Community Patriots Manatee

2022 Election Manatee County

WHO IS ON YOUR BALLOT? 

If you download a digital sample ballot via the Supervisor of Election, you’ll see  THREE Amendments to the State Constitution, PLUS a tax-related Referendum.

Let’s take a look at what’s on the ballot:

  • No1: Limitation on the Assessment of Residential Property This Amendment asks if you want to grant the legislature the authority to make a law that says if you make improvements that would reduce damage to your home during a flood, those improvements won’t cause your taxes to go up. I will vote YES to give the Legislature the ability to prevent tax increases for flood improvement.

  • No2: Abolish the Commission This Amendment would abolish a Commission that meets every 20 years. The Commission has the authority to get constitutional amendments on the ballot simply by their vote. I don’t think we should give that kind of authority to only 37 people. PLUS …. they made a hot mess of the process in 2018. (My understanding is 7 of the 8 amendments they put on the ballot were disputed in court for being so confusing.) I will vote YES to abolish the Commission.

  • No3: Additional Homestead Property Tax Exemption for Specified Critical Public Services Workforce This is asking if we want to grant special favor to certain occupations. People who hold these “elevated” occupations get additional tax benefits. Why is it that the people on the favored list are government employees? Sure, these jobs are honorable, but so are other jobs. Between this special favor, plus all the talk about giving these same people benefits for more affordable housing, it sounds like we are creating a special class of government workers who are immune from the taxes the rest of us schmucks have to pay. The government should not choose winners and losers. This is a HARD NO for me. 

  • No4: “Economic Development” Tax Exemptions This is asking if you want to give the County Commissioners the power to remove property taxes for new or expanding businesses. Commissioners already have the power to grant special favor and lower taxes to businesses when they call it “economic development.” Now, they’re trying to give Commissioners the authority to grant businesses exemptions for property tax! (!!) Meanwhile, as written, it doesn’t even require these exemptions to be applied fairly to all businesses! Instead, County Commissioners would have the authority to grant special favor to businesses of their choice. That’s a HARD NO for me. And I wish I could vote NO on that one twice.

JUDGES

There are THIRTEEN Judges on the ballot. I confess I did not do a deep dive into the voting records of all of these Judges. But I did look at the Florida Family Action voter guide and cross referenced from two other sources. I also did an internet and Twitter search to see who the Left endorses and chose the others.

In general: If DeSantis appointed a Judge, or if the judge agrees with DeSantis the majority of the time, it’s a yes. Otherwise, it’s a no. The reasoning behind this is that if the person loses, DeSantis gets to appoint that position.

Supreme Court

  • Yes: Canady, Couriel, Grosshans, Polston

  • No: LaBarga


Second District Court (Bold is DeSantis Appointee)

  • Kelly: No

  • Khouzam: No

  • Labrit: Yes

  • Lucas: No

  • Morris: No

  • Northcutt: No

  • Stargel: Yes

  • Villanti: No

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