For those who live in Florida and interested in knowing how the GOP attempt to remove three Supreme Court justices by encouraging the electorate to vote not to affirm that they stay on the Florida Supreme Court ... all three won!
Florida Supreme Court justices R. Fred Lewis, Barbara Pariente and Peggy Quince trounced an extraordinary attempt by the GOP to oust them.
By overwhelming majorities, voters on Tuesday chose to retain the justices for six-year terms.
“The very foundation of Florida’s independent judicial system was threatened in this election. I am grateful that Florida voters once again demonstrated their faith in our fair and impartial judicial system,” Lewis said in a statement Tuesday.
Voters retain Florida Supreme Court Justices Lewis, Pariente, Quince
The article goes on to explain why the GOP wanted the three justices removed from the bench. Oh and our favorite brothers had a hand in this effort: "The Florida chapter of the Washington, D.C.-based group Americans for Prosperity, a group formed by the conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, ran ads criticizing a pair of Supreme Court rulings dealing with the state’s opposition to the national health care overhaul and property rights."
As for the amendments to the constitution that the GOP added to the ballot this year, adding to the reason for the long voting lines, the majority and worst of those failed too.
Eight of the amendments — including a massive property tax overhaul, abortion restrictions and a “religious freedom” proposal — failed to get the requisite 60 percent vote.
The outcome is a sweeping rejection of the Republican-led Legislature’s push to pile the ballot with long, complicated amendments, clogging precincts and causing voters to wait for hours in some cases. It was the worst outcome for constitutional amendments since 1978, when all nine of the state’s proposed amendments failed.
Most Florida amendments rejected
The three that passed:
... with more than 60 percent of voters approving targeted tax relief for veterans (Amendment 2), poor senior-citizens (Amendment 11) and spouses of military veterans killed in the line of action (Amendment 9).
Most Florida amendments rejected
I was wondering what happened here in Florida regarding this issues, and thought others might too. The one thing I'm waiting to learn is if Allen West in Florida 18 is gone, but I guess we'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out the answer to that burning question. I think the election officials have suspended counting and went home to get some rest. With 99% of the vote counted, the race has not been called yet with the the Democratic Challenger with a slight lead: Patrick Murphy (D) 50.4% (159,959) to Allen West (R) 49.6% (157,578).