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Florida Supreme Court Justices Question Language Of Electric Choice Initiative
August 29,2019 Multiple news outlets, including the Miami Herald (story here) and Florida Politics (story here) have labeled Florida's Supreme Court justices as "skeptical" of the proposed electric choice ballot initiative, as the court held oral arguments yesterday The court reviews all ballot questions for compliance with a single subject rule and to ensure language is not misleading The News Service of Florida, via News4JAX, reports that Chief Justice Charles Canady questioned whether a ballot summary accurately reflects the text of the actual constitutional amendment under the initiative. Part of the ballot summary informs voters that customers would have a right to, "generate and sell electricity", but Canady questioned whether the right to "sell" electricity is actually established under the language of the amendment, which instead uses language such as "choice" and the right to, "purchase competitively priced electricity," while only stating that nothing in the amendment "limit[s]" the right of a customer to sell electricity "A summary cannot be affirmatively misleading," Canady said. "It cannot state something that is untrue ... And I'm having trouble seeing how we can follow that principle and uphold this, given that I can't find that guarantee in the actual text of the amendment," Canady said, per The News Service of Florida The Orlando Sentinel (story here) reports that Justice Robert Luck also pushed back against the ballot summary's language stating that the amendment would give customers the, "right to choose their electricity provider." Luck noted that, under the amendment, customers could no longer choose to purchase their power from their current utility, as the amendment would limit the activity of investor-owned electric utilities to the construction, operation, and repair of electrical transmission and distribution systems Luck asked, according to the Orlando Sentinel: "Wouldn’t an average person reading this ballot language, the reasonable voter out there, see that, 'I can’t choose my current provider if I am happy with them?' ... Would a reasonable voter say, 'I would like FPL,' just using an example, 'I like my bill, I like what I’m getting, I like the service I am getting, and I want to use FPL.' Would the reasonable voter reading this understand that the choice cannot be FPL?" Florida Politics reports that Justice Ricky Polston said that, "It seems like, on the face, the summary is confusing to me," as Polston took aim at the term "investor-owned utility." Polston asked why the term doesn't include, "someone who just generated his own electricity," and also why the retail suppliers that would sell power aren't, "investor-owned utilities." Told by counsel for electric choice supporters that the term would not apply to someone who just generated their own electricity, Polston said, "It seems contradictory on its face." WFSU (story here) reports that Justice Barbara Lagoa seized on a response from counsel for electric choice supporters, who had responded during questioning that the amendment was creating something entirely new "You just said that we’re creating something entirely new, which I thought was very revealing. Because the ballot summary doesn’t tell me, if I’m the reasonable voter, that this is going to be a completely new – an entirely new scheme," Lagoa said, per WFSU GateHouse news, via The Ledger, also reports that several of the new justices on the court could take a dim view of policy being enacted via ballot measures rather than the legislature.
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