Letters: Carlucci right to criticize legislators, but Floridians keep electing them

In his Feb. 10 guest column, Jacksonville City Councilman Matt Carlucci rightly castigates the Florida Senate after it deliberately abandoned the usual committee and citizen input processes to advance legislation significantly weakening state and local ethics commissions. For example, imagine a food inspector prohibited from citing a failing restaurant unless he got sick eating there.

This measure would lead to a dangerous diminishment of accountability and transparency. It clearly provides “get out of ‘ethics’ jail free” cards for ethically challenged legislators.

Carlucci claims the measure insults the intelligence of Florida’s citizens, but that’s debatable. Floridians continually re-elect legislators who repeatedly advance measures contrary to the wishes of voters. They then expend considerable effort and expense to amend the state constitution to pursue the goals and policies they expect of their legislators, only to have those same legislators oppose them.

It’s said that insanity is defined as repeating the same failed process and expecting a different outcome.

Voters clearly favor this amendment process to ensure legalized abortion, recreational marijuana use, restoration of felon voting rights after sentence completion and restrictions on lobbying after leaving office. These are all issues their re-elected legislators oppose.

As much as this lifelong Democrat admires Carlucci (the “reasonable Republican”), I believe the fault instead may lie with Florida citizens who re-elect, enable and embolden ethically deficient legislators.

Michael Miller, Ponte Vedra Beach

‘Black History Month’ a divisive title

I have written on this topic in the past, and I still believe that Black History Month is divisive. Instead, I suggest it be a month of full inclusion, and call it "Cultural Diversity Month."

Here are some statistics I found on Wikipedia regarding the Nobel Prize. Since 1901, about 954 individuals have been awarded the Nobel Laureate. Of those, 17 were Black and 60 were Asians.

By contrast, at least 214 have been Jewish, representing 22% of all recipients. Since Jews comprise only 0.2% of the world's population, that means their share is 110 times the proportion of the world's population.

The real point, however, is that America is a melting pot. So many men and women from all ethnic backgrounds have made contributions and advancements to the betterment of our nation and mankind.

To be clear, in no way do I believe that great people in Black history should not be recognized. Just maybe not for an entire month. I do feel wholeheartedly that a month of cultural diversity will help students learn from an early age the real meaning of E pluribus unum — "Out of many, one." Every one of us can bring advancements to humanity that will be of benefit to all.

Joe Edelson, Jacksonville

Disgusted with Republicans

Unfortunately, the Republican Party continues to show it can’t govern. The U.S. Senate proposes a bipartisan border deal and now it appears there weren't enough Republican votes to pass in the Senate. Even before the text of the bill is known, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said it was “dead on arrival,” insisting the Senate pass the Republican bill HB2 introduced earlier.

It is a given the Democratic-controlled Senate won’t pass it, so no purpose is served to push such a statement. Thus, Republican leadership will accomplish nothing. One reason must be fear of Donald Trump. It seems they are appeasing him so he can make immigration part of his re-election campaign. What happened to his "America First” foreign policy plan?

A bipartisan immigration bill is better than nothing getting done. If there are issues still to be resolved for Republican desires, deal with it in additional legislation. I am simply disgusted. They also aren’t doing their job related to the budget, and none of them deserve to be re-elected.

Doug Diamond, Jacksonville

Puzzled by ‘age limit’ laws

As I read about all the new laws being proposed about who is allowed to do what when they are a certain age, the first thing the state needs to identify is at what age does a child become an adult.

Children as young as 13 can be charged as adults when they’ve committed some crimes, and 16-year-olds can get a driver’s license. At 18 they are old enough to be emancipated from their parents, join the military, sign documents and appear in adult movies. But it’s not until age 21 when someone can vote in national elections or drink alcohol. Now there is a law pending that would allow them to dance naked.

I’m not advocating that 13-year-olds be allowed to drink alcohol, nor wait until they are 21 to drive a car. But perhaps the state needs to set an age when everyone will be allowed to do everything as an adult.

Wim Blees, St. Augustine

Waters doesn’t need more autonomy

Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters apparently feels slighted by not having the final signoff on litigation brought against his officers. If Waters wants such power, he should have to live by his ego-driven decisions, with the money over and above the negotiated amount coming from his budget.

The police budget is by far the largest of any city agency, so he should have to deal with the repercussions of his actions and those of his officers. Maybe if this were the case, he would rethink those demands.

Scott Sprague, Southside

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Florida voters keep electing legislators who act against their wishes