TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – One of the most important questions before Florida voters on Tuesday's ballot is which governor will get to name new Supreme Court justices.
Whether or not a fetus has rights will soon be a question before the courts. And decisions made in the courts affect taxes, voting rights, even whether your insurance company has to pay you.
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Who sits in judgment in the Supreme Court, liberal or conservative, activist or not, depends on who is Governor.
In four years, three judges will leave the bench on the same day that a new governor takes office in 2019.
But lawmakers want you to decide this year, via Amendment 3, who will appoint those judges.
"This is a crisis in waiting," said State Sen. Tom Lee of Brandon, who sponsored the legislation.
The amendment seeks to let the governor elected next week make the appointments on his way out the door, instead of whomever is elected in 2018.
The idea rubs one former governor the wrong way.
"Whoever gets elected in 2018 should be the person, with the immediate support of the people of Florida, to make that decision," said former Gov. Bob Graham.
Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Harry Lee Anstead is suspicious of the motives.
"That this is sort of a gamble that Governor Scott will get re-elected, and then that he'll get to make these three important appointments and then leave," Anstead said.
A conflict over who appoints justices has only happened once -- in 1998 when Jeb Bush and Lawton Chiles decided not to fight but chose the same person.
That joint choice of Governors Chiles and Bush was Peggy Quince. Ironically, Quince is one of the three justices leaving in 2019.