Stop a constitutional red-light camera ban before it starts

Two legislators’ bid to enshrine in the state Constitution a ban on cameras that catch drivers who run red lights should get its own red light, because it would aid lawbreaking that endangers Floridians and misuse the state’s highest powers to do so.

Misguided efforts by Sen. Ileana Garcia of Miami and Rep. David Borrero of Sweetwater take aim at long-debated uses of technology to spot drivers who endanger the rest of us by running through red-light traffic signals.

The legislation says in effect that it’s perfectly OK to cheat on the law when no police are there to see you. 

A less perilous variant would be to prevent merchants from using cameras to scope out shoplifters. The impact of both is, “If you don’t see me, I can safely ignore the law.”

Let’s be honest: police presence deters lawbreaking. If not, why do way-finding firms like Waze issue audible notifications of “police reported ahead” and “red-light camera ahead” – certainly not to help enforce the law. Those notices help us cheat if we dare.

Haven’t you ever looked around for police before driving well over the speed limit on a highway?

Laws are made to protect us, not to annoy us. We don’t want people to run red lights and put everyone else in peril. We don’t want people going over the speed limit for the same reason. We know that society doesn’t function if shoplifting and robbery rise. We’d all agree on that.

We’d also agree that policing reduces dangers to the rest of us. We wouldn’t always agree on how good that policing is, but we certainly don’t want to do without any.

So look at the red-light cameras, which aid policing when no police are present. Like policing, the cameras are imperfect. Like police, they can be wrong, and like police they sometimes annoy us. But we want policing. We use cameras, sensors and other devices as stop-gaps.

We can argue the details forever: How long should a light at the intersection be yellow? What should the speed limit be where? How high should a fine be for running a red light? Who should read red-light camera results and what appeals are available? Who makes the best cameras and where do they belong? Answers to those legitimate debates change over time. 

But a virtually immutable ban in the constitution leaves no room for improvements or changes in need or desire. It’s as inflexible as some minds – impossible to change. A local ordinance or state law on the cameras is not forever, a constitutional ban is.

That’s one reason this legislation should never get to the state constitution. But there’s a far important reason. Regardless of whether you love or hate the cameras – I am of mixed mind – they will never rise to the importance of being included in Florida’s highest document, its Constitution.

A constitution is an organized system of fundamental principles. It’s meant to be both permanent and a general statement of ground rules for Florida government. 

A constitution grants stability and legitimacy to government with three main areas for inclusion: government arrangements, the state’s widely shared credo, and the rights of Floridians. The thousands of more detailed measures belong in statutes.

It’s true that this principle is not always practiced in Florida, where measures that should be dealt with in state law often worm their way into the Constitution.

The worst of misguided tinkering with the state’s fundamental document came in 2002, when a measure defining the safeguarding of pregnant pigs was enshrined in the Constitution. Regardless of how much one may worry about how well pregnant pigs are cared for, that protection is not one of the fundamental rights of Floridians, no more so than the right to run a red light with impunity. These are matters for law, not the Constitution.

The best parallel to Florida’s Constitution is the Constitution of the United States, which has served us very well for over two centuries. Yet the US Constitution is only 8,770 words of a general national credo. The younger Florida Constitution is now over 44,000 words and growing with such extraneous additions as the protection of pregnant pigs.

So why do such misplaced measures wind up in the Constitution rather than in law? It’s not because any serious lawmaker believes they belong there, but because the Constitution is difficult to amend in the first place, requiring now a vote from 60% of the state’s voters, with efforts afoot to make the margin even greater. Once anything gets in you can’t get it out.

Even to get their bills through the Legislature and to voters, Rep. Borrero and Sen. Garcia will need a 60% vote in each of the House and Senate. Their fellow legislators should red light this non-starter before the voters have to do it for them.