Here’s one thing Floridians have learned in recent years (and that the most savvy have known for a long time): When state lawmakers start kicking up a ruckus about defending something that doesn’t seem to need defending, watch out.
A constitutional right to hunt and fish? Florida voters will decide in 2024
In this case, it’s the right to hunt and fish, something that most Floridians probably never think about. Maybe it’s because state residents already have strong laws protecting their ability to shoot, trap or hook all manner of critters, from 20-foot pythons to tiny, shimmering bait fish.
So voters should ask themselves: Why do lawmakers want to carve a right to hunt and fish into the Florida Constitution, and why do they want to cut so deeply? As leading Florida conservationist Clay Henderson pointed out in a column we printed Sunday, an amendment that will be on 2024 ballots in November would put hunting and fishing on the same level as democracy’s most sacred rights, including free speech and even Floridians’ rights to life and liberty.
Coming from the same set of lawmakers who enthusiastically stomped on voters’ ability to mandate clean air and water — a law that wiped out an Orange County charter provision meant to protect sensitive local water bodies — it’s a highly suspicious move. Even in Florida’s current, falsehood-oriented political environment, gaining the 60% vote needed to write it into the Constitution seems like a long shot.
What’s the real target?
Here’s the reality in Florida: State law is already pretty favorable to hunting and fishing, with most restrictions aimed at balancing the health of key species against sport-fishers’ and hunters’ access to public lands and other opportunities.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission sets generous hunting and fishing seasons and licensing provisions and makes it easy to buy licenses at affordable prices. And the sportfishing and hunting communities often give back, supporting land-preservation measures and other conservation activities. One notable alliance: The involvement of groups such as Ducks Unlimited in the push to clean up the Indian River Lagoon, one of the most diverse estuaries on the eastern seaboard.
Most Floridians aren’t all that interested in hunting, but they have plenty of opportunities. Sportfishing is more popular (and lucrative) but that’s pretty well-protected too.
Scary implications
None of this supports a case that Florida needs special, expansive protection for one particular set of activities. But that’s what the language proposed by the Legislature would accomplish.
The text, as approved by lawmakers earlier this year, says the “right to fish and hunt” would ‘preserve forever fishing and hunting, including by the use of traditional methods, as a public right and preferred means of responsibly managing and controlling fish and wildlife.” That’s far more expansive than other rights guaranteed in the state constitution, including the right of Florida children to quality public education, small class sizes and universal pre-K. The amendment goes on to say that the FWC will still have the authority to regulate these things, but the first part of the amendment directly contradicts that: Right now, the FWC is the state agency that manages hunting and fishing. There’s no way to create a new “public right” that wouldn’t curb the commission’s ability to manage species against threats like overhunting or efforts to manage disease.
Meanwhile, notably, there’s no wording safeguarding the state’s ability to protect endangered species and fragile ecosystems — including land the state spent millions to preserve — from incursions by motorized vehicles and other accouterments of modern hunting. This amendment could also have a significant impact on the state’s ability to manage public lands against wildfires and flooding.
Some analysts have suggested that this amendment could even trump the rights of private property owners to restrict hunting on their own land.
It could certainly tie the hands of future lawmakers to respond to currently unforeseen environmental consequences of hunting, such as Florida’s ban on gill-net fishing or its most recent laws against the gruesome “Internet hunt” sites that allow online users to fire real guns, loaded with real ammunition, at Florida wildlife using remote control and webcams— a practice so dangerous and wasteful that it’s banned in 42 states.
One possible reason
That’s why this amendment seems so scary. Nobody can say exactly what it could do, or how much harm it could cause. Meanwhile, the only arguments in its favor seem to rest on the fallacy that hunting and fishing in Florida are under attack.
So what’s the point of putting it on the ballot? The best argument we can see for this stinker is that it’s bait — intended to draw out low-information, far-right voters who can be easily swindled into believing that their rights are somehow under attack and who will, presumably, be voting conservative across the rest of the ballot. And Florida’s deep-red Legislature doesn’t care about anything else, if it means winning a few more voters for their candidates.
That wouldn’t explain, however, why this amendment was written to be so expansive. That story might not be fully told until voters see which deep-pockets donors come out to support it — or what Florida’s far-right courts make of it.
So far, however, we see no reason to change the state Constitution, wreck environmental laws and insult Florida Republicans who care as much about this state’s future as anyone else. In the runup to the session that starts in January, lawmakers should hear from their constituents who are suspicious of this amendment, and other reckless efforts to hoodwink voters, with one clear message: This dog don’t hunt.
The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Contact us at insight@orlandosentinel.com
