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The Elections: What's Ahead for Civil Liberties
By Howard L. Simon
Executive Director, December 1998
Though the dust has barely settled on the 1998 elections, it is not too early to begin thinking about what a Jeb Bush administration and one party control of Florida government means for civil liberties.
It may be difficult to discern the new Governor's positions on many civil liberties issues, since much of this campaign involved a "sit on the lead and don't say anything controversial" strategy. Nevertheless, some of what lies ahead is clear.
The Next Legislature: Radical activists who absurdly call themselves "conservative" (groups like the Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition, James Dobson's Focus on the Family, Phyllis Schafley's Concerned Women for America, and Gary Bauer's Family Research Council) will have more influence in a legislature that is already hostile to civil liberties. And we can forget about gubernatorial vetoes that, in the past, have curbed some of the worst excesses of the legislature.
Abortion Rights: One message from the election is that Florida's women are the big losers. Whatever restrictions on women's access to abortion and reproductive health care that extremists dream up and the legislature passes, from regulating clinics out of existence, to an assault on the Constitution's guarantee of privacy, to the mischievous "Choose Life" license plate, will likely be approved by our new Governor.
Public dollars for public schools: The public schools are also losers. Candidate Bush supported a limited voucher program knowing that such a scheme runs afoul of the Florida Constitution and rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court. He is probably hoping that the Courts will look the other way and listen to campaign rhetoric rather than the Constitution. The principle of separation of church and state will need defending in what is likely to be a protracted battle in the courts.
School Prayer: Will the Governorelect permit the radical right to use the public schools to proselytize schoolchildren? Not until late in the campaign did candidate Bush say that he opposes prayer in the schools but only if it is sectarian or coercive. We can expect the Legislature, pushed by the religious extremists, to send the new Governor a bill they will spin as "nonsectarian and voluntary."
Beware when the extremists use the benign sounding term "nonsectarian." The ACLU is in court now challenging Duval County (Jacksonville) "nonsectarian" high school prayers, some of which invoke "our Christian duty" and conclude: "These and other blessings we ask in the Lord Jesus' name."
If Governorelect Bush falls for this ploy or, worse, if he uses it as cover to sign what Gov. Chiles had vetoed, there will need to be yet another court battle. Both the principle of separation of church and state and children of families who do not share the majority's religion will need to be protected from the zealots.
It has become fashionable these days to ridicule the public schools and to pretend that schemes to divert public funds to private and parochial schools are designed to help inner city students. It is also common to hear claims that prayers and other officiallysanctioned religious expression are the only way for the public schools to foster values.
Privatization: It has also become fashionable to attack the inefficiencies of government and urge the privatizing of a number of governmental functions, replacing them with publicly funded "faith based" programs run by churches. Candidate Bush, for example, was talking about sending tax dollars to churches to run faithbased drug rehabilitation and welfare programs.
On the other hand, civil liberties have never been fashionable. It is fidelity to the old fashioned civil liberties values that protects the right to be different in America and to act on the dictates of one's own conscience and religious traditions, even if that differs from the dominant religion. This is an especially important matter today for women who may need to terminate a pregnancy.
And it is the 18th Century civil liberties values that bar the government from taxing citizens to support churches and the religious education that your neighbor chooses for their children. These are not fashionable views. Rather they are part of the oldest contract with the American people the Bill of Rights.
A commitment to America's democratic traditions involves a commitment to such enduring values as personal freedom and religious liberty and the courage to implement these principles in sometimes very unpopular circumstances. We in the ACLU do not cut our consciences "to fit this year's fashion," to use Lillian Hellman's classic retort to McCarthyism.
So, what can Floridians expect from their new governor come January the moderate sounding Jeb of 1998 or the 1994 edition when he enlisted in the crusades of the rightwing radicals?
Fortunately, his margin of victory was such that he does not owe his election to any single constituency. So, he can "be his own man." Whoever that may be.
