Judge takes GOP-backed proposed healthcare amendment off ballot

[babylonsister]

Judge takes GOP-backed proposed healthcare amendment off ballot

A proposed constitutional amendment that would have blocked Florida from starting a healthcare program was removed from the ballot.
BY LEE LOGAN
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau


TALLAHASSEE -- Calling the wording of a Republican-backed constitutional amendment on healthcare ``manifestly misleading,'' a Circuit Court judge in Leon County has tossed it off the November ballot.

The proposal had been drafted and put forward by the GOP-led state legislature as a counter to the new federal healthcare plan. It would prohibit the state from participating in any health insurance exchange that compels people to buy insurance.

State law requires ballot summaries to be clear and accurate. Circuit Court Judge James Shelfer said a proposed ballot summary for the amendment contains several phrases that are political and list issues that are not addressed in the proposal.

The first sentence of the summary says the amendment would ``ensure access to health care services without waiting lists, protect the doctor-patient relationship, (and) guard against mandates that don't work.''

Shelfer said the amendment does not guarantee any of those things.

``Someone voting on the amendment, reading those introductory statements would have a false understanding of what they were voting on,'' he said in a ruling from the bench.

more...

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/07/30/1753003/judge-takes-gop-backed-proposed.html

[old mark]

1. Good. A smart judge - the GOP hates them! rec. nt

[babylonsister]

2. The gop must think everyone is dumb and blind.

I imagine they didn't really expect this to pass, but wasted their effort by trying to throw a cog in the machinery.

[Lochloosa]

3. Damn Activists Judges!

Thanks Judge Shelfer.