Lawmakers want to make it tougher to pass amendments to Florida constitution by raising it 6.66% (Currently 60%). Its obvious they don"t want others to have restoration of rights when amending the constitution. Amendment 4 passed with 65%.
https://www.cltampa.com/news-views/florida-news/article/21063494/florida-republicans-want-to-make-it-harder-for-voters-to-approve-constitutional-amendments
Republican lawmakers want to make it a little tougher to pass amendments to Florida’s constitution. On Monday, the Florida House State Affairs Committee voted 15-6 to pass HJR 57, which raises the threshold for voter approval on constitutional amendments from 60 percent to 66.66 percent (we’d go for it if they left it at 66.6 percent, but two-thirds it is).
Lawmakers argue that it’s become too easy to change the state constitution (8 of 11 amendments, including a voting rights restoration amendment that passed with 65 percent of the vote, passed in 2018).
Rep. Rick Roth — a Republican from West Palm Beach who is the chief sponsor of the new legislation — said that out-of-state organizations are partially working to get Florida to approve "purposefully vague, broad and misleading" ballot measures.
Florida Politics thinks that Roth’s big beef about the amendment approval threshold has something to do with a 2002 animal cruelty amendment that prevented the confinement of pigs during pregnancy (54.75 percent of voters checked “yes” on that measure). The last time Florida lawmakers moved to increase the threshold for passing constitutional amendments was in 2006 when it went from 50 percent to 60 percent.
News of HJR 57 comes just weeks after the House Judiciary Committee advanced a proposal (PCB JDC 19-01) that would make it harder for citizens and groups to put measures on the ballot. The bad news for opponents of the new two-thirds threshold is that the conservative state house will probably pass HJR 57. A companion bill has already been filed in the state senate and has passed its first committee by one vote.
If both chambers approve the measure, then it would land on the 2020 ballot that would ironically require just 60 percent approval to pass.
