Do you know that in Florida, some amendments are bundled on ballots, packed full of controversial issues that get lost in the length or the details?

I found Florida's Amendment 6 a little difficult to understand and wonder why there is more than one issue on the ballot with this amendment. The headliner is "Rights of Crime Victims." Unfortunately, there are two other pieces to this amendment that do not have anything to do with victim's rights. One is raising the retirement age for judges from 70 to 75 and the other issue requires judges to not consider a state agency's interpretation of a law when interpreting the law themselves.

A Leon County judge ordered Amendment 6 to be removed from the ballot. Unfortunately, it was appealed to Florida's Supreme Court and overturned. The reason the judge wanted the amendment removed had to do with the language did not fully explaining the details on the ballot. The bundling of other ballot questions on the amendment by the Constitution Revision Commission failed to explain all the issues on this amendment, which is the case for most of the bundled amendments - past and present.

Now, what is the Constitution Revision Commission (CRC), you might ask? It will surprise many Florida voters, myself included, to learn about the CRC. In 1968, the Florida voters ratified an amendment that included provisions for one of which created the CRC. The CRC convenes every 20 years and started in 1977 to ratify amendments to the state's constitution. Florida is the only state that has this commission and bundles its amendments. The reason stated by several sites I researched regarding bundling is to keep the ballot short and not to overload the voter.

It was created to keep the state's constitution updated with the changing times and environment. The past CRC's addressed many topics from firearms, education, and election reform. The first time the state submitted the eight amendments in 1978, they all failed to pass. Five of the eight amendments were bundled with three or more issues, and Amendment 1 would have revised 10 articles in the Florida Constitution. In 1998, the CRC proposed nine amendments, and only one failed. They passed based on a majority vote, but as of 2006, the current amendments require at least 60 percent of the vote to pass. Of the eight that passed, five passed by over 60 percent of the vote.

The CRC is comprised of 37 members. The Governor appoints 15 members, the President of the Florida Senate appoints nine members, the Florida Speaker of the House of Representatives appoints nine members, the Attorney General is an automatic member, and the Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court selects three members. The 2017-2018 commission is apprised of 28 Republicans, three Democrats, and six non-affiliated members. In addition, three members are lobbyists.

The CRC members are appointed the year before the November election. This year's session began in 2017 as a year-long process of collecting proposals from the public hearings. The commission holds hearings and listens to the residents and allow them to propose constitutional amendments. There is a requirement of a nomination from a commissioner and at least 10 votes from the standing 37 commissioners before it can be considered. The deadline for proposals from the public was October 6, 2017. The CRC had until May 10, 2018, to consider all the proposals and decide which would make it on the November 6, 2018, ballot.

As of October 2, 2018, Amendment 8 was removed and 7, 9, & 11 are measures that were struck down and removed from the ballot but could potentially make it back on the ballot pending appeals.

So let's go over the bundled Amendments:

Amendment 6

·Adds specific rights of crime victims, together known as a Marsy's Law, to the Florida Constitution

·Increases the judicial retirement age from 70 to 75 years of age

·Prohibits state courts from deferring to an administrative agency's interpretation of a state statute or rule in lawsuits

Amendment 10

·Requires, rather than authorizes, the legislature to provide for a state Department of Veterans Affairs

·Creates a state Office of Domestic Security and Counter-Terrorism

·Requires the legislature to convene a regular session on the second Tuesday of January of even-numbered years

·Prohibits counties from abolishing certain local offices—sheriff, tax collector, property appraiser, supervisor of elections, and clerk of the circuit court—and requiring elections for these offices

Amendment 7 (pending)

·Requires employers to provide death benefits, as the state legislature defines, to the surviving spouses of first responders while engaged in official duties

·Requires the state to provide death benefits, as the state legislature defines, to the surviving spouses of active-duty U.S. Armed Forces members who are accidentally killed or unlawfully and intentionally killed

·Requires a 9-member vote of the board of trustees and 12-member vote of the board of governors to increase a college fee

·Places the current structure of the state's system of higher education in the Florida Constitution

Amendment 9 (pending)

·Bans offshore drilling for oil and natural gas on lands beneath all state waters

·Bans the use of vapor-generating electronic devices, such as electronic cigarettes, in enclosed indoor workplaces

Amendment 11 (pending)

·Repeals constitutional provision prohibiting foreign-born persons ineligible for citizenship from owning, inheriting, disposing, and possession property

·Repeals an obsolete constitutional provision stating that a high-speed ground transportation system be developed in Florida

·Deletes the constitutional provision that an amendment to a criminal statute does not affect the prosecution of a crime committed before the statute's amendment

Now, after this research, how does one vote on these amendments?