Maurice Ferre for US Senate - Florida Democratic US Senate Candidate

BY MAURICE FERRE – CANDIDATE FOR U.S. SENATE, DEMOCRACT

This November 2nd, Florida voters will decide to accept or reject Amendment 4. This Florida constitutional change, called “The Florida Hometown Democracy Land Use Initiative,” came about because almost one million Florida registered voters signed the petition. It has cleared all legal requirements and will be on the November 2nd ballot.

Most Florida newspapers have editorialized against Amendment 4, as have almost all developers, builders, business organizations and labor unions, land use lawyers, many of my friends and political supporters for my 25 years of public service in Florida. I have decided, nevertheless to support Amendment 4 and need to explain my reasons; there are many and they are strong.

First, in the history of the world, money, or its equivalent, has always influenced decision-makers. Our Supreme Court has repeatedly, and did so again in 2010, ruled that the usage of money in politics is a right of free expression of a citizen and is thus protected by our U.S. 1st Amendment rights. This 1st Amendment protection has now gone to the extreme of giving that right to a non human “person”, a corporation.

Unfortunately, money has corrupted our democracy, at all levels. Through the electoral process, money, moneyed interests, lobbyists, high powered lawyers and wealthy individuals and corporations have a constitutional right to influence the system. And, influence the system they have. So at zoning councils, city and county commissions, regional and state levels, the humongous, overbearing, over-threatening, abuse of money is ever present. We the people don’t always play on a level playing field and thus get the short end. This unfairness has to do with funding of campaigns; gerrymandering for advantages during reapportionment; blunting charter change and recall provisions; influencing labor union and Chamber of Commerce decisions. It has even reached the newspaper editorial boards with a breach in the fire wall separation between opinion/editorials and factual reporting. More and more, money wins.

We see the unfair advantage of money at the level of Wall Street and deregulation from the Glass Steagall Act of 1933 (FDR) that kept us safe until 1998. Then came Senator Phil Gramm, Alan Greenspan with now, unfiltered capitalism: deregulation. It only took 12 years of deregulated financial entities, for disaster to again visit America.

What makes me a believer that our democracy will survive is the recent passage of the Financial Reform Bill, (Dodd-Frank) that brings back reasonable regulation to Wall Street, K-Street, that protects Main Street. This new law now signed by President Obama, happened without much bipartisan support and despite the expenditure by banks and the financial community of $600 million in lobbying fees. The successful Financial Reform Bill was a very weak and watered down version of the original bill. Former FRB chair Paul Volcker was not happy, but it was a beginning of getting back to balance.

The very same banks that were giving out unconscionable bonuses and salaries to their bank officers and were on the verge of bankruptcy, who were casino gambling on derivatives, debt swaps and hedge funds (where 25% of bank profits were made in 2007), had caused the almost depression of 2008, and were saved by President Bush’s and Secretary Paulson’s $700 billion TARP rescue funds,were the same banks (and friends) spending $600 million in trying to stop financial reform in 2010. These bankers like and want to continue deregulation.

The ability to have a free-for-all by developers has reigned rampant in Florida for decades. We all know the pattern: you buy cheap agricultural land outside the development envelope, hire the best land use lawyers, public relations people, publicists, trade unions, bankers, neutral chamber types, the business community that cares, etc. And the race is on. A decade later, millions of dollars expended – bingo! The land is now within the urban development envelope, re zoned for more houses or big-box commercial buildings, mitigation expenses agreed on – and we get closer to the Everglades, to endangered lands, to farm land, to land that needs to be protected. Billions of dollars! Follow the money.

I was a practitioner of this black art. As a City of Miami Commissioner, Mayor for twelve years and later, a Metro-Dade County Commissioner, I saw the pattern repeat itself time and time again. It’s important to stress that not every application, or change of land use plan and major zoning change or variance, was bad. Most were good. Most of the lawyers, developers, lobbyists and bankers are also good guys, well intentioned, honest practitioners. The changes were necessary because there is no way to codify every good project, every square peg that doesn’t fit the round hole. There must be a process that gives the special circumstance relief, but it is time to tighten the noose on rampant, unrestricted development in Florida.

The practical effect of financial deregulation was: soaring profits, boom and bust. The market could not regulate itself, as even Alan Greenspan was forced to admit. The existing 1985, Florida Growth Management Act requires all 67 countries and 411 municipalities to adopt long-term master-plan-use plans, submitted to the Department of Community Affairs every seven years for approval, but permitting local governing bodies to amend twice a year. Like financial deregulation, the Florida Growth Management Act is broken, it doesn’t work, the market place won’t self regulate either. It’s the loopholes. The loopholes have $ signs, through the electoral system, and 1st Amendment Rights. We must stop the loopholes. Growth and development in Florida has been a mixed blessing. Yes, it was the best of times; it was the worst of times. But the results are a damaged yet still beautiful and bountiful Florida. It’s not too late, if we are bold, yet prudent.

