Tag Archives: Florida

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Florida’s Shenanigans Make a Great Case for (Re-)Separation of Ballot and State

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In mid-February, Florida’s Division of Elections stripped the state’s third largest political party of its official recognition. Tallahassee’s excuse for ending the Independent Party’s ability to put candidates on the ballot and disenfranchising its 260,000-plus registered voters? The party organization’s 2014 financial audit wasn’t conducted by a Certified Public Accountant.

Florida law doesn’t specify any such CPA requirement, and even if it did this dirty trick would exemplify the real purpose of so-called “ballot access laws”: To safeguard the Republican and Democratic Parties’ near-complete control of American elections.

In every election cycle, “third” parties shell out big bucks just to be allowed to present their candidates to voters. According to Nicholas J. Sarwark, chair of the Libertarian Party’s national committee, the party, its state affiliates, and its presidential campaign spent more than $750,000 on ballot access — that is, on jumping through bureaucratic hoops instead of on getting its message out — in 2016.

It shouldn’t be that way. It doesn’t have to be that way. And it wasn’t always that way.

Some histories of the Civil War era mention that Abraham Lincoln was “not even on the ballot” in several southern states. That’s true. None of the other presidential candidates were “on the ballot” either, nor was Lincoln “on the ballot” in the northern states. There was no such thing as “on the ballot.”

American ballot access laws only date back to the 1880s. Before that, voters cast ballots in one of three ways: They received ballots from and printed by their political parties of choice, they wrote out their own ballots by hand, or, if they couldn’t write, they verbally dictated their choices to election officials who wrote down those choices for them in the presence of witnesses.

Once state governments overthrew those methods in favor of “Australian” ballots — standardized ballots printed by the governments themselves — the next step was feigned concern over  “voter confusion” from “too many” candidates, quickly followed by the erection of barriers to “solve” the “problem.”

These days ballot access laws are so many, so varied and so confusing that there’s an entire industry centered around helping parties and candidates interpret and meet the guidelines. There’s even a dedicated publication, Ballot Access News, dedicated to sorting out ballot access laws on a continuing basis.

And, once again, it’s important to keep in mind the real purpose of these laws: To ensure that, with rare exceptions, only Republicans and Democrats are elected to public office. Or, to put it more plainly, to protect those parties from the risks of free and fair elections.

The states and the establishment parties have proven, over and over, that they can’t be trusted with control of ballot access. Time to take that control away.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Marijuana: A Better Plan

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English: Discount Medical Marijuana cannabis s...
Discount Medical Marijuana cannabis shop at 970 Lincoln Street, Denver, Colorado. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In 2014, Florida’s legislature passed the Compassionate Medical Cannabis Act. The idea was to make strains of marijuana that are low in THC (the stuff that gets you high) and high in CBD (the stuff that helps children with seizure disorders) legal with a doctor’s prescription.

A year-and-a-half later, patients still await legal permission to purchase their medicine while state health bureaucrats and would-be providers of low-THC cannabis wrangle over which five nurseries will receive licenses to operate medical marijuana dispensaries.

Yes, you read that right. In a state with a population of nearly 20 million, only five plant nurseries will be legally permitted to provide medical marijuana. One wonders why the legislature even bothered. Was the Compassionate Medical Cannabis Act just window dressing, passed to shut up a few loud constituents and maybe cloud the issue enough to hold off real marijuana policy reform for a few more years?

Florida’s not alone. Around the country, medical marijuana laws are mostly  piles of red tape seemingly designed for the specific purpose of making it as difficult as possible for anyone, anywhere to get a harmless, ubiquitous plant.

Yes, I said harmless. As “drugs” go, marijuana is less dangerous, less addictive, and has fewer harmful side effects than alcohol. Or, for that matter, sugar.

I can sum up why cannabis was ever made illegal in the first place in one word: Politics.

Ditto for why it remains illegal: Money. The main function of the war on marijuana today is to keep police departments and correctional facilities overstaffed and flush with money for overtime.

If there’s any such thing as a marijuana crime, it’s the fact that the plant remains illegal long after every myth of its evil effects has been conclusively debunked.

Fortunately, some states are moving away from the unmitigated evil of the war on marijuana. Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington have legalized it for both medical and recreational use, albeit with some of the same burdensome regulations.

In the sunshine state, Floridians For Freedom are working to put the “Right of Adults to Cannabis” initiative on the 2016 ballot. The proposed law would recognize the right of adults to possess, use and cultivate cannabis.

The initiative isn’t perfect — it would allow the state to regulate the purchase and sale of marijuana “in the interest of health and safety,” something the state has already proven it can’t be trusted to do with medical cannabis — but it’s a start.

Four states down, 46 to go. When and if you vote next year, remember to ask the candidates where they stand on cannabis legalization. Any politician who’s not enthusiastically in favor of ending the war on marijuana doesn’t deserve your support.

Correction: The original version of this article left Oregon out of the count of states which have legalized both medical and recreational marijuana use.  I apologize for the error, and thanks to commenters “Jolly green giant” and Tom Welsh for pointing it out.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Campus Carry: Will Florida Legislators Do The Right Thing?

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Woman Being Stalked (stock photo from Pond5)

Florida’s “campus carry” bill, approved by the state’s House Judiciary Committee on November 19,  would allow students who are 21 or older, and who possess special government permission slips (concealed carry “licenses”), to go armed on the state’s public college and university campuses. Pretty weak tea, but better than nothing. The legislature should pass the bill as soon as it hits the floor in January, then come back to improve it (by eliminating the age limit and the “license” requirement) as soon as humanly possible.

Yes, I just said that the bill, as written, is too restrictive. Neither violent crime, nor the inalienable human right to self-defense (which happens to have been recognized in the US Constitution for 224 years now as the right “to keep and bear arms,” with no mention of “licenses”), magically disappear when one crosses the line separating a college campus from the rest of the world.

And yes, I know some people disagree. But this issue is not suffused with nuance. One side is clearly right, the other is clearly wrong. Supporters of victim disarmament (they call it “gun control” to avoid the public shame and embarrassment involved in saying what they actually mean) offer a number of supposed arguments for their position. All of those arguments boil down to this claim:

“It is better for a University of Florida co-ed to be mugged, beaten, raped and strangled to death with her own pantyhose than for her to carry a hunk of metal that triggers irrational fear on my part.”

Did I say that one side here is clearly right and the other side is clearly wrong? Pardon me while I correct myself: One side here is clearly good and the other side is clearly evil, or insane, or both.

This isn’t complicated, folks: You can support the right to self-defense, or you can support letting rapists and murderers have their way with the innocent victims you’ve disarmed for their convenience. It’s one or the other, and there is no in-between.

If the legislature passes this bill, Florida will become the ninth state to partially and imperfectly step out of the fantasy world in which victim disarmers would have our children live — or, more to the point, die — as the price of pursuing their educations. Florida should have been first. Florida should go further. And the other 41 states should follow.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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