Read Court’s Order Removing Amendment 9 From Ballot
by Kemp Brinson
The Order of the 2nd Circuit Court for Leon County that removes Amendment 9 from the Ballot has been released to the public and is available for download: Final Order in Mangat v. State.
The Court’s ruling is straightforward and, I believe, correct. Basically, it boils down to this:
The summary contains three statements in its introduction that the Plaintiff argues makes the summary misleading. The first statement is “to ensure access to health care services without waiting lists”. A citizen reading this could only conclude that once passed a constitutional right would exist to obtain a doctor of one’s choice without being put on a waiting list. The amendment says nothing about “waiting lists”. The second statement called into question reads “protect the doctor-patient relationship”. The amendment says nothing about “the doctor-patient relationship” nor does it have anything to do with doctor-patient confidentiality. The final statement is that the amendment will “guard against mandates that don’t work”. Neither the amendment nor the summary explain what mandates or why they don’t work. there is no explanation as to who the mandates don’t work for. Is it mandates that don’t work for hospitals, or for insurance companies, or for HMO’s, or is it mandates that don’t work for citizens? “Mandates that don’t work” is certainly a subjective term that in this context could have no purpose other than to influence a voter’s decision on the amendment. All of these phrases are examples of comments that the Supreme Court has repeatedly said are not allowed in ballot summaries.
Do you agree with this analysis? If not, do you have a problem with the actual analysis, or the notion that statements designed to advocate for an amendment should not appear on the ballot?
Update 8/2/2010: fixed typo
