These are my recommendation to you dear readers and voters and I'm sticking to them as they represent my views as a conservative:
I recommend a Yes vote on Amendment 1 titled Repeal of public campaign financing requirement. The idea of publicly financing political campaigns is not a good one.
I recommend a Yes vote on Amendment 2 titled Homestead ad valorem tax credit for deployed military personnel. This bill extends an extra exemption to deployed military personnel proportional to the fraction of the year the person was deployed.
Our military personnel deployed overseas deserve every break we can give them.
I recommend a definite No vote on Amendment 4 titled Referenda required for adoption and amendment of local government comprehensive land use plans.
Land-use planning is a very bad idea to begin with. The only way it is tolerable at all is to allow the plans to be changed frequently to conform to reality. This bill would make us put these changes before the electorate. This Amendment would make the changing operation extremely slow and costly.
Furthermore, this bill would further weaken the property rights of the property owners.
I recommend No votes on both Amendment 5 and Amendment 6 titled Standards for Legislature to Follow in legislative redistricting and Standards for legislature to follow in congressional redistricting respectively.
Both these amendments are supposed to make the voting fairer for both political parties. In general the courts should have a stronger say in the drawing up of districts. The districts should be compact, equal in population, regular in shape and not give an edge to any political party.
This is a tall order and the chances of doing any real good are slim. The motives of the sponsor are not clear.
I recommend a strong Yes on Amendment 8 titled Revision of the class size requirements for public schools.
The best thing to do with the original class size Amendment would be to abolish it entirely. This Amendment is designed to make the original class size amendment less damaging and costly.
The Amendment seeks to make the rules apply to average class size rather than each individual class. This would add flexibility and cut costs in the school system.
The original class size Amendment is a futile attempt to improve schooling by reducing class size. All other things being equal smaller classes would probably help education; but all other things are not equal. There are so many other factors hurting public education that studies show that there is virtually no significant improvement observed when class size is decreased.
There is a non-binding Referendum on requiring the federal government to balance its budget. Since it is non-binding it doesn’t matter how you vote. However, you can send an anti-spending message by voting yes.
I recommend a no vote on the Referendum titled Referendum regarding two year continuation of 0.25 mills levy for school districts critical operating needs. We already spend about $20,000.00 per pupil per year in the Volusia county public schools. This is way too much money. We need to cut back on the money spent for education and this is a golden opportunity to cut back.
Thank you for taking the time to read these amendment descriptions. Please vote. It's your patriotic duty.