Florida lawmakers eye another change to make it harder for voters to amend state constitution

For most of the state’s history, all it took was a simple majority of Florida voters to amend the state constitution, then that changed.

In 2005 the Florida Legislature had an idea: raise the threshold to 60%.  To do that, the Legislature put an amendment before voters and in a twist of irony, Florida voters approved the amendment, with only 57 percent of the vote.

Now, the Florida lawmakers want to do it again.

HJR 57 proposes an amendment to State Constitution to, “increase percentage of elector votes required to approve amendment or revision to State Constitution from 60 percent to 66 & 2/3 percent.”

The bill, if passed by the Legislature, would appear on the ballot on November 3, 2020 and if approved by 60 percent of Florida voters, would take effect on January 5, 2021.

The House bill still has one more stop before a full floor vote.

Meanwhile, an identical Senate version still has two more stops. In addition, the Senate would have to approve any proposed amendment with a supermajority of 24 votes to put an amendment on the ballot.

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