If I am not mistaken, Colorado has a system that is even more bizarre than Florida's.  Initiatives get vetted by a three-member board before circulation begins.  Although I don't recall if there is automatic review by the Supreme Court, in practice they go there.  The process encourages proponents to file multiple variations of proposals, in the hope that one or more will be upheld.  
 
 
          Best,
 
          Daniel Lowenstein
          UCLA Law School
          405 Hilgard
          Los Angeles, California 90095-1476
          310-825-5148

________________________________

From: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu on behalf of Holman@aol.com
Sent: Fri 3/24/2006 6:17 AM
To: rick.hasen@lls.edu
Cc: election-law@majordomo.lls.edu
Subject: Re: Dan Lowenstein re Florida single subject case


 
As a point of interest:
 
Florida's procedure for determining an initiative's compliance to the single subject rule is unique among all the states. Most states also allow for pre-election review of initiatives by the courts for proper subject matter.

Only Florida, however, requires automatic court review of initiatives after the circulation of petitions has begun but before the measure actually qualifies for the ballot. Following a series of last-minute court challenges to a number of initiatives from 1982 through 1984, Florida voters ratified a 1986 constitutional amendment requiring state supreme court review of all initiatives which collected 10% of the requisite signature. The 10% threshold is designed to avoid burdening the court with frivolous initiative proposals. The state supreme court analyzes the initiative proposals for compliance with the single-subject rule and other statutory criteria. The court then issues an advisory opinion on the measure's validity.

Although proponents have four years to circulate petitions and gather the requisite signatures for ballot qualification in Florida, signature gathering stops at the 10% threshold, pending supreme court certification. After the court issues its advisory opinion on the initiative's compliance with the single-subject rule, proponents may modify the proposal to accommodate the advisory opinion and start all over again to raise signatures, or refuse to alter the proposal and risk a final judicial reversal. The court's advisory opinion is thus not binding, but it is to be viewed as "extremely persuasive" in a later court challenge.*
 
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* Staff analysis of House Joint Resolution 71, Florida House of Representatives, Committee on Judiciary (Feb. 18, 1986) [Democracy by Initiative]

Craig Holman, Ph.D.
Public Citizen
215 Pennsylvania Ave., SE
Washington, D.C. 20003
TEL: 202-454-5182
FAX: 202-547-7392
Holman@aol.com