5-07-2023 1:04pm

Term Limits May Be On The Horizon for the Pinellas County Commission

Tidings Staff Editor

This now defunct website advertisement was part of a failed initiative to get Pinellas County Commission term limits onto the 2022 general election ballot.

Pinellas County, Florida, has a long and storied history of term limits for county commissioners. The county was one of the first in the state to enact such limits, and the issue has been the subject of several ballot initiatives over the years. As of today, there are no term limits for the Pinellas County Commission, which pays each commissioner in excess of $100,000 per year plus benefits. Each Pinellas County Commissioner also has a full time, paid executive administrative assistant.

A citizen-led effort to get a terms limit referendum on the Nov. 8, 2022 ballot supported by Tidings Media did not obtain the 55,000 signatures needed in time to get the measure in front of voters this year. A similar initiative failed in the 2023 Florida legislature, leaving the issue for local Florida counties to decide using a term called "home rule." In Florida, a city is recognized with certain rights and privileges. The most important of these rights is Home Rule. The state Constitution recognizes that cities may enact their own ordinances and self-govern – so long as the city's law does not conflict with the state and federal law. Ironically the legislature did not defer to local governments regarding school boards, who saw a newly passed 2022 law imposing a 12 year term limit now reduced to 8 years in a bill awaiting the governor's signature as passed by the 2023 Florida House and Senate. The longest standing school board member in Pinellas County is Carol Cook, who has been on the taxpayer payroll since 2000 (23 years and counting), pushing 3 times the new statutory limit for School Board service in Florida.

However, there is news on the horizon for Pinellas County watchdogs who long have advocated against career politicians spending the better part of a lifetime on the taxpayer dole. It appears that with a majority of the Pinellas County Commission now supporting term limits, in 2024 it's expected that either term limits will be added by the Pinellas County Charter Review Commission as a recommendation or placed directly by the Pinellas County Commission on to the 2024 election ballot.

The Pinellas County Charter Review Commission is a group of citizens appointed by the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners to review and propose amendments to the Pinellas County Charter. The Pinellas County Charter is the local government's basic governing document, similar to a constitution, which outlines the powers, functions, and procedures of the county government.

The Charter Review Commission is established every six years, in accordance with the Pinellas County Charter, to review and consider amendments to the charter. The Commission is made up of 15 members, who are appointed by the Board of County Commissioners, and they are tasked with conducting a thorough review of the charter and recommending changes or revisions that they believe will better serve the needs of the county's residents.

The Charter Review Commission conducts public meetings and hearings to gather input from the community on potential charter amendments. Once the Commission has completed its review and made recommendations, the proposed amendments are then presented to the Board of County Commissioners, who determine whether to place them on the ballot for voter approval.

Pinellas County, Florida has long been a refuge for career politicians. One example is former commissioner Karen Seel, who took taxpayer salary and benefits from the Pinellas County Commission for 22 years (over $2,000,000 in salary and benefits when adjusted to 2023 dollars) after originally being appointed by then Governor Jeb Bush in 1999. Seel retired this past year, replaced by Commissioner Chris Latvala, a term limit advocate. Latvala, along with new Pinellas County Commissioner Brian Scott, are in favor of term limits for Pinellas County Commissioners. Tidings is anticipating that Latvala and Scott, along with Republican Commissioners Kathleen Peters and Conservative David Eggers will place term limits of 12 years on the November 2024 ballot. Typically, the clock starts ticking on term limits from the date of passage, meaning the current commissioners would have 12 years from the date of implementation of the new law if approved by the voters.

Commissioners technically could take a vote and simply enact term limits by vote of a simple majority of the Commission, but that would leave term limits to be overturned by a similar vote should a future commission take an opposite position. A better way to safeguard the installation of term limits would be to put it to a popular vote which codifies it into law. If passed by popular vote, future commissions would have to bring another ballot initiative to overturn term limits if enacted. The ballot initiative is expected to be passed by a wide margin of popular voter support, with some estimates as high as 80% voter approval. The ballot initiative can be recommended by the Pinellas County Charter Review Commission to the Pinellas County Commission who can then place it on the 2024 general election ballot on a simple majority vote.

The first attempt to limit the terms of county commissioners in Pinellas County came in 1992, when a group of citizens organized a petition drive to put the issue on the ballot. The initiative would have limited county commissioners to two consecutive terms in office. However, the effort failed to garner enough signatures to make it onto the ballot.

Undeterred, supporters of term limits continued to push the issue in subsequent years. In 1996, a group called Citizens for Term Limits successfully collected enough signatures to place a term limits initiative on the ballot. This time, the initiative passed overwhelmingly, with nearly 70% of voters in favor of limiting commissioners to two consecutive four-year terms. In an egregious financial conflict of interest, the Pinellas County Commission used taxpayer money to fund litigation to challenge the new law in court, in a lawsuit that stretched over a decade and enjoined the county from enacting the voter approved term limits until 2014, when a judge ruled for the county, against the taxpayers, and struck down the law.

The term limits initiative proved popular with voters, and it was subsequently reaffirmed in 2004 and 2012 while the court battle raged on. In 2004, the Pinellas County Charter Review Commission recommended that the term limits provision be removed from the county's charter, arguing that it was unnecessary and interfered with the ability of voters to choose their elected officials. However, voters rejected the recommendation and upheld the term limits provision by a wide margin.

In 2012, the issue of term limits for county commissioners was once again on the ballot, this time as a proposed amendment to the Florida Constitution. The amendment would have imposed a limit of eight consecutive years in office for county commissioners across the state. However, the amendment failed to receive the necessary 60% approval from voters to pass at a State level.

Despite these setbacks, there have been ongoing debates about the effectiveness of term limits in Pinellas County and beyond. Supporters of term limits argue that they help to prevent entrenched incumbents from becoming too powerful and that they ensure a regular turnover of elected officials. Critics, on the other hand, argue that term limits can create a lack of experience and institutional knowledge among elected officials, as well as encouraging a "revolving door" of elected officials seeking higher office. The current Pinellas County Commission falls somewhere in-between, with the majority consensus favoring a 12 year term limit.

Regardless of these debates, term limits in Pinellas County continues to be a popular issue among voters. In 2024, Tidings Media is predicting the issue comes to a head and is finally passed into law. Our prediction is a 12 year term limit for Pinellas County Commissioners.

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