Supreme Court Opinion: Amicus Briefs Sealed Amendment 8’s Fate

ByAccountabaloney

On August 20, 2018, Leon County Circuit Judge John Cooper ordered Amendment 8 removed from Florida’s November ballot, writing that the amendment’s ballot title and summary failed ‘to inform voters of the chief purpose and effect of this proposal.” Amendment 8 was the bundled K-12 Education amendment proposed by Erika Donalds and Florida’s Constitution Revision Committee. We wrote about the deceptive language of Amendment 8, which sought to strip duly elected school boards of their ability to oversee the charter schools in their district, allowing alternate process of authorizing charter schools whether communities approved of them or not. The charter school language was deceptive by design and hidden behind two more popular proposals: school board term limits and civic literacy.

The ruling was appealed to the Florida Supreme Court who, on September 7th in a narrow 4-3 ruling, upheld the lower court ruling keeping Amendment 8 permanently off the ballot (yay!). The opinion of the Supreme Court was finally published yesterday (10/15/18). You can read the opinion here.

Part of the court’s decision hinged on the fact that amicus briefs filed in support of Amendment 8 each argued a different understanding of the supposed “clear and unambiguous language.” Seems like NO ONE understood the amendment’s language!

According to publichealthlawcenter.org, “amicus briefs are legal documents filed in appellate court cases by non-litigants with a strong interest in the subject matter. The briefs advise the court of relevant, additional information or arguments that the court might wish to consider. A well-written amicus brief can have a significant impact on judicial decision-making.” In this case, conflicting reports from these amicus briefs appear to have negatively impacted the State’s case:

  • Attorney Ken Detzner, representing the State, argued that local school boards “have no constitutional authority to establish or authorize public schools” and asserted that “the revision would not change the status quo.”
  • The Florida Consortium of Public Charter Schools and Florida Charter School Alliance, however, argued that Amendment 8 would affect all public schools. They also argued that the proposed revision would “eliminate the constitutional barrier to school choice.”
  • Finally, the Urban League of Miami and the Central Florida Urban League argued that Revision 8 presented “a much needed change by stripping the local school boards of their ability to continue their hostility towards public charter schools.”

The majority opinion stated:

“Because proponents of the proposed revision each give different meaning to the “clear and unambiguous” language of the revision, its title, and its summary, logic dictates that the language is neither clear nor unambiguous. Accordingly, the voters cannot be said to have fair and sufficient notice to intelligently cast his or her vote.”

In the dissenting opinion, Justice Canady wrote that the summary clearly stated its meaning, and was in no way misleading…

We believe that when even the proponents of an amendment are confused as to its impact, the average voter would probably be confused as well. The Courts agreed. The language was neither clear nor unambiguous.

Many thanks to the Florida League of Women Voters for filing this lawsuit and seeing it to its conclusion.

Amendment 8 was deceptive by design.  May it Rest in Peace.

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