Floridians go to the polls today to choose their presidential nominees, but the real question on voters’ minds will not be on which nominees win, but whether the property tax ballot initiative will pass.
Amendment 1 is being hailed by Gov. Charles Crist and
others as a way to provide residents with property tax relief by doubling homestead exemptions on properties valued over $75,000, placing a 10 percent cap on assessments for commercial and non-homestead properties, giving businesses a $25,000 exemption on their tangible personal property taxes and allowing homeowners to move up to $500,000 in tax benefits accrued from the Save Our Homes program if they purchase another homestead in Florida. Proponents have raised $2.8 million to win the amendment’s passage.
Florida is our Home, Inc., a broad-based coalition of educators, municipal workers and retirees, opposes Amendment 1, arguing that it will cost public schools $2.75 billion in lost revenue over five years and local municipalities will need to reduce their spending by $2.3 billion.
The amendment needs 60 percent voter approval in order to change the state’s constitution. Nearly seven percent of the state’s voters – approximately 700,000 individuals – have voted by absentee ballot.
As for the presidential primaries, former New York City Mayor
Rudy Giuliani is hoping his strategy of focusing almost exclusively on Florida to make him the Republican frontrunner works. As part of that strategy, the former mayor has been running a series of ads in Florida and on his website in recent days touting the creation of a national catastrophe fund. Right now, however, polls show Giuliani running third behind
John McCain and
Mitt Romney.
The Democratic primary, like Michigan, is another “non-event” as a result of the Democratic National Committee’s decision to strip the state of its convention delegates for moving up its primary date. And like Michigan,
Hillary Clinton is expected to come out ahead of her challengers,
Barack Obama and
John Edwards.