House passes bill adding more hurdles for citizen-led ballot initiatives

Different petitions elicit different responses from the DeSantis administration.

After an emotional two-hour debate, the House passed a bill with a 76-31 vote that would add new hurdles to citizen-led ballot initiatives, including requiring advocacy groups to pay a $1 million bond.

Republicans argued these reforms are needed to protect the process of changing the state constitution.

“We can’t ignore that evidence the initiative process is broken,” said Fort Myers Republican Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, who sponsored the bill (HB 1205) prior to a committee substitute. “We have a duty to fix it. We have an obligation and a duty to protect our state constitution.”

Meanwhile, Democrats accused the GOP of trying to dismantle the amendment process to block the people’s voice.

“Let’s be honest, members. This bill is not about integrity or transparency. It is about control,” said Rep. Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat. “It’s about making it harder for the people of this state to challenge the status quo, to pass initiatives like environmental protection, minimum wage, defending abortion rights, reforming cannabis laws.”

HB 1205 comes following November’s defeat of the abortion rights and legalizing marijuana campaign. Both issues became targets of Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was the public face against them and accused the political committee behind Amendment 4 of collecting fraudulent petitions.

Other provisions in HB 1205 would shorten the deadlines to submit signed petitions from 30 days to 10 days and raise fines for groups violating the new rules. It would ban out-of-state residents from collecting petitions and require petition sponsors to pay a $1 million bond after 25% of the necessary petitions to get an issue on the ballot have been collected.

Another provision in the bill would strip the state’s top economist’s voting rights from the panel that determines ballot initiatives’ financial impact.

Currently, economic chief Amy Baker joins with representatives from the Senate and House, as well as the Governor, to vote during the Financial Impact Estimating Conference.

Last year Baker was the lone dissenting voice during the conference’s debate on Amendment 4 abortion rights initiative as she sparred with a DeSantis staffer and a Heritage Foundation employee who had been brought to the table by the House.

Under HB 1205, people signing petitions would also need to include their driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security numbers, which Democrats said could put people’s personal information at risk in the wrong hands.

The bill also included a Republican-led effort to prohibit state money from being spent on ballot initiative “communications.” That could limit DeSantis from repeating his efforts last cycle, which reportedly included spending millions of dollars in his fight against Amendments 3 and 4.

Ballot initiatives in Florida already face a tough road to pass since they need at least 60% of the vote.

Democrats said grassroots ballot initiatives sparked positive change over the years, such as universal free pre-kindergarten in a state where Republicans control the Legislature and are unwilling to bend to adopt progressive proposals.

“The Florida Constitution enshrines our right for constitutional amendments. So why are we putting up these hurdles?” asked Rep. Robin Bartleman, a Weston Democrat. “If we really are about the Free State of Florida, which we always like to say we are, then it’s our duty to make sure that the power remains in the hands of the people.”

Rep. Linda Chaney, a St. Pete Beach Republican, seized on a report by the Florida Department of State released less than a month before the election that said the abortion rights political committee committed widespread petition fraud.

In response, the ACLU of Florida said last year, “The Secretary of State’s unprecedented and suspiciously-timed report makes nonsensical claims about a few hundred petitions, which would have had no effect on the campaign meeting the statutory requirements.”

But Chaney argued the report stood as evidence to support HB 1205.

“It is not an emotional issue. It is a fact-based issue to protect the petition process no matter what you are petitioning for,” she said Thursday.