So the solution is tough, some say excessive. But there is no other way; the issues are too important. If the republican format doesn’t work because of corruption of the system by money, then we must revert back to the people. You remember “We the people.”? I am not usually for a straight democratic system (Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive Party –Bull Moose, whose basic premise was to let the people decide all important issues.) In Florida, with the earned lack of faith in politicians, we are back to – “We the people.”

Our Founding Fathers invented the Jefferson/Adams/Madison/Hamilton model of representative democracy based on checks and balances, separation of powers, individual rights, the rule of law and the other powers and rights established by our founding documents. And yet, a hundred years later, the great Theodore Roosevelt wanted to give more power back to the people.

In President Teddy Roosevelt’s own words at the 1912 Ohio Constitutional Convention, “ I believe in the Initiative and Referendum which should be used not to destroy representative government, but to correct it whenever it becomes misrepresentative.”

One small way for Florida to revert back to Theodore Roosevelt’s America is Amendment 4 to the Florida Constitution.

Amendment 4 will not stop development. You can build all you want according to the current laws and master plans. There will also be a PROCESS, to change master plans, just as before: department/bureaucratic approval, public hearings AND A VOTE FOR OR AGAINST THE CHANGE BY AN ELECTED ENTITY. Then comes the big new change; after all that, instead of a state governmental bureaucracy approval in Tallahassee (Department of Community Affairs) every seven years, it is “we the people” who will approve, EVERY YEAR, at general election time.

What makes this Amendment 4 proposal different with what was passed in 2006, in St. Pete Beach, that did not work then and there, is that now Florida Hometown Democracy would allow for a growth management change; a PROCESS that would require all proposals to go to a comprehensive land use plan, to go before the public, reviewed, investigated by local experts, then the Department of Community Affairs and then voted by the city/county commissioners BEFORE it goes to a public vote. It is this last and only, addition to the current system that mitigates the U.S. 1st Amendment right of open money to influence the outcome of public affairs in Florida. In other words, “we the people” will make the last decision on important issues, DIRECTLY.

There have been several white papers written which predict poor economic outcomes for Florida if Amendment 4 is passed. After much study, I must disagree.
I have spent time carefully reading the analysis brief of my friend Dr. Tony Villamil, Washington Economics Group’s January 21, 2010 report. This paper was used to predict a large loss of jobs in Florida if the Amendment passes. In Appendix I: Methodology of Dr. Villamil’s economic brief, he explains that his conclusions are based on the IMPLAN model. He goes on to explain the inter-industry linkages, indirect effects, induced effects, multiplier effects, variables, direct requirement efficiencies, average propensities to consume, matrix notations and finally, “output multipliers”. This all ends in a bold, large block letter FORMULA: X=(I-A) -1 F where,get this, F is a “vector of exogenous final demands”.

This is the same logic as the algorithmic formulas for derivatives that PHD mathematicians, physicists and economists devised for AIG and other financial giants of Wall Street, to guarantee against failure of bad mortgages and other poor investments. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan admitted that as smart as he was, he didn’t understand it. That mathematical guarantee didn’t work in the real world either. How do you determine such concepts as “average propensity to consume”, outlined by Dr. Villamil?

Here is the point: If Amendment 4 passes on November 2nd, Florida will become more attractive, not less attractive; thus property values will go up. These economic values have been seen in “enlightened” communities in Maine, Vermont and especially Oregon. Right here in Florida, we saw it work in Boca Raton, where less becomes more.

What Amendment 4 will do is not only take blatant power away from moneyed interests that want to manipulate the system for more profits, but more important, it will give “we the people” VETO power over unreasonable, wanton greed.

Will Amendment 4 stop growth? Absolutely not. We will have similar growth; but a more balanced, serviceable and sustainable growth. For those who believe in the market place, like I do, the market will work, but regulated with reason, not over regulated or under regulated. America grew well before financial deregulation and it will grow again, with reasonable regulation.

Florida will grow with infill, it will grow vertically in urban areas, where, as many planned developments have proven, you can densely populate, yet keep it human and livable. As approved now, we can house 100 million Floridians. It can also grow outside the master plan, but only if it makes sense, and we the people, agree.

As Thomas Jefferson once said in a letter to James Madison, dated December 20, 1787, “I know of no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but the people.” It is time for more democracy in Florida. I will vote for bold, intelligent change in our Florida Constitution. I will vote for Amendment 4 on November 2nd.