Florida Supreme Court to the Rescue

In my last entry, I discussed a pair of destructive amendments to the state constitution on the November ballot here in Florida. This morning I heard some good news: the Florida Supreme Court has removed three education-related amendments to the state constitution, including one that I mentioned! Amendments 5, 7 and 9 have been removed because the texts on the ballot weren't clear enough for the voters to properly understand. Amendment 5 concerned property taxes and school funding, amendment 7 would have allowed the state to distribute money to religious institutions – including schools – and amendment 9 would have directly reversed a legal precedent against vouchers. It's good to see these issues off the table for now. I only wish they could remove amendment 2, which would ban same-sex marriage and civil unions, on the same grounds, but the language of its text is unfortunately crystal-clear.

The Florida Supreme Court is an admirable group of judges. Remember that if their decision hadn't been overturned by the federal Supreme Court, the recount in 2000 would have continued, Gore would have become president and the world would have been spared eight years of Bush!