Further restrictions on citizen-led amendments will choke Floridians’ voices | Opinion

Choking citizens

In 2020, Florida voters approved a citizen-led amendment that would gradually increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026.

Last year, Floridians favored citizen-led amendments for recreational marijuana (56%) and reproductive rights (57%). Neither amendment passed, unable to meet the 60% threshold, after Gov. Ron DeSantis used at least $20 million Florida taxpayer dollars for attack ads.

This year, DeSantis called for a special session of the Florida Legislature — they are meeting this week — that includes a proposal to all but abolish citizen-led amendments. Under DeSantis’ plan, Floridians would have to go in person to their local Supervisor of Elections office to sign a petition or try to navigate an onerous, multi-step, mail-in process.

Contact your Florida legislators and let them know you do not want your voice silenced in the so-called “freedom” state. Just say “No” to any further restrictions on citizen-led amendments and the massive misuse of our tax dollars to fund attack campaigns.

Kathy Ojeda,

Merritt Island

End Cuban embargo

Consistent with President Trump’s America First economic policy, it’s time to end the Cuban trade embargo and create more American jobs in Miami and throughout the United States.

We buy nothing from Cuba. Dozens of Fortune 500 companies are ready to sell to Cuba. They are an eager customer. The embargo is an economically detrimental policy, an ineffective 60-year anachronism.

Kenneth Lipner,

Miami

Echos of the past

As a Jew, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, I find it very difficult to watch law enforcement officials going into homes and marching innocent immigrants out.

This is not the America that I want my great-grandchildren to grow up knowing.

Who will it be tomorrow?

Priscilla Fregger Adler,

Cutler Bay

Employment opportunities

I am anxious to see how so-called religious people are going to tie themselves in knots justifying President Trump’s particularly cruel anti-immigrant policies.

Will the fact that immigrants are here illegally justify sending them and their children back to countries like Haiti, for example, which is in the midst of a terrible civil war?

Are these the same religious people who will then go pick produce in our fields, take care of the elderly, feed them, change their soiled diapers, clean their houses and work back-breaking hours for poor pay?

Their level of hypocrisy boggles the mind.

Gloria Marina,

Miami

Jobs for all

Among the executive orders that President Trump signed is one that does away with anything that furthers diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the federal workforce and any organizations that do business with the government.

Workers will now be employed and judged solely by their qualifications, performance and merit. What a revolutionary concept!

Gilbert Schwartz,

Aventura

Immigration reform

In the midst of the current wanton ejection of immigrants, whatever happened to the bipartisan U.S. Senate bill that was the cornerstone for solving many of our immigration issues?

In 2024, then-candidate Donald Trump demanded the U.S. House not even take up this bill for discussion. The same immigration problems remain and are not being solved by ejecting immigrants. It won’t be long before new problems caused by these ejections rise to the surface.

Alfred Sasiadek,

Lauderhill

China-Cuba relations

Keeping the embargo against Cuba in place is a real shame. We helped maintain Fulgencio Batista as Cuba’s president in the 1950s, a dictator who took many liberties against the Cuban people while the American mafia and others took control of Havana.

We’ve crippled the Cuban economy, the people are suffering, struggling for food, shelter and clothing, while the politically connected in Cuba have everything. The United States is responsible for much of the suffering.

President Donald Trump labeled Cuba a terrorist nation. The embargo on Cuba puts us in grave danger because it enables China to move in on Cuba. China is giving Cuba 70 tons of equipment to upgrade its electrical grid. China doesn’t give anything away without a motive. The Trump administration and Secretary of State Marco Rubio do not see the danger in maintaining the embargo.

Americans do not care about the embargo. Cubans who fled Cuba during and after the revolution and now live in Miami are seemingly the only ones who care about it.

What will we do when China opens a military base in Cuba?

Stephen Linder,

Key West

Some clarification

According to the Republican Party, there is some wiggle room within the First Amendment (which includes freedom of the press) and the 14th Amendment (which confers citizenship on those born in the United States).

However, with the Second Amendment, if hundreds of children are murdered in their classrooms due to few limits on who can have guns, then that’s just a shame because the Second is apparently written in stone and “we’re defending the Constitution.”

How sick is that?

Meg Livergood Gerrish,

Palmetto Bay

Prison system

With violent street crime — physical assaults, robberies, carjackings and shootings — seemingly out-of-control, President Trump has promised to restore law and order in America. Hopefully, this means his administration will decrease funding for unnecessary mass incarceration (of mostly non-violent offenders) and increase funding for proven methods to prevent violent crime: more public safety officers, mental health professionals and social service workers.

Each year, the Justice Department spends billions of tax dollars to keep people in prison who do not present a danger to society and could be released and punished in more effective (and less-costly) ways, like community service (for older offenders) and mandatory labor programs (for younger ones).

By exercising his authority to issue mass commutations (with conditions) for those serving federal sentences for speech crimes, financial crimes and other non-violent offenses, Trump can stop the waste (without having to rely on Congress) and free federal funds needed to make America safe again.

Joseph Jordan,

federal inmate,

Butner, NC

Appeal for America

How sad that on Joe Biden’s last day in office as President of the United States, he would have to give a preemptive pardon to the heroes of our public health and democracy: Dr. Anthony Fauci, U.S. Army General Mark Milley and the nine members of the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol. This was a bipartisan committee.

In sweeping contrast, in his first hours and days in office, President Trump pardoned the insurrectionists who attacked the U.S. Capitol. He even pardoned the “QAnon Shaman” ✓Jacob Chansley, who posted on X his plans to buy guns.

Prayer for our country is read at every Jewish High Holiday service. With the sad and rapid changes happening in America, I pray for our country with each new day.

Connie Goodman-Milone,

Miami

✓Loonie idea?

Are Canadians thinking correctly when they hear somebody like President Trump come up with some ideas?

Many people dislike Trump, of course. However, let’s not panic like Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Canada and the United States can have parity in a form of Euro like the European Union. The Euro is a stable currency. Neighboring countries do not have to join each other and have their own borders.

A shared currency for North America makes sense, levels the playing field and no national identity is lost on either side.

Wayne Robertson,

Chatham, ON, CA

A last resort

I wonder how many people will remain employed at Mar-a-Lago after Homeland Security pays a visit?

Mark J. Pearce,

Bakersfield, CA