Magic Number Three
Florida's Constitutional Amendment Three
Communication experts understand, Suneel Agarwal explains, that “three is the magic number.” Stories and ideas that follow “the rule of three” are easier for we mere mortals to understand, remember, and repeat. According to Agarwal, humans have employed this “communication principle” for centuries, no doubt because it’s far easier for our simple minded human brains to remember three ideas—simply stated—than to remember and understand five, six, seven complex interrelated ideas.
Complexity is hard. We love simple.
Stop, look, listen. Three little pigs. Make America Great, Again!
Just Say No.
Don’t tax me.
Another way to think about it might be: They who can dumb it down, win.
Amendment Three
How funny it is, then, that our life-changing Florida constitutional amendment, brought to us by Governor Ronald Dion DeSantis and our Tallahassee legislative wonders, is known as Amendment Three. OK, that’s probably an accident.
Nonetheless, in simple terms, Amendment 3 will eliminate local property taxes for any homesteaded property valued at $250,000 or less, and significantly reduce current taxes for homesteaded properties valued above $250,000. Amendment 3 protects school taxes from this revolutionary reform, but revenue that supports services such as local police and fire protection, emergency medical services, road paving, libraries, and parks will experience dramatic shortfalls. Amendment 3, critics argue, provides a hidden pathway for the elimination of all non-school related property taxes and shifts power from locally-elected representatives of the people to The State, that us, the governor and legislature.
The Other Three’s
It’s funny that Amendment 3 has attracted three lawsuits and three opposition groups.
Notably, one lawsuit is brought by two former State legislators, a Democrat and a Republican. They argue that Three’s language is filled with “political platitudes,” misleads voters, does not explain local repercussions, and will shift power away from local government to The State. DeSantis argues that counties and municipalities experiencing significant revenue shortfall may apply to our Tallahassee lord and masters for relief. Wowza.
Our Florida legislature, our duo notes, conducted no fiscal analysis, and did not do its job. Three represents a “sea change” and voters “are not being given the full and accurate story they deserve,” this duo argues, as reported by Florida Phoenix.
In addition, three groups—Stop Unfair Tax Shifts, 3 Degrees Florida, and Floridians for Shared Prosperity—are mounting communication and education efforts to help Florida voters understand Amendment 3’s complexity, despite its pretended simplicity.
Vote NO on 3, a website launched by Stop Unfair Tax Shifts, plays with three simple arguments: “YOU pay more. THEY pay less. And we ALL lose . . . .” They also explain that, despite what Governor DeSantis (Amendment 3’s main advocate) has argued, there’s no free lunch, public safety is on the line, and the ballot has a secret.
What secret?
According to Vote No on 3, Amendment 3 includes “buried language” that requires Florida’s legislature “to eliminate homestead property taxes entirely, on a fixed schedule. It doesn’t matter how it affects public safety, traffic, water, hurricane preparedness or anything else.”
Simplifying Complexity
No doubt, our local property tax topic will sicken us by November, when Floridians will vote to or not to quadruple our homestead exemption. Or, said differently, to support or not support a shift from property tax collection to a fee for service arrangement; to embrace or not embrace a community of deteriorating infrastructure, shuttered libraries, and closed parks; and to support or not support a shift in Florida’s political power from local government to The State.
FY 2026-27 and Beyond
Locally, we will hear multiple arguments as Mayor Donna Deegan presents her FY 2026-27 budget later this month, and as City Council’s finance committee debates what to and what not to cut from our Mayor’s vision as we move toward November and beyond.
As it stands today, Her Honor will present a budget based on current revenue projections, and not on what voters may or may not approve in November. City Council’s current president has vowed to cut expenditures.
Let’s demand that City Council members, unlike our Governor and Tallahassee legislative wonders, conduct deep analysis and inform the public truthfully about what our future holds should we support Florida’s local property tax revolution. No platitudes, no word games, just clear-eyed understandings. No simple-minded “we’re just protecting tax payers.”
In the meantime, maybe efforts by myriad groups will help the voting public understand all this complexity—to stop, look, and listen—before we go to the polls in November.
Amendment 3 is cloaked in layers of complexity. This is not a simple idea, despite its being dumbed down by Florida’s Governor.
We could, however, reduce it to two simple dueling phrases:
Just Say No versus Don’t Tax Me
All those that see this as no more than a desired tax cut, are missing the element of dismissed home rule. The proverbial sh%# will hit the fan when people realize Tallahassee is making the local spending decisions.
In 2 years we will be “celebrating “ the 60th year of a consolidated government. We have yet to provide the funding to adequately fulfill the promises made to people in certain zip codes. Amendment 3 will kill any chance of ever doing so. By the way, the elected official with the highest favorable rating is going to ask for millions more to his budget that needs to be doged.