DeSantis seeks to keep abortion rights, marijuana measures below 60%

The governor’s political future is also tied at least in part to keeping the proposals below the 60 percent required for approval.

John Kennedy
| Office of the Capital | USA TODAY NETWORK – FLORIDA

Gov. Ron DeSantis spends the electoral campaign concentrated almost exclusively on two of the most expensive voting campaigns in the nation, throwing away millions of dollars in taxpayer money and a wave of questionable claims against legalizing marijuana and restoring abortion rights in Florida.

Groups spend on amendment 3, which would allow recreational marijuana and amendment 4, expanding access to abortion, have raised more than $225 million over the past two years, placing them at the top of more than 150 ballot proposals that went to American voters on November 5.

Television, radio and digital platforms are ablaze with advertising in the closing hours of the campaign. Governor and First Lady Casey DeSantis are central players on the campaign trail, making daily appearances in recent weeks trashing the 3rd and 4th Amendments.

The governor’s political future is also tied, at least in part, to keeping the proposals below the 60 percent level of support needed for approval. If the measures pass, DeSantis’ influence could be dented in his final two years in charge at Florida. He is term-limited and will leave office in January 2027.

DeSantis defies Trump on marijuana

Former President Donald Trump supported the marijuana initiative, which DeSantis is now trying to defeat. DeSantis is also drawing heat for allocating state resources to kill both measures, which made the ballot only after collecting about 1 million signatures from Floridians.

“No matter where you stand on this issue, this is still a democracy, and in a democracy we don’t spend taxpayer dollars before a political issue,” said Republican state Sen. Joe Gruters of Sarasota, a former Florida Republican Party chairman who supports Trump.

Gruters said he opposes the abortion rights measure, but derided DeSantis’ spending of the amendment as “propaganda.”

The Amendment 3 campaign estimates the governor spent $50 million of taxpayer money against the measure, paying for 13,000 TV spots, 5,000 radio ads and more. The campaign said public dollars coming to DeSantis’ anti-abortion-rights effort undoubtedly exceed that figure.

According to analysis by OpenSecrets, the nonprofit political money-tracking site, the marijuana amendment has attracted $125 million from both parties, $93 million from pot industry giant Trulieve, backing it. It’s the most expensive ballot issue in the country.

Backers of Florida’s Amendment 4 contributed $110 million, far more than the $10 million opponents raised. According to OpenSecrets data, this could become the second most expensive proposition before voters in the country.

But campaign spending reports are a snapshot in time, especially so close to Election Day, with dollars still flowing.

The DeSantis administration was undeterred by the criticism

Yet the DeSantis administration is unfazed by criticism for directing taxpayer dollars against issues that many of those same taxpayers helped get to the ballot.

“Critics say it’s inappropriate, it’s unusual to do that. I would say it’s a responsibility the state has to educate people about what they’re voting for,” Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nunez said during a recent appearance in Clearwater.

The governor spent almost no time campaigning for Trump, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott or other Florida Republicans on the ballot. Instead, DeSantis traveled the state, for example, with doctors who oppose Amendment 4, arguing a number of shortcomings.

The measure would wipe out the state law banning most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, which DeSantis pushed through a compliant, Republican-controlled Legislature. If approved by voters, Amendment 4 aims to restore the roughly 24-week standard in place in Florida for nearly five decades before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

But DeSantis says Amendment 4 lacks definitions — even though a majority of the Florida Supreme Court approved the ballot language. He also says he will allow abortion at any time, for any reason. This is misleading because Florida law defines fetal viability.

DeSantis further warns that any health care professional could perform abortions if the measure passes, although Florida law separately requires doctors to perform the procedure.

While glossing over what Amendment 4 would allow, DