New Florida law derails campaign to put clean water amendment on ballot

By Mel Martin, Florida Right to Clean Water campaign coordinator 

If you’re not fired up right now about Florida’s Right to Clean Water, it’s time. Today’s issue is not only about the safety and health of our water, but also the right to self-determination. 

We dare to believe that Floridians should have the legal power to protect our families, fisheries, precious wildlife, economies and future generations from government harm. With the limitations and failures of lobbying and litigation, we are blocked from being the good stewards we need to be — and that’s just not right. 

This state constitutional amendment is sponsored by an all-volunteer, grassroots citizens’ initiative and supported by members of all political parties and hundreds of nonprofits, faith groups and businesses statewide. It will enshrine a fundamental and enforceable right for all Floridians to clean and healthy waters, with important terms defined. Without this amendment, a polluter’s right to poison and destroy our water functionally reigns supreme when propped up by poor governance.

The Right to Clean Water is sea-changing, aimed at government accountability. Once in place, politicians and agencies can no longer undermine the will of voters, compromise public safety or ignore the best available science where clean water is concerned. All government actions and policies of inaction must be constitutionally compliant. 

Of course, powerful pollution interests resist any positive change to the status quo. It’s “good business” to socialize billions in costs and damages to Florida’s natural resources onto the backs of taxpayers, while receiving billions in government subsidies (also from taxpayers). This enables the high-magnitude flow of campaign donations toward pollution-friendly actions in Tallahassee. Things are working just fine for them, as designed, and our amendment posed a direct threat. 

It was therefore no surprise that the Legislature changed the law governing citizens’ initiatives, making it practically impossible for non-millionaires to amend the state constitution. This anti-people’s bill, HB 1205, came into immediate effect when the governor signed it on May 2, in the midst of a strategically important phase of our campaign. The law substantially disrupted operations and forced us to halt volunteer petitioning activities, all but cutting us off from being able to qualify for the 2026 ballot. 

How? In many ways, but here are a few examples: 

• Before, only paid petitioners had to turn in signed petitions to the supervisor of elections within 30 days. Now, all petitioners, including volunteers, have only 10 days – with $50 by-day, by-petition late fees. With regular mail taking up to five business days, this has wreaked havoc to our collection efforts due to the nature of our grassroots operation.
• It limits the number of petitions a volunteer can “collect, deliver, or otherwise physically possess” before having to register as a petition circulator, which involves disclosing personal information to the state and on the petition form itself — all public records. 
• It bans our volunteers from filling in “missing information” on a signed petition, which prevents us from correcting minor errors that would invalidate a petition form. Now, our volunteers cannot do simple things to ensure valid signatures are accepted, such as line through “U.S.A.” in the county box on the petition and fill in the correct name of the county. That act now comes with a $5,000 fine.
• If Florida property owners who are nonresidents (such as Florida’s dear “snowbirds”) wanted to protect their waterfront property rights through the circulation of this petition, and the campaign knew about it, that’s a $50,000 fine for us. The same goes for noncitizens with real connections to Florida waters, to include those who legally live, work and play in Florida.

We joined other plaintiffs in challenging HB 1205 because it’s not only unjust, unfair and unconstitutional (especially to an all-volunteer, underway initiative like ours) — it’s also un-American. If the Florida Legislature wants to erode the individual right to amend, it should refer such a measure to the next ballot so Floridians can vote on it. State power must be legitimized by the consent of the people, not the other way around.

Stay tuned for the fate of Florida’s waters by visiting www.FloridaRightToCleanWater.org.

Mel Martin is the Florida Right to Clean Water campaign coordinator. A Florida attorney and retired U.S. Marine Corps judge advocate, Martin was co-drafter of the amendment language.

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