Sometimes I wish we would have done this in Missouri last year. Language has been approved in Florida for competing constitutional amendments regarding stem cell research.

One amendment, sponsored by Floridians for Stem Cell Research and Cures, Inc., would require the state Legislature to appropriate $20 million a year for 10 years on grants for embryonic stem cell research. There would be a prohibition on using the embryos for reproductive cloning, that is, to make a baby. And they could only be used if the donors had consented and hadn’t been paid to provide the embryos, other than to compensate them for what it costs to actually donate the cells, under the proposal.

The grants would have to go to nonprofit academic and other research institutions in Florida and the winners of the grant money would be chosen based on a peer review process. All of that is included in the proposed amendment.

The amendment to ban state spending on embryonic stem cell research, sponsored by Citizens for Science and Ethics, Inc., is so simple and short that no one argued against it when the Supreme Court held arguments on whether the ballot language was fair.

The proposed change simply reads: “No revenue of the state shall be spent on experimentation that involves the destruction of a live human embryo.”…

Backers of each amendment need more than 610,000 signatures to get the measures on the ballot.

The initiative to ban state spending on the research has more than 86,000 verified signatures.

The proposal to require the state to spend money on the research has more than 68,000 signatures verified.

It will be interesting to see what happens when and if they get on the ballot. Last year voters in Florida passed an amendment which requires 60 percent of voters to approve any amendments to the state’s Constitution.