Amendment 4, aka the Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment, would take land use decisions away from county commissions and give them to voters via referendums. As I said in a previous blog post, the Chamber of Commerce and big developers are vehemently against voters crashing their lavish party.

You can expect the Chamber and their anti-Amendment 4 front group, the Orwellian-named "Floridians for Smarter Growth", to use every ridiculous argument under the sun to stop Amendment 4. Here's a foretaste of things to come:



The money quote from Florida Chamber of Commerce President Mark Wilson:

What the special interests behind Amendment 4 want is no jobs and no growth.

Exactly! I'm sure those are precise intentions of Amendment 4's backers - we don't need no stinking jobs!

Oh brother, it's going to be a long fight for Hometown Democracy backers. I hope Wilson's quote is played over and over as an example of just how embarrassingly desperate the supporters of the status quo are.

Hometown Democracy backers should still be careful - no matter how ridiculous the above talking point is - simplicity sticks. If Amendment 4 is successfully framed as "anti-jobs" - it's game over. However, if Amendment 4 can successfully be framed as "pro-sustainability" or even "pro-democracy" - then it may just have a chance. In addition, there's also the opportunity to frame the anti-Hometown Democracy folks as tools of the developers, a group of people who most Floridians look upon unfavorably.