I realize Florida Hometown Democracy has been diaried here before, but there a recent developments. Also, a deadline looms which makes revisiting this issue critical. In case you're unfamiliar with it, Hometown Democracy is a grassroots movement to rein in the sort of unbridled development that has been ruining communities all over the state of Florida for decades. It involves a petition to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November that would require a vote by the citizens to approve changes in communities' comprehensive plans before major new developments could proceed. Time is running out on the petition, and the pro-development forces are trying to sabotage the initiative with a shameless dirty tricks campaign.
For starters, I'm not involved in the organizing effort for Florida Hometown Democracy (FHD). I'm just a Florida resident and registered voter. I'm also a small town columnist and sporadic diarist on DKos. I'm writing this because it's crunch time for a genuine grassroots movement that could restore some semblance of democracy to a state that has for too long been a feeding ground for the forces of economic exploitation.
What got me fired up enough to write this diary was a letter I received last Friday from "The Honorable John Thrasher" marked in red lettering as "Extremely Urgent." John Thrasher is a Republican former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives who is now in the employ of a group called "Save our Constitution" that is actually a front funded by Associated Industries, the state's largest business lobby, and other pro-development entities. The letter is a pack of lies and misinformation intended to scare people into rescinding their signatures on the FHD petition drive. Thrasher's letter campaign is dirty politics at its most vile. In the letter, Thrasher deliberately distorts the intentions and likely effects of the FHD initiative, saying it would "turn all power over use of Florida's lands to certain electors"...which he states would be cronies of "special interests and their slick lawyers." In other words, exactly what he is. Thrasher never mentions the "electors" the proposed amendment refers to are the voters. And that's only the tip of the Thrasher deception iceberg. I mean, this letter is a piece of work. To read more on the Thrasher trashing of FHD, read here. I've been told that Thrasher's staff follows up the letters with phone calls. I'm anxiously anticipating receiving this call so I can tell Thrasher (through his flunky caller) to kiss my liberal Democratic ass. I should mention that I received Thrasher's smear letter because I signed FHP's petition online a while ago. I understand Thrasher's letter is going out to all petition signers which now adds up to some 500,000 people. Think there's some money behind this dirty work?
But Thrasher's letter is only one of the dirty tricks being employed by the forces of darkness against FHD. Another one involves a so-called alternative plan similar to FHD's initiative called Floridians for Smarter Growth, funded by another collection of pro-development businesspersons - the Florida Chamber of Commerce. This plan also involves a petition for a constitutional amendment to theoretically give ordinary citizens a mechanism for controlling growth. Problem is, it's really a petition to give people the right to petition. At best FSG's plan is a co-option of FHD; at worst it's something much more sneaky. What FSG is doing is holding back its own lists of petition signers until the last minute in order to clog to system. FSG plans to turn in tens of thousands of signatures just before the February 1 deadline for both petition drives in order to make it impossible for the state signature verification apparatus to handle the load. FSG has no intention of actually getting it's alternative amendment on the ballot. All they are really trying to do is foul the system right at the end so the real grassroots democracy movement falls short. If FHD fails to get the required 611,000 signatures approved by the Feb 1 deadline, it won't be on this November's ballot.
To make matters even worse, the state office that handles verification of signatures is having computer problems which threaten to further complicate the process. So another Florida election may be derailed by computer gliches (imagine that). You can read about both of these hurdles to FHD in this article that appeared Friday in the St. Pete Times.
What it all comes down to is this: Florida Hometown Democracy needs about another 100,000 signatures to get on the ballot, and it needs them fast. There are only a couple of weeks left. But really, with all the crap that's being thrown at them, there are only a few more days to get the signatures in if they're to be counted by the Feb 1 deadline. If you are a registered Florida voter you can read about Florida Hometown Democracy and sign the petition, if you haven't already done so, here. If you are not a registered Florida voter but know people who are, forward this diary and urge them to sign up. But what I'm really hoping is that DKos might push this like it does campaigns for public office. I mean, this has got to be at least as important as trying to put Romney over the top in Michigan in order to screw with the Republicans, don't you think? Here's a chance to foster real grassroots democracy in a way that doesn't involve trying to get someone elected. What do you say, DKos?