- October 16, 2024
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Those of you who have slogged through the many long diatribes on this page surely are familiar by now with the predictable slant at election time.
On candidates, with one exception, the choice for decades has been the party line — Republican.
The exception is and has been one of our local candidates — Democrat Barbara Ford-Coates, Sarasota County’s longtime tax collector. The tax collector is not a job for partisanship. To her credit, Ford-Coates has never tried to be an outspoken partisan political figure. Her job has been about competence, serving all citizens of Sarasota County efficiently and fairly.
Except for her, we have sided with Republicans largely out of hope. It’s certainly not out of devotion to the Republican Party. In fact, we’re not registered a Republican. We signed up years ago with the Constitution Party, so disheartened after Republicans ignored the Tea Party’s attempts to reign in spending.
Fact is, at the national level, there is little to no difference between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to spending and injecting the federal government into every aspect of our lives.
It’s a little better at the state level. Thank goodness, Florida’s Republican-dominated Legislature over the past 30 years has been loathe to raise taxes. In addition, the state constitution forces the Legislature to balance the budget each year and forbids a state income tax. But Florida’s Republican legislators are also like the vast majority of lawmakers — eager to keep adding more and more laws and subsidizing favored special interests.
So if you’re inclined to favor the Founders’ vision of a limited government, individual liberty and laissez-faire capitalism, as we do, your choices are few to none.
Then what do you do? One choice would be to abstain on principle from voting for either candidate from the major political parties and accept what you get.
Or, carry the hope that the candidates who profess to be closest to your politico-philosophical principles will be true.
And that explains our recommendations. Not that we fully endorse each candidate, but we do so because Republicans profess to be for less government and regulation and greater capitalism than do Democrats. Never give up hope.
Herewith, comments on a few ballot items and questions:
Voting to retain sitting state Supreme Court justices and appeal judges is always confusing for Floridians. The vast majority of Floridians has no idea who these justices and judges are and doesn’t know whether they should be retained or bumped from the bench.
For the most part, the lack of knowledge about the judges doesn’t matter much. It’s extraordinarily rare for a Florida justice not to be retained. He or she would have to demonstrate being unfit for the office, which would trigger an investigation from the state Judicial Qualifications Commission. Or, if enough voters disapproved of his or her opinions they could vote not to retain that judge.
Typical votes since 2000 show must justices and judges receiving more than 64% of the votes to be retained. The only justice to receive less than 60% of the votes was Justice Charles Labarga in 2010 — 59%. He went to serve two terms as Florida’s chief justice.
Suffice it to say, the slate of judges on the ballot this year deserve to be retained.
Voters in Manatee and Sarasota counties are being asked to extend a four-year, 1-mill property tax that has become widely accepted among the two counties’ electorates.
Dissatisfied with the support for public schools from the state, Sarasota County voters approved the 1-mill tax in 2002 with 63% of voters in favor. In three elections since then, 78% of Sarasota County voters have overwhelmingly renewed the tax, and it continues to have widespread support, including the county’s many business organizations.
In Manatee, after decades of seeing their schools struggle in performance ratings, voters approved the 1-mill tax in 2018 —albeit by a margin of 51.3% in favor. Three years later, voters extended the tax with a margin of 69.3% to 30.2%.
The investment is paying off. After ranking 41st out of 67 districts and hovering with C’s and low B’s up to 2016 in Florida’s state rankings, the district’s scores have risen steadily. In the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years, the district finished one and two points shy of becoming an A-rated district. It ranked 25th.
In addition, last year the Manatee district had 24 A-rated schools, the highest number since 2012.
Support for extending the tax and the district’s progress continues to grow. Advocating for its passage are the Bradenton Area Economic Development Corp., Bishop Parker Foundation, Gulf Coast Builders Exchange, Lakewood Ranch Business Alliance, Manatee Chamber of Commerce and Manatee Community Foundation.
If you’re going to tax someone, tax a tourist.
As Florida economist Hank Fishkind once told us, tourists pay 20% of Florida’s tax collections.
The Manatee Visitors and Convention Bureau wants to tax them just a bit more — a new 1% tax on hotel rooms and short-term rentals. That would raise the tourist tax to 6%, making it the same as Sarasota County’s. Manatee would become the 12th Florida county with a 6% tourist tax; the other 11 are all of the major metro and tourist areas, except for Monroe (the Keys).
Mind you, this is not a new tax that would affect full-time residents.
The $7.8 million expected to be raised each year would go toward improvements and operation of the county’s convention center, sports stadiums, Bishop Museum, Mote Marine, beach maintenance and tourism promotion.
