Adding irony to interest, the law in question is one that Democrats passed a half a century ago in an effort to help them win more state races. Now, the Democrats want to change the law in order to…help them win more state races.
Some history: In the 1960 presidential election, Republican candidate (and sitting U.S. Vice-President) Richard Nixon won all 10 of Florida’s electoral votes. In the same election, a relatively obscure Republican gubernatorial candidate, George Peterson, took 40 percent of the vote against Democrat Ferris Bryant.
As Washington Post political writer Reid Wilson notes, “Democrats who controlled the state legislature were worried that holding their gubernatorial elections in presidential years, when more Republican voters showed up at the polls, threatened their solid grip on state politics.”
So, the Democrats managed to call for a statewide special election to move the year in which Florida would elect its governor. Voters wound up approving the measure, which moved governor’s races to midterm election years rather than during presidential ones.
These days, with Florida Democrats showing up in greater numbers for a presidential election – but having lost five straight gubernatorial contests – the Dems want to go back to the way things were all the way back in 1960. Plans are underway to collect signatures for a 2016 ballot initiative that would move the governor’s race back to presidential election years. The idea was floated in an op-ed piece just days after the Dems lost the most recent governor’s race.
As one Democratic strategist told the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times, “Our state leaders should be elected by the greatest number of people. How can you argue that having fewer people participate in the political process is good for the state?”
Turns out it will take a substantial number of votes to get that done, though: Florida law requires proposed constitutional amendments to receive 60 percent of the vote in order to pass.
Wilson concludes: “Florida’s history should be a lesson to lawmakers on both sides seeking to change election laws to favor their candidates: Political tides change, and unintended consequences are almost certain to play havoc with even the best-laid plans.”
