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Environmental Groups Involved in Amendment 1 Lawsuit Request Expediency From Court

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On Wednesday, a lawsuit alleging misdirection of hundreds of millions of dollars intended for Florida's Amendment 1 was requested by the plaintiffs to be accelerated.
 
The Land Acquisition Trust Fund, which passed in a landslide by Florida voters in 2014, was created for the purpose of funneling taxpayer dollars into the protection of water resources or purchasing land for conservation.
 
While the amendment as written requires that one-third of revenues from excise taxes on documents go toward conservation, the lawsuit's plaintiffs–the St. Johns Riverkeeper, the Environmental Confederation of Southwest Florida, the Sierra Club, and the Florida Wildlife Federation–argue that misdirection of the funds by the Florida Legislature is not disputed.
 
Because of that indisputable misdirection and the accompanying constitutional violation, the groups say, the Legislature should simply be ordered to replace the misdirected funds.
 
Instead, much of the trust fund's money intended for conservation has gone toward salaries and operating expenses for state agencies. The environmental groups have said that $300 million of the fund's expected $750 million has been used to cover areas that would normally have been funded by the state's general budget.
 
"Indeed, the Legislature appropriated these funds as if no restrictions had been imposed by the Amendment. Floridians voted to dedicate tax revenues to land purchases and land restoration – not salaries of existing employees and ordinary expenses," the groups advised in their filed motion.
 
The case is being handled by the Leon County Circuit Court.
 
 


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