The Mr. Sunshine who blocked sunshine to the illiterates of Florida - for president?

The "Time" magazine has recently run an article on Jeb Bush, son and brother of two presidents who may run for president in 2016, calling him "Mr. Sunshine".


"TIME" wrote about "Mr. Sunshine's" family (father and brothers are former presidents), political views, aspirations for a possible presidential campaign, nothing singular.

Yet, to me, to call this man "Mr. Sunshine" sounded like an insult.

"Mr. Sunshine" caught my attention recently because he, as the Governor of the State of Florida, signed into law the controversial "5-strikes" statute allowing to impose anti-filing injunctions upon pro se litigants if they lose in court 5 times in a 5-year period.


To me, as a long-time researcher of the subject of access to justice and discrimination against pro se litigants, anti-filing injunctions are unconstitutional as prior speech restraints, as unconstitutional violations of people's right of access to court and as a discrimination against pro se litigants.

Anti-filing injunctions against pro se litigants are especially egregious at a time when, according to statistics, 80% of litigants or more cannot afford legal representation, when the language of the law is extremely complicated to the point that even trained lawyers and judges differ, sometimes drastically, on their interpretation of the same law.

In my experience as an attorney, judges treat pro se litigants with extreme disdain.  Pro se litigants regularly are not invited to court conferences where attorneys of represented parties are invited, are regularly talked down by judges.  Often, the only thing the judge wants to tell a pro se litigant is "go hire an attorney", even if the pro se litigant cannot afford to do that.

With the level of competency, or rather, incompetency of judges that I encounter in my daily practice as an attorney, combined with the attitude of judges toward pro se litigants, I will not be at all surprised if all cases of pro se litigants are marked for dismissal, whether they are good or not, under the "move up or move on" judicial principle, "move up" meaning "appeal" and "move on" meaning "give up".

If a pro se party cannot afford a lawyer to represent him or her in a trial court, most likely he or she will not be able to afford an even more costly and cumbersome appeal - and will not be able to navigate the maze of appellate rules on his/her own.

When that happens, and the deadlines to appeal are past, then the dismissing decision ("adverse decision") in the meaning of the "vexatious litigant" statute becomes final, and the pro se litigant has "waived" his/her right to an appeal.  Of course, how can you "waive" anything when you simply cannot pay for fighting in court, below or on appeal, but that's what it is.

The statute is not concerned with whether the adverse decision against a pro se litigant is correct or incorrect, constitutional or unconstitutional, done with violation of judicial ethics/undisclosed conflicts of interest or not.  Finality trumps fairness every time, and the count of the "5 strikes" is purely technical.

5 adverse decisions against you as a pro se litigant in 5 years - and your right to access to court is even more doomed than before.  "Before" you "just" could not afford an attorney and experienced disdain of judges, "after" you cannot even access the courts and file a grievance with the government (under a fundamental federal constitutional right protected by the Petitions Clause of the 1st Amendment) without permission of an administrative court judge.

Here also comes the possibility of being charged with "contempt of court" if you file a lawsuit without permission, even for an egregious constitutional violation.

The "5 strikes" statute also provide for a "security bond" that a "vexatious" litigant may be required to post in order to gain a right to file a lawsuit at all, including lawsuits involving constitutional issues.

So, let's follow the logic of the statute - the moneyed litigants whose moneyed attorneys are literate (presumably) enough to word lawsuits in such a way that they pass the "meritorious lawsuit" muster with literate (presumably) judges do not need to post security bonds.  It is the illiterate and the poor who cannot afford attorneys in the first place who must pay security to be able to have access to court.

Not only the "5 strikes law" is targeting the percentage of the population who cannot afford an attorney to begin with, which is 20% on average in every state.  Illiterate people are affected by this law even harder than poor, but literate people.

Illiterates can fall victim of the law simply because they do not understand the complicated language of the law and cannot express themselves correctly, while judges, in their disdain to pro se litigants and with their busy caseloads, do not care to give pro se litigants the benefit of the doubt.

To the illiterates, the "5 strikes law" simply prohibits them any hope of access to court, ever.


I understand that for Mr. Sunshine interests of the poor and of the illiterate are too mundane to consider, even if they are his own constituents.

At this time, many if not most states do have vexatious litigant statutes, and such statutes predominantly target pro se litigants.

With that in mind, I pulled some official numbers on illiteracy across the United States and then put those numbers into a table.  For each state, I took three numbers from official sources (National Literacy Survey of 2003, the latest available): 

1. Average illiteracy rate for the state;
2. Lowest illiteracy rate and name of county with the lowest illiteracy rate;
3. Highest illiteracy rate and name of county with the highest illiteracy rate.

I then measured the range between counties with the lowest and the highest illiteracy rates per state.

You know where Mr. Sunshine's state ended up?  

It made the 2nd place among states with highest illiteracy rates.

In Miami-Dade County the level of illiteracy - percent of people lacking "basic literacy skills" was in 2003 52%!!!

Florida ceded the laurels of the biggest loser only to Texas (Mr. Sunshine's brother's state), where there are 65% of illiterate people in Starr County.

