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Tendentious ‘Statement’ on Florida Abortion Ballot Measure Sparks Controversy

July 16, 2024 | FlaglerLive | 7 Comments

Plus ca change: abortion activists from both sides of the debate demonstrating outside the old Florida Capitol in 1989. (Florida Memory)
Plus ça change: abortion activists from both sides of the debate demonstrating outside the old Florida Capitol in 1992. (Florida Memory)

A state panel late Monday finished revising a “financial impact statement” that will appear on the November ballot with a proposed constitutional amendment on abortion rights — with amendment supporters accusing the panel of a “dirty trick to mislead voters.”

Financial impact statements provide estimated effects of proposed constitutional amendments on government revenues and the state budget. They usually receive little attention, but the abortion measure spurred contentious debate and divided the panel.




Representatives of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office and the Florida House pushed to include information in the statement about issues such as the possibility that passage of the amendment could lead to Medicaid-funded abortions and spur a wide range of costly lawsuits. Those are issues that amendment opponents have cited as they fight the proposal.

Ultimately, with the help of the panel’s representative from the Florida Senate, DeSantis’ office and the House got information they sought into the statement.

In part, the statement says there is “uncertainty about whether the amendment will require the state to subsidize abortions with public funds. Litigation to resolve those and other uncertainties will result in additional costs to the state government and state courts that will negatively impact the state budget. An increase in abortions may negatively affect the growth of state and local revenues over time. Because the fiscal impact of increased abortions on state and local revenues and costs cannot be estimated with precision, the total impact of the proposed amendment is indeterminate.”

Chris Spencer, DeSantis’ representative on the panel, known as the Financial Impact Estimating Conference, said “protracted” lawsuits about abortion issues would be inevitable if the amendment passes. That could include lawsuits about whether Medicaid should pay for abortions and which health-care providers would be able to perform abortions, he said.




Panel member Amy Baker, coordinator of the Legislature’s Office of Economic & Demographic Research, agreed that passage of the amendment would lead to lawsuits. But Baker, the panel’s lone dissenter, objected to including issues such as the possibility of litigation leading to Medicaid-funded abortions.

“I would, personally, feel more comfortable if we just did it clean and crisp,” Baker said. “We’re not making a political statement here. We are not trying to frighten people. There will be litigation costs.”

But Spencer, who is DeSantis’ former budget director, pushed back against the suggestion that including the information was political. DeSantis and other state Republican leaders oppose the proposed constitutional amendment.

“I don’t think it’s a political statement,” said Spencer, who was recently appointed as executive director of the State Board of Administration. “I don’t think it’s anything other than we know litigation is going to occur.”

The proposed amendment, which will appear on the November ballot as Amendment 4, says, in part, that no “law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.” Abortion-rights supporters began the initiative effort after DeSantis and the GOP-controlled Legislature in spring 2023 approved a bill to prevent abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.

The Financial Impact Estimating Conference released an initial statement for the abortion proposal in November 2023. But on April 1, the Florida Supreme Court issued a ruling that allowed a six-week abortion limit to take effect. Though the limit was approved in 2023, it was hung up in court for nearly a year.




Floridians Protecting Freedom, a political committee leading efforts to pass the amendment, filed a lawsuit in April arguing that the November financial-impact statement needed to be revised because it was outdated after the Supreme Court ruling. Leon County Circuit Judge John Cooper agreed with the committee, but the state appealed to the 1st District Court of Appeal, where the case is pending.

Amid the case, Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, and House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, directed the Financial Impact Estimating Conference to begin meeting again to revise the statement. The panel met three times, with Monday’s meeting lasting into the night.

Floridians Protecting Freedom and its “Yes on 4” campaign issued a news release late Monday that described the revised statement as reading “like an ad written by Amendment 4 opponents — highly-politicized and unlawfully inaccurate to mislead voters on Amendment 4.”

“What should have been an easy administrative fix on outdated (financial impact statement) language has become a dirty trick to mislead voters.” Lauren Brenzel, campaigns director for Yes on 4, said in a prepared statement.

But Sara Johnson of the anti-amendment group Vote No on 4, told the panel during Monday’s meeting that it should provide information about such issues as potential lawsuit costs.

“It’s important for Florida voters to know that what you see is not what you will get,” Johnson said. “What we will get is costly litigation for years to come that will result in policies we have not yet seen and therefore cannot yet analyze.”

–Dara Kam, News Service of Florida

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Wallingford says

    July 16, 2024 at 4:42 pm

    I just knew that the Governor and his Cronies would attempt something that would adversely impact the Abortion Proposition. Why wouldn’t they allow the Voters of the State of Florida to determine their future in a General Election? Is DeSantis’ ego that fragile? Government should not get involved in Women’s Productive issues; nor the Books our Children read; that is the responsibility of Parents.

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  2. Nancy N. says

    July 16, 2024 at 6:06 pm

    Republicans using dirty tricks to sway an election isn’t exactly breaking news…it’s just business as usual.

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  3. The Sour Kraut says

    July 17, 2024 at 5:40 am

    Scumbags. All of them.

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  4. Jason says

    July 17, 2024 at 7:47 am

    There are numerous laws that restrict the age at which people can do certain types of activities. I’ve never seen people seriously protesting these restrictions elsewhere such as age to get permanent tattoos, the age to purchase tobacco products, the age to drive, the age to own and possess and long gun (18) or handgun (21), the age to join the military, the age to obtain a marriage license, the list goes on. So I’m constantly curious why it is so important to certain groups of people to have books on sex and rape available on school campuses. Why wouldn’t purely pornographic material also be available then as well—not having that could just as easily be labeled as censorship.

    So what other laws related to age restrictions should be rescinded and left up to parents or is it only this one law that is problematic? With the overwhelming majority of all materials for school being available digitally and most schools providing iPads, MacBooks, or other computers to students to use for coursework, I don’t see a reason for the library to even exist in school anymore. Take all of those books and move them to the city/county libraries and then this issue is moot. It’s also not as if anyone using the internet cannot obtain all of this material online anyway.

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  5. Laurel says

    July 17, 2024 at 12:09 pm

    For starters, Jason, you cannot legislate morality.

    So, no school libraries, huh? Only those who can afford IPads, Kindles, computers and content will have access. Interesting. I am so glad you did not have any influence when I was growing up. I would have missed so much really good literature.

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  6. Bailey’s Mom says

    July 18, 2024 at 6:01 am

    I think Jason needs to check out the school library, based on his comments I’m not sure he’s been in one.
    We need age restrictions on the things mentioned as we can’t have kids or unqualified people drinking, smoking, driving and owning guns.
    When it comes to women, I love how the GOP Government wants to jump in and control their body and rights to make healthcare decisions for themselves!
    No uterus, then you don’t get to make decisions for us. Vote Yes on 4.
    I’m sure DeathSantis & Cronies lost the calculator when it comes to the cost of raising a child as they are pro-birth NOT pro-life.

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  7. DaleL says

    July 18, 2024 at 7:11 am

    Why is it that the Party, that “shouts freedom” at every turn, especially for gun rights, is so against reproductive freedom?

    According to the CDC, 90% of all abortions occur by 14 weeks of gestation. At 14 weeks a fetus weighs just 3 ounces. Around 15 to 16 weeks the fetus starts moving enough to be sometimes felt by the woman (quickening).

    Amendment 4 would not be necessary if the Florida legislature (Republicans) had a reasonable abortion law. 6 weeks is not reasonable. It is draconian. An abortion ban after 16 or 18 weeks, with provisions that prioritize the woman’s health, would not have resulted a groundswell to overturn the Republican law.

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