida Constitution, provides in relevant part:

The power to propose the revision or amendment of any portion or portions of this constitution by initiative is reserved to the people, provided that any such revision or amendment shall embrace but one subject and matter directly connected therewith.

This single-subject provision is a rule of restraint designed to insulate Florida's organic law from precipitous and cataclysmic change.

We described the context in which the single-subject rule operates in Fine v. Firestone, 448 So.2d 984 (Fla.1984):

The single-subject requirement in the proviso language of this section is a rule of restraint. It was placed in the constitution by the people to allow citizens, by initiative petition, to propose and vote on singular changes in the functions of our governmental structure. The initiative petition is one of four methods authorized for amending or revising the state constitution.

Article XI of the Florida Constitution, in sections 1-4, prescribes the procedures for amending or revising the constitution. Section 1 authorizes the legislature, by joint resolution passed by a three-fifths vote of the membership of each house of the legislature, to propose an amendment of a section or revision of one or more articles, or the whole, of the constitution. Section 2 authorizes a revision commission to meet at specific intervals and present to the electorate a revision of the constitution. Section 4 authorizes the establishment of a constitutional convention which may present to the electorate a revision of the constitution. Only the initiative process in section 3 contains the restrictive language that "any such revision or amendment shall embrace but one subject and matter directly connected therewith."

It is apparent that the authors of article XI realized that the initiative method did not provide a filtering legislative process for the drafting of any specific proposed constitutional amendment or revision. The legislative, revision commission, and constitutional convention processes of sections 1, 2 and 4 all afford an opportunity for public hearing and debate not only on the proposal itself but also in the drafting of any constitutional proposal. That opportunity for input in the drafting of a proposal is not present under the initiative process and this is one of the reasons the initiative process is restricted to single-subject changes in the state constitution. The single-subject requirement in article XI, section 3, mandates that the electorate's attention be directed to a change regarding one specific subject of government to protect against multiple precipitous changes in our state constitution.

Id. at 988.

The single-subject limitation also guards against "logrolling," a practice wherein several separate issues are rolled into a single initiative in order to aggregate votes or secure approval of an otherwise unpopular issue. This Court...