TALLAHASSEE - The Florida Supreme Court sliced three proposed constitutional amendments from the ballot Tuesday and threw out a challenge to two more, setting the boundaries for the November vote.

In a series of opinions released Tuesday afternoon, justices struck down a legislative redistricting amendment, a measure challenging the federal health care law and a property tax measure. They also ordered a lower court to dismiss a challenge to a pair of citizen-initiative redistricting proposals, meaning the votes on those measures will go forward.

All three redistricting amendments deal with the rules lawmakers will face when they begin crafting the districts for legislative and congressional districts following the results of the 2010 Census.

Amendments 5 and 6, sponsored by the group Fair Districts Florida, are aimed at barring lawmakers from drawing politically gerrymandered districts. The Legislature countered with its own proposal, Amendment 7, arguing that the citizen proposals could endanger some districts drawn to preserve "communities of interest" or allow minority voters to elect representatives of their choice - a charge Fair Districts denies.

On a 5-2 vote, the court ruled that Amendment 7 would have allowed lawmakers to ignore a long-standing constitutional requirement that districts be contiguous, but that the ballot summary didn't state that.

"This is a matter that should have been clearly and unambiguously stated in the ballot language. Failing this clear explanation, the voters will be unaware of the valuable right - the right to have districts composed of contiguous territory - which may be lost if the amendment is adopted," the majority ruled.

Justices Barbara Pariente, Fred Lewis, Peggy Quince, Jorge Labarga and E.C. Perry joined the majority.

In a dissent, Chief Justice Charles Canady said the majority misread the amendment and was overstepping its bounds.

"The majority's decision unduly interferes with a process that is fundamental to our constitutional system of democratic governance," Canady wrote in an opinion joined by Justice Ricky Polston.

Incoming House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, said he respected the court.

"However, it's terribly disappointing to have the work of the legislative branch demolished by a co-equal branch of government, especially when there's no express authority in the constitution for their doing so," he said.

In the case dealing with the citizen amendments, the court ordered the dismissal of a case filed by U.S. Reps. Corrine Brown, a Democrat from Jacksonville, and Mario Diaz-Balart, a Republican from Miami.

Brown and Diaz-Balart challenged Amendment 6, which deals with congressional districts. Legislators later successfully asked the circuit court hearing the case to add a challenge to Amendment 5, dealing with legislative districts.

Threat of 'serial attacks'

The court ruled that hearing the case after the Supreme Court already upheld the ballot language in an earlier advisory opinion would "encourage serial attacks on citizen initiatives."

Four justices - Canady, Lewis, Quince and Labarga - joined the decision, Polston joined parts of it while saying the circuit court should hear parts of the case the Supreme Court didn't touch on in its earlier decision, and Pariente and Perry recused themselves.

Brown and Diaz-Balart denounced the ruling in a joint statement issued late Tuesday.

"I wholeheartedly believe that Amendment 6 is merely a subtle attempt to dilute minority representation on a federal level," Brown said. "... This amendment is nothing more than a deceitful attempt to turn the clock back to the days before 1992, when Florida did not have any African-American representation in Congress."

House Democratic Leader Franklin Sands, D-Weston, hailed both redistricting decisions.

"The Florida Supreme Court today checked the arrogant abuse of power by Republican legislative leaders by ensuring that voters will have a reasonable opportunity to improve our state's redistricting process," he said.

Health care mandates stay

The health care amendment would have barred mandates for health care services in Florida, potentially challenging a provision in the federal health care law requiring citizens to buy insurance.

The state had asked the court to replace the entire amendment for a ballot summary it conceded was misleading, but the court ruled 5-2 that it would not, instead setting aside an unpublished 2004 opinion that allowed a summary to be replaced with the amendment itself.

"Our role in this process is as a reviewer of constitutional validity, not as an editor or author," the court held.

In a dissent, Canady said the court should have followed the state's advice.

"The courts should act with restraint when we are asked to interpose judicial power to bar the people from voting on a proposal submitted to them by their elected representatives," he wrote, in a dissent joined by Polston.

The property tax measure, dealing with a break for non-homesteaded property, was also a 5-2 decision with Canady and Polston dissenting.

Incoming Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, questioned all four decisions.

"It is a sad day when more than 60 percent of the elected representatives of the people of the state of Florida can't get ballot measures approved by the court, but special interest groups can," he said.

brandon.larrabee@jacksonville.com, (678) 977-3709

link: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2010-08-31/story/florida-high-co...