Not surprisingly, church-state watchers have found the re-write of Florida's constitutional amendment summary insufficient:
This week, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi rewrote the amendment, as ordered by a Leon County judge a week ago. However, she only made a minor tweak that was pointed out by the judge.
Groups maintain the small change has not made the ballot measure less misleading. Howard Simon, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said “the proposal continues to mislead voters by failing to inform them of the chief purpose and actual impact of the amendment – to virtually require taxpayer funding of religious activities of churches, mosques and synagogues.”
Americans United, which joined the ACLU in challenging the amendment, says in a press release today that ”the Florida attorney general’s rewrite of a religion amendment scheduled for the November ballot is disappointing.”
Of course, even properly summarized, the measure is a terrible idea that would lower important religious liberty safeguards in the state, and make it much easier for government to fund religious enterprises with taxpayer funds. If the people of Florida are going to vote on such a change, they should at least be given a clear idea of what they're voting on.