The interesting fact about both Florida and Texas is that there are counties in both of these states with illiteracy levels of just 7%, a difference of 58% for Texas and 45% for Florida.

Think about it! More than half of population of one county is illiterate in Florida (2/3s in Texas), where the Bush brothers make their homes.

And in both "Bush" states (and in New York, by the way, from where yet another presidential contender, Mr. Cuomo, hales) the average percent of illiterates in the populations is about the same as the percent of people who cannot afford an attorney.

So, to eliminate those pesky pro se illiterates from court proceedings completely appear to be the unspoken purpose of the "5 strikes" statutes signed into law by Mr. Sunshine.

For the legislators in Florida who undoubtedly belong to the literate part of population, to introduce and for "Mr. Sunshine" to sign into law a statute that bars access to court of the poor and the illiterate is not only unconstitutional - it is simply disgusting, completely and utterly disgusting.

Mr. Sunshine blocked from access to court the most underprivileged of his constituents - the illiterate people.

One can only guess what kind of laws he can sign into law on a bigger - presidential scale.

Good job, Mr. Sunshine, you will make a great president!

Name of state	Average % of illiteracy	Lowest % of illiteracy	Highest % of illiteracy	Range	The "most literate county"	The "most illiterate county"
Texas	19	7	65	58	Randall County, Roberts County	Starr County
Florida	20	7	52	45	St. Johns County	Miami-Dade
New York	22	7	46	39	Ontario County	Queens County
Arizona	13	9	45	36	Coconino County	Santa Cruz County
New Jersey	17	6	37	31	Sussex County	Hudson County
Idaho	11	7	37	30	Ada County	Clark County
Georgia	17	8	36	28	Fayette County, Forsyth County	Atkinson County
New Mexico	16	5	33	28	Los Alamos County	Luna County
Washington	10	6	34	28	Island County, San Juan County	Franklin County
Alabama	15	7	34	27	Shelby	Bullock
California	23	7	34	27	El Dorado County	Colusa County
Kansas	8	5	32	27	Thomas County	Seward County
Louisiana	16	8	29	21	St. Tammany Parish	East Carroll Parish
Massachusetts	10	4	25	21	Barnstable County	Suffolk County
Mississippi	16	9	30	21	Lamar County	Jefferson County
Alaska	9	7	27	20	Juneau Borough, Sitka Borough	Aleutians East Borough
Colorado	10	5	25	20	Clear Creek County	Costilla County
North Carolina	14	8	28	20	Dare County	Halifax County
Virginia	12	6	26	20	Poquoson city, York County	Greensville County
South Carolina	15	10	29	19	Lexington County	Allendale County
Tennessee	13	6	25	19	Williamson County	Henderson County
Arkansas	14	9	26	17	Saline County	Lee County
Maryland	11	6	22	16	Anne Arundel County	Prince George's County
Nebraska	7	5	21	16	Banner County	Colfax County
Oklahoma	12	8	24	16	Cleveland County, Garfield County, Rogers County	Texas County
North Dakota	6	5	20	15	Burleigh County, Cass County	Emmons County, McIntosh County
Pennsylvania	13	7	22	15	Chester County	Philadelphia County
Kentucky	12	7	21	14	Fayette County	Clay County
Oregon	10	7	20	13	Benton County, Clackamas County	Morrow County
Missouri	7	4	16	12	Platte County	Pemiscot County
West Virginia	13	10	22	12	Jefferson County, Putnam County	McDowell County
Illinois	13	5	15	10	Monroe County	Alexander County
Nevada	16	8	18	10	Douglas County	Clark County
Ohio	9	4	13	9	Delaware County	Adams County, Franklin County, Holmes County, Vinton County
South Dakota	7	5	14	9	Hughes County	Buffalo County
Hawaii	16	12	20	8	Kauai County	Kalawao County
Indiana	8	5	13	8	Hamilton County, Hancock County	Elkhart County
Iowa	7	5	13	8	Johnson County	Buena Vista County
Michigan	8	4	12	8	Livingston County	Wayne County
Minnesota	6	4	12	8	Carver County	Watonwan County
Wisconsin	7	4	11	7	Ozaukee County, Waukesha County	Menominee County
Rhode Island	8	5	11	6	Bristol County, Newport County, Washington County	Providence County
Vermont	7	5	11	6	Chittenden County	Essex County
Connecticut	9	5	10	5	Middlesex County	Fairfield County
Montana	9	7	12	5	Lewis and Clark County	Big Horn County, Golden Valley County, Lincoln County, Mineral County, Sanders County, Wibaux County
Utah	9	7	12	5	Davis County, Morgan County, Summit County	Beaver County, Duchesne County, San Juan County
Maine	7	6	10	4	Cumberland County	Aroostook County, Somerset County, Washington County
New Hampshire	6	5	9	4	Rockingham County	Coos County
Wyoming	9	7	11	4	Teton County	Big Horn County, Carbon County, Platte County
Delaware	11	10	13	3	New Castle County	Kent County
District of Columbia	19	19	19	0