Robert Emerson v. Hillsborough County, Florida, etc. & Stacy White v. Hillsborough County, Florida, etc., 312 So.3d 451

Background

Hillsborough County voters adopted Article 11 (2018) by initiative, imposing a 1% transportation sales surtax and an elaborate charter-mandated scheme allocating and restricting surtax proceeds among the county, municipalities, HART, and the MPO and creating an Independent Oversight Commission (IOC).
Section 212.055(1), Fla. Stat., authorizes discretionary local transportation surtaxes but expressly vests the county commission with discretion to apply proceeds to the enumerated permissible uses "in whatever combination the county commission deems appropriate."
After adoption, the County Commission entered an interlocal agreement ‘‘deeming appropriate’’ the Article 11 allocations and authorized bonds to be funded by surtax revenues; bond validation and a declaratory action followed.
The circuit court found core allocation/use directives in Article 11 conflicted with §212.055(1) and invalidated those provisions but severed and upheld the surtax levy and validated the bonds.
The Florida Supreme Court granted review (including bond-validation jurisdiction) to resolve whether Article 11 unlawfully displaces the commission’s statutory allocation authority and whether the surtax and bond validation are severable from the invalid portions.
The Court majority held Article 11 conflicts with state law by supplanting the commission’s statutory discretion, that the tax and spending plan are functionally interdependent, and thus invalidated Article 11 in its entirety and reversed the bond validation; a dissent would have preserved the tax.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether Article 11’s allocation/use directives conflict with §212.055(1) by supplanting the county commission’s discretion	Opponents: Article 11 commandeers the commission’s statutory authority and is therefore inconsistent with general law	Proponents: Article 11 supplements, not conflicts with, the statute and repeatedly references compliance with state law	Held: Yes. Article 11’s detailed allocation/enforcement scheme cannot coexist with the statute’s grant of allocation discretion to the commission and is unconstitutional under art. VIII, §1(g)
Whether the County Commission’s interlocal agreement could cure or ratify the charter’s unconstitutional provisions	Opponents: The interlocal agreement cannot validate an otherwise unconstitutional charter provision	Proponents: The Commission’s approval deems the allocation appropriate and cures any conflict	Held: No cure. The Commission cannot by agreement validate a charter provision that conflicts with general law; the interlocal agreement is ineffective
Whether Article 11’s supremacy/interpretation clauses salvage conflicting provisions	Opponents: Clauses do not eliminate the conflict or authorize displacement of statutory authority	Proponents: Clauses require harmonizing Article 11 with state law, allowing invalid parts to be read out	Held: Clauses are interpretive only and cannot be used to rewrite or wholesale excise core charter provisions that conflict with statute
Whether the surtax levy and bond validation are severable from the invalid provisions of Article 11	Opponents: The tax and the spending controls form an interlocking plan; voters would not have approved the tax alone	Proponents: The surtax’s primary purpose (fund transportation) can stand alone; severability clauses and presumption of constitutionality favor preserving the tax	Held: Not severable. The Court concluded the tax and allocation scheme are functionally dependent, so the taint infects the entire amendment; bonds invalidated

Key Cases Cited

State v. Sarasota County, 549 So. 2d 659 (Fla. 1989) (charter provisions inconsistent with general law are unconstitutional)
Laborers’ Int’l Union of N. Am., Local 478 v. Burroughs, 541 So. 2d 1160 (Fla. 1989) (local provisions cannot contradict general law)
State ex rel. Dade County v. Brautigam, 224 So. 2d 688 (Fla. 1969) (same principle regarding inconsistency with general law)
Cramp v. Bd. of Pub. Instruction of Orange Cnty., 137 So. 2d 828 (Fla. 1962) (severability factors for invalid statutory provisions)
Schmitt v. State, 590 So. 2d 404 (Fla. 1991) (taint of invalid provision can require entire enactment to fail)
E. Air Lines, Inc. v. Dep’t of Revenue, 455 So. 2d 311 (Fla. 1984) (severability determined by relation to overall legislative intent)
Ray v. Mortham, 742 So. 2d 1276 (Fla. 1999) (applying Cramp to citizen initiatives; functional independence test)
Phantom of Brevard, Inc. v. Brevard Cnty., 3 So. 3d 309 (Fla. 2008) (deference to voter will in home-rule contexts; courts reluctant to sever)
Sarasota All. for Fair Elections, Inc. v. Browning, 28 So. 3d 880 (Fla. 2010) (limitations on voter-imposed restrictions where statute governs)
D’Agastino v. City of Miami, 220 So. 3d 410 (Fla. 2017) (home-rule amendment invalidation principles)