Lawyers for Senate President Kathleen Passidomo and House Speaker Paul Renner on Friday urged the Florida Supreme Court to reject an attempt to invalidate a revised “financial impact statement” that would appear on the November ballot with a proposed constitutional amendment on abortion rights.
The lawyers argued in a 47-page document that the Supreme Court should deny a petition filed last week by the Floridians Protecting Freedom political committee after a state panel made controversial changes to the financial impact statement. Floridians Protecting Freedom is leading efforts to pass the constitutional amendment.
Passidomo, R-Naples, and Renner, R-Palm Coast, directed the panel, known as the Financial Impact Estimating Conference, to make revisions to the financial impact statement amid a legal fight about an earlier version of the statement. Floridians Protecting Freedom contended in the Supreme Court petition that the statement could have only been revised after a court order, not because of direction from state leaders.
But Friday’s response by the state argued that Passidomo and Renner were “fully empowered to reconvene” the Financial Impact Estimating Conference to revise the statement.
“The sponsor (Floridians Protecting Freedom) contends that the Financial Impact Estimating Conference lacked statutory authority to revise the statement unless a court orders the conference to do so,” the state lawyers wrote. “Under that view, the conference is powerless to revise even a statement that it later realizes is misleading unless someone happens to sue on that exact basis.”
Also, the state lawyers said Floridians Protecting Freedom took part in meetings held by the conference before the revised statement was released July 15. The document said Floridians for Protecting Freedom “participated vigorously in the process, sending a representative to testify at all three of the conference’s public meetings and submitting three volleys of lobbying documents. Far from trying to stop the process in its tracks, the sponsor pushed for its own preferred revisions to the statement.”
Financial impact statements, which usually draw little attention, provide estimated effects of proposed constitutional amendments on government revenues and the state budget.
The proposed abortion amendment will appear on the November ballot as Amendment 4. It 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.”
The Financial Impact Estimating Conference released an initial statement for the proposed amendment in November 2023. But on April 1, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that allowed a six-week abortion limit to take effect.
Floridians Protecting Freedom filed a lawsuit on April 5 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 in June and ordered the Financial Impact Estimating Conference to draft a new version.
State lawyers appealed, arguing that Cooper did not have legal authority to issue such an order. Amid the legal fight, Renner and Passidomo directed the Financial Impact Estimating Conference to revise the statement.
The conference’s subsequent meetings became contentious, and Floridians Protecting Freedom argued that the revised statement was politicized and misleading. Republican legislative leaders and Gov. Ron DeSantis oppose the proposed constitutional amendment.
The revised statement says, in part, that 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.”
In its petition at the Supreme Court, Floridians Protecting Freedom attorneys wrote that “absent this (Supreme) Court’s intervention, the state intends to place a Financial Impact Statement on the ballot that is plainly misleading in contravention (of a Supreme Court precedent and a section of state law) and the circuit court order. But here’s the thing. This (Supreme) Court need not — and should not — sanction this unlawful outcome, for one very simple reason: The state never had the power to reconvene the conference and revise the statement outside the parameters established by the circuit court.”
The petition also said, “The state’s lack of authority to unilaterally revise a financial impact statement does make good sense. Consider the chaos caused by the alternative: The state could change financial impact statements on a whim, at any time, for any reason — providing sponsors, litigants, and the public little or no time to digest the statements or to challenge them before they are irrevocably placed on the ballot.”
In Friday’s response, however, state lawyers described the revised statement as a “model of clarity” and said the “statement’s bottom line is that the amendment’s probable financial impact is indeterminate.”
–Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida
Laurel says
In other words, the Republicans don’t give a damn what the majority of people want, or even give the people a chance to decide what rules them.
Renner and Passidomo need to go. They do not work for us.
Nephew Of Uncle Sam says
Goes to show again Renner does not care about what the people want. You want to stop this scourge then get out and Vote. The Primary is only a couple weeks away Vote for those that lean Democratic in those non-partisan races, all politics starts local, unless you want more of the same from the GOP/GQP backed candidates. Do your homework about the candidates and ask your neighbors if you need to, local elections directly affect you.
Tired of it says
it is a pattern with the GOP. Ignore the will of the voters. Do what you want and waste the taxpayers mney when they sue to get something reversed.
Michael J Cocchiola says
Paul Renner… when did you lose your honor, integrity and honesty? Why did you charge down the MAGA rabbit hole? Was it to get your Weird badge? You’ve surely earned it.
Shame!