By Al Lawson, former U.S. Representative for Florida’s 5th Congressional District
Earlier this year, I joined a coalition of Democrats and Republicans, mayors and everyday Floridians, in a lawsuit against the state over the misleading and deceptive language regarding Amendment 3 which will be on our ballot this November. We didn’t sue because we disagreed with cutting taxes. We sued because the ballot language voters were about to see was, in the judge’s own words, “the worst example of a biased ballot question” the court had encountered — closer to a campaign flyer than an honest description of what this amendment does.
We won. The court ordered the state to rewrite it. Gone is the misleading slogan “Save Our Homes From Excessive Property Taxes.” Gone are the false promises that this measure protects small businesses and “core services.” That was a real victory for transparency, and I was proud to be part of it.
But here’s what I need you to understand: honest words don’t make this a good amendment. They just make it an honestly bad one.
Strip away the marketing, and Amendment 3 is a tax shift and a new burden on middle- and lower-income families. It lowers the tax burden on the wealthy while starving the local budgets that pay for the services our communities depend on. Cities and counties don’t get to conjure money out of thin air. When property tax revenue drops, local governments have exactly two choices: cut services or raise money somewhere else.
We already know which way that tends to go. “Somewhere else” usually means higher rents passed down by landlords facing their own tax bills, new fees tacked onto water, sanitation, and permits, and special taxing districts that hit working families and seniors on fixed incomes hardest — people who don’t have a high-priced lobbyist and don’t get a seat at the table when these decisions are made.
Read the full Op-Ed on the Tampa Free Press