Florida Amendment 3 & 13 in 2018
The voters of Florida are going to be really busy voting on Amendments this year, I hope that they to actually read their ballots, or can at least which one is which. I can imagine some, “Low-Information Voters,” just going all yes or all no on their ballots!
Another problem that these, “Low-Information Voters,” are going to have is that the wording of Florida Amendment 3 is needlessly complicated:
- A “yes” vote s this amendment to provide voters, through citizen-initiated ballot measures, with the exclusive right to decide whether to authorize casino gambling in Florida.
- A “no” vote opposes this amendment to provide voters, through citizen-initiated ballot measures, with the exclusive right to decide whether to authorize casino gambling in Florida.
The way it sounds is that the citizens are having a vote to have a vote, and that’s only half right. Basically, what the citizens are doing in this one is removing the ability of the State Legislature to make decisions on matters regarding new casinos, giving that power to the citizens and thus enabling the citizens to have possible votes in the future.
The reading score of the full ballot measure is such that one is expected to have twenty years of formal education, i.e. post-graduate, in order to be able to fully comprehend it. That’s above my pay grade, but I was able to figure it out after dissecting it somewhat. This was the hardest part for me…and I’m a writer:
The measure would provide voters with the “exclusive right to decide whether to authorize casino gambling in the State of Florida.” Amendment 3 would make the citizen initiative process “the exclusive method of authorizing casino gambling,” meaning the Florida State Legislature would not be permitted to authorize casino gambling through statute or through referring a constitutional amendment to the ballot.[3] In Florida, the number of signatures required for an initiative is equal to 8 percent of the votes cast in the preceding presidential election. Florida also has a signature distribution requirement, which requires that signatures equal to 8 percent of the district-wide vote in at least half (14) of the state’s 27 congressional districts must be collected.
The way that I first read it, my understanding was that the individual districts within the state would have the ability to introduce their own initiatives, were this to , and then the citizens of each individual district would be able to decide whether or not they wanted to have casinos.
As it turns out, that is not true. I read it a few more times and realized this is essentially a state vote to set up the possibility of another state vote. The way it would work is that the Florida State Legislature may no longer create statutes having to do with authorizing casino gambling and also may not directly place such an initiative on the ballot directly.
What has to happen in order for a vote on casinos to take place, if this Amendment es, is that concerned parties must go through the state collecting signatures to bring the matter up as a ballot initiative in the future. For this to happen, eight percent of the voters from the previous Presidential Election year (in this case 2016) must sign a petition to create a ballot initiative. However, the people promoting the petition are not able to heavy-load this eight percent with districts who directly benefit. What they must do in addition to hitting eight percent overall is hit eight percent in at least 14 of the 27 Congressional Districts, so that the petition is geographically spread throughout the state.
If this is successful, then there will be an initiative placed upon the applicable ballot to authorize casino gambling throughout the state which then would be referred back to the State Legislature who would do the licensing and regulating, or set up a mechanism to such effect. In actuality, they would probably carbon-copy some other state’s laws in this regard and create a division of the Florida State Lottery to handle all of this. That’s the way it works in most (but not all) casino states that have State Lotteries, it just becomes a division of the lottery.
Here’s the spending:
| Issue: | Florida Amendment 3, Voter Approval of Casino Gambling Initiative (2018) |
|---|---|
| Spending For | $37,318,938.46 |
| Spending Against | $981,832.00 |
This vote is looking quite likely to and the disparity in spending certainly doesn’t hurt.
It bears repeating that this measure does not actually authorize casinos in the State of Florida, at least not at this time, it only gives the voters the ability to later vote to authorize more casino gambling. For that reason, I think those who would normally be more vehemently against are willing to concede this one and the money will flow in against this measure more heavily when it is actually going to create more casinos.
The entities that stand to gain the most, via tourism, are Disney and the Seminole Tribe, so both of them are pretty strongly in favor of this Amendment. These two articles both seem to think that this Amendment will easily garner the 60% supermajority (1, 2):
Sometimes the polls themselves create the result that the polls say is going to happen. People like to be on the winning side, I suppose, so that can occasionally be a pretty big factor when it comes to something like this. Given where all of the spending is being done, that might be having an influence on the polls, but it is just as likely that the polls are actually correct.
Florida Amendment 13
This Amendment is designed to eventually make greyhound betting illegal on races being held within the state. In other words, simulcast wagering would still be legal and the state could, theoretically, still conduct the greyhound racing itself. In practicality, they would have no reason to conduct the greyhound racing if no betting could be done on it (from within the state) and would likely just operate simulcast centers. These places may or may not succeed.
- A “yes” vote s prohibiting wagering on live dog races, including greyhound races, held in Florida and banning dog races in Florida on which there is wagering.
- A “no” vote opposes prohibiting wagering on live dog races, including greyhound races, held in Florida and banning dog races in Florida on which there is wagering.
Therefore, any dog races being held in Florida could not be offered to other states for the purposes of simulcast wagering. Essentially, this is a roundabout way of ending the greyhound racing industry in the State of Florida, which this author s, because it is barbaric and cruel to animals.
I will take an opportunity to say that I am usually in favor of all things gambling because I’m in favor of all things personal choice, but this is different because the greyhounds do not have a choice as to whether or not they race.
Even if this Amendment es, the greyhound industry would be given plenty of time to scale back operations:
Beginning on January 1, 2021, Amendment 13 would prohibit pari-mutuel (a type of betting pool) operations from racing greyhounds or any other dogs for wagering. The measure would also prohibit persons in the state from wagering on the outcome of live dog races occurring in the state. Amendment 13 would authorize the Florida State Legislature to specify civil or criminal penalties for violating the constitutional amendment.[3]
Essentially, they would have a little over two years of greyhound racing for which bets could still be placed in the State of Florida.
The other problem with the dying greyhound industry, which is completely illegal in the vast majority (43) of states, is that it would be completely dead already without certain state Governments keeping it alive.
In the State of West Virginia, for example, they have something called the, “Greyhound Breeders Development Fund,” and it is a mechanism by which the two casinos with greyhound tracks must divert their winnings from the areas of the casino that actually make money and put those revenues into this fund. What the fund then does is it pays the greyhound breeders (most of whom are located out of state and do not even pay income tax to WV) as well as funding all of the purses for the races themselves.
The reason that the bill is needed, quite simply, is because the greyhound races do not operate profitably! Even with the fourteen million dollars (approximate) that the two casinos pump into this fund annually, the greyhound tracks STILL lose money. Really, the fourteen million dollars is also lost, because it comes from the casinos.
In the case of West Virginia, it’s essentially a tax that they don’t call a, “Tax.” The money does undoubtedly come from casino revenues that would otherwise be profits.
There was recently a vote to end the Greyhound Breeder Development Fund which was ed by the West Virginia Senate in 2017, but it was vetoed by Governor Jim Justice. The bill would not have, “Eliminated,” the bill so much as diverted the money therefrom into other state interests. The casinos would have still been made to pay essentially the same amount of money.
We can thank West Virginia (sarcasm) as being one of the states to have enabled greyhound racing to last this long. If the Greyhound Breeders Development Fund had died, greyhound racing in the state would have been finished, probably literally overnight. The casinos would have simply closed their greyhound tracks and maybe done something else with the betting areas.
Here is where the money is going on this bill:
| Issue: | Spending For | Spending Against |
| Florida Amendment 13, Ban on Wagering on Dog Races Amendment (2018) | $2,498,293.82 | $80,942.13 |
The only ones spending against this Amendment are greyhound breeders and certain others who love the so-called, “Sport,” all twenty-seven of them.
The entities spending the most, if not all of, the money in of this Amendment are animal rights groups.
Unfortunately, it looks like the Amendment will fail.
And Florida will continue to be one of the few states to maintain and promote this barbaric sport. I wonder when they are going to legalize cock and dog fighting?
