Campaign Plan/ Ballot Initiative

The campaign initiative is an initiative that aims to amend a state constitution. The state involved is the state of Florida, the amendment is meant to prohibit the legislature from striking, authorizing or increasing taxes, the only way in which the legislature is allowed to do so is if the legislation is a proved by a majority of two-third votes in every how of the legislature in the bill. My role in this campaign is the campaign manager. Campaign or ballot initiative can either be direct or indirect. A direct campaign initiative is taken to ballot immediately after it has been proposed while an indirect initiative needs to go through the legislature first before it is taken to Vote. If the legislature rejects it is then taken to vote where the public is given the power to decide, this is however very rear as many initiatives go through the direct process.

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District and its politics

Ballot Initiative #5, proposes an Amendment to the State Constitution which states, "(this Amendment) Prohibits the legislature from imposing, authorizing, or raising a state tax or fee except through legislation approved by a two-thirds vote of each house of the legislature in a bill containing no other subject (Dunkelberger, Lloyd). This proposal does not authorize a state tax or fee otherwise prohibited by the Constitution and does not apply to fees or taxes imposed or authorized to be imposed by a county, municipality, school board, or special district.

As one can decipher, this majority vote is mandatory to impose, approve, or raise state taxes or charges will be a hotly contested issue among politicians and specials interests come November, while the voters will be courted intensely. This initiative originated with Governor Rick Scott and moved to the House Ways & Means Committee and was Co-sponsored by Avila, Eagle, Fischer, Ingoglia and Metz which received 15 years and 6 nays to receive approval to move forward with Amendment on November 7th, 2017 ("The Evolution of County Government: Three Forms of County Government"). Then the initiative passed the subcommittee by a vote of 13 to 7 and when to the full Chamber in January of 2018 for the House and in March of 2018 for the Senate. The House passed with a vote of 80-29 and the Senate at 25-13 respectively. For the Senate vote, one Republican voted against the Amendment, while three Democrats joined the Republican Majority which holds an edge in the Senate; 23-17. Republicans also control the Florida House of Representatives; 75-41(" Florida Amendment 5, Two-Thirds Vote of Legislature to Increase Taxes or Fees Amendment").

Strong Hold Areas for Our campaign

The first and most crucial strength of the campaign initiative is the fact that almost all voters are against Taxes. Taxes mean that the voters will be faced with higher prices and living costs. None of them would want to live in a state where someone is not sure about the future of business because the legislature can increase taxes anytime they feel like. With the voters on our side, the campaign would be harder for the opposition as they would have to do a lot of work to sway the public into voting for against an initiative that is meant to help them. However, it is never safe to assume that voters will support an initiative hence a campaign has to be done, and an analysis of the opposition's strongholds and weaknesses also has to be done. This is important because it would help us plan strategies against the opposition and also be ready for there attacks.

Opposition stronghold areas

1. Voter Fatigue - As noted by the Daytona Beach News-Journal, there are a large number of Amendments on the November 6th Ballot, the largest since 1998, and "voter fatigue is certainly a concern..." (Daytona Beach News-Journal).

2. According to a survey conducted by the Florida Chamber of Commerce, "Only 34% of voters reinforced Amendment 5, that originated from the Assembly and would need a super-majority poll by the state House and Senate when enacting taxes or fees. Some 36% of the supporters were in disagreement, with 30% unsure, the ballot disclosed (Daytona Beach News-Journal).

3. "The proposal would need approval from 60 percent of voters to alter the constitution successfully. Florida already has a supermajority requirement for raising corporate taxes, but the new ballot measure would extend that requirement to other taxes as well" (Washington Post).

Areas that the opposition might loose in

1. This Ballot measure was pushed and endorsed by popular Governor Rick Scott who is now running for Senator against vulnerable long-term Democratic Senator, Bill Nelson; while Scott is leading in the polls.

2. Gubernatorial GOP Nominee Ron DeSantis, who is leading in the polls as well, is a supporter of this Amendment and is making it part of his platform.

3. The Florida Chamber of Commerce Supports this Amendment and is heavily invested in its passing.

4. Conservative Special Interests are pushing for this amendment and are ready to support this with a significant amount of funding to see this Amendment passed.

I believe that, although a 60% voter approval is needed in November, this initiative will garner support from the voting public. Most people don't like tax increases and Florida, since 1984, requires a 3/5 vote to pass Corporate Tax increases. Florida business and voters are familiar with these measures; now it is up to the Pro #5 Amendment supporters to make their case and appeal to the public with the benefits of this Amendment.

