Just a few weeks after there was an explosion on Deepwater Horizon offshore oil platform last April, creating the largest marine oil spill in history, three Democratic state Legislators in Florida – St. Petersburg's Rick Kriseman, Sarasota's Keith Fitzgerald, and Miami Beach's Dan Gelber, called on Governor Charlie Crist to hold a special session to have the Legislature then vote on putting a constitutional amendment on the November ballot banning offshore drilling in state waters.
That didn't happen then, but the sentiment amongst those worried about a similar fate led two now out of power politicians to call for such an amendment in 2012 on Wednesday.
Those would be former Governor Charlie Crist and former CEO Alex Sink.
The two held a news conference on the steps of the state Capitol on Wednesday, joined by other lawmakers calling for a petition drive to get the measure on the 2012 ballot. They have almost a full year (Feb. 1 2012) to collect 676,811 signatures to get it on the 2012 ballot.
This article appears in Feb 10-16, 2011.