Florida Law Restricting Ballot Initiatives Survives Court Challenge

A federal judge Wednesday refused to block parts of a new Florida law that placed additional restrictions on the state’s ballot-initiative process, turning down arguments by groups seeking to take issues to voters in 2026.

Florida Decides Healthcare, a committee sponsoring a proposed constitutional amendment aimed at expanding Medicaid coverage, quickly filed a lawsuit last month after the Republican-controlled Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis approved the law. Smart & Safe Florida, a committee behind a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow recreational marijuana, also is a plaintiff in the case.

As an example of the controversial parts of the law, it would shorten from 30 to 10 days the length of time to submit signed petitions to supervisors of elections.

The challenged provisions “have caused an immediate reduction in protected speech in the form of petition gathering,” Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker acknowledged in his 33-page ruling Wednesday.

“The problem is that the record before this court does not demonstrate that plaintiffs’ protected speech has been severely burdened because of the new deadline and fines. Instead, the record shows that these provisions simply make the process of getting their proposed initiatives on the ballot more expensive and less efficient for plaintiffs,” Walker said, finding that the groups did not meet threshold requirements for a preliminary injunction.

The groups sought an injunction to block the 10-day deadline from going into effect, arguing that it would expose them to risks of steep fines for submitting late petitions and boost their delivery costs.

In addition, the groups sought to block part of the law (HB 1205) that would make it a felony for petition gatherers to retain voters’ personal information on petitions or make changes to completed petitions. They also challenged a provision that could lead to racketeering charges for groups accused of “substantial irregularities” in the petition process.

Walker found that, although the new deadline and fines “have certainly injured” Florida Decides Healthcare and Smart & Safe Florida, “an injury in fact does not automatically transform the asserted burdens into a constitutional violation.”

During a hearing last month, a lawyer for Florida Decides Healthcare argued that the 10-day deadline and penalties have erected an “insurmountable barrier” for placement of initiatives on the 2026 ballot.

But Walker said that the court record “only goes so far to show that the process of gathering signed petitions has become more expensive and less efficient, not that these post-petition-gathering regulations have severely burdened plaintiffs from speaking such that the challenged regulations must survive heightened scrutiny to pass constitutional muster.”

Walker’s ruling also addressed plaintiffs’ request to block the part of the law that could result in racketeering charges if groups “commit … a violation of the Florida Election Code relating to irregularities or fraud involving issue petition activities.”

Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that part of the law is vague and overbroad, which the judge seemed to agree with.

“What this means is anyone’s guess — and it is inconsistent with the commands of the First and Fourteenth Amendments,” Walker wrote.

Walker’s order, which addressed parts of the law that went into effect when the bill was signed May 2, gave a limited victory to Jordan Simmons, the project manager for Florida Decides Healthcare on the racketeering issue.

“Mr. Simmons faces irreparable injury because the law forces him to choose between curtailing his First Amendment rights to engage in core political speech via petition circulation or risk arrest and prosecution for a felony charge that could result in up to 30 years in prison,” Walker wrote.

The judge’s order prohibits the Attorney General’s Office or the State Attorney’s Office in Tampa from enforcing the racketeering provisions against Simmons.

“Defendant’s argument that preliminary relief will hamstring the state from stopping fraud, forgery, and bad actors is unpersuasive,” Walker added.

Walker’s order also found that the group backing the Medicaid proposal lacked legal standing to block part of the law prohibiting people from filling in or making changes to voters’ petitions.

None of the plaintiffs provided evidence showing that they had ever filled in missing information on signed petitions or planned to do so in the future, according to the judge.

The evidence showed that “some petition circulators who work for Florida Decides Healthcare generally fear accidentally running afoul of HB 1205’s many new civil and criminal prohibitions,” Walker added.

“But such generalized fears are not enough to state a cognizable, imminent injury in fact with respect to this challenged provision,” the judge wrote.

Smart & Safe Florida and Florida Decides Healthcare during the past week also have asked Walker to block other parts of the law that will take effect July 1.

Smart & Safe Florida’s request focuses, in part, on a requirement in the law for petition collectors to be Florida residents. Initiative sponsors could face $50,000 fines for each petition collector violating the restriction, which also bans petition gathering by non-U.S. citizens and people who have been convicted of felonies and have not had their voting rights restored.

The Florida resident requirement puts Smart & Safe Florida at risk of not collecting enough petitions to make it onto next year’s ballot, lawyers for the committee argued.

Florida Decides Healthcare asked Walker to block part of the law that places a three-month freeze on petition verification; a restriction limiting people who have not registered with the state from possessing more than 25 completed petitions, in addition to their own and those of certain family members; and criminal sanctions and fines associated with parts of the law.

The three-month freeze on petition verification from July 1 through Sept. 30 “is not a ‘pause’; it will be an effective death knell for FDH (Florida Decides Healthcare),” lawyers for the committee, which has submitted about 90,000 valid petitions to the state, argued.

–Dara Kam, News Service of Florida