The significance of highlighting the strong oppositions areas is to ensure that our campaign team ready and organized to compete with the opposition on all fronts, during campaign debates and television interviews, there is a need to be informed because when the campaign team shows a lack of understanding during interviews and debates their motion losses credibility despite how essential it is to the people. On the other hand, successfully defending the campaign in debates helps the team win over supporters from the opposition side. On the other hand, it is important to note the areas that the opposition is weak in order to find a way to convince the voters why they should not support the opposition.

Sources

One of the sources that will be used to attain voter registration history will be the united states government website. The website has a database that includes all previous voting and election history records, through this information about previous Florida initiative campaigns will be easily accessible. Through this information, it would be possible to predict the voter turnout, and the number of votes will be needed to win the campaign. Independent polls in the state of Florida will also be used to determine the direction the ballot initiative is taking, with information about the history of voters combined with polls it will be possible to predict the possible outcome of the vote. It will also be important in helping the campaign officials note the areas that need more attention, for instance, the campaign manager would have known about the areas where the campaign initiative has the lowest support and the areas where it is fully supported. With this information the campaign manager will have an idea of where most campaign resources should be dedicated in order to ensure that the campaign runs efficiently, it would be fruitless to spend a lot of the campaign's resources on areas where the campaign initiative already has a strong following.

Another source of information about the campaign will be interaction results from rallies and other public forums. This will be among the most accurate ways of gathering information about what the public think about the initiative and what they are going to vote. This is because the information gathered is a fast hand. Other sources of information are second hand, and they might be misleading depending on the side of the initiative that the media is in. For instance, if a television media is against the initiative, there are chances that it would broadcast information which insinuates that the initiative is not going to be successful. Such kind of publicity might negatively affect the effort to win. Rally turnouts will be able to show the number of people who are committed to the cause and how the majority of the people feel about the initiative. After series of rally's that have an abysmal turnout, the campaign committee would be correct to assume that a significant number of people do not support the initiatives. It would also mean that a big number of people are not aware of the initiative.

Ballot initiative

The ballot initiative looks to prevent unnecessary increases in tax, the current state of the legislature allows an easy process in which taxes and fees. This is a disadvantage to the businesses and citizens who pay tax because they face chances of having product and service prices increased very frequently as the legislatures have the ability to increase the taxes when they please. The initiative is also vital in ensuring that legislators do not have the power to raise or impose tax randomly without having important reasons to validate their actions. This gives the state of Florida a chance to have a stable economy as price fluctuation would be minimal dues to tax increases. As the ballot initiative manager

Role as a campaign manager

The campaign manager is in charge of overseeing all activities that are under the campaign. This means that a campaign manager joins the team in the initial stages of the campaign where he/she is responsible for hiring other staff members who will be part of the team. The campaign manager also oversees the sourcing of funds that will be used to fund the campaign, for instance, he/she will be in charge of deciding the means and methods that the campaign will use to source funding for the campaign. The campaign manager is also tasked with the responsibility of determining the budget that the campaign will require in order to run successfully. This responsibility falls on the manager because of his position as the person who oversees and plans everything that goes on in the campaign. In order to become a good campaign manager, one would need to have excellent organizational skills that would enable him to smoothly and professionally organize the who even. He/she would also need to be level-headed, this is because campaign plans do not always go to plan. A level-headed campaign manager will be able to stay calm in situations where the campaign seems to be failing. This will give the campaign a good chance in succeeding during conditions where there is a possibility of failure. Lastly, it is also important for the campaign manager to have interpersonal skill. Interpersonal skills are essential when dealing with fellow campaign staff and during rallies where he/she will be expected to interact with people who support the initiative.

Treasurers role in a campaign

The treasurer is in charge of the financial and accounting part of the campaign. This gives him the responsibility to oversee all contributions that will be made towards the campaign and make records about them and how the finances are being used. The treasurer is also a signatory in documents that involve campaign money transactions, he/she would be expected to go through all transactions and sign before they are approved.

Financial officer role in the campaign

A financial officer is mainly responsible for raising of the money that is needed to run the campaign. After deciding on the necessary budget, a finance officer comes up with different strategies that will be used to raise money for the campaign. In conjunction with the campaign manager, a financial officer along with other officers are given the responsibility to analyze the campaign situation in order to allocate finances to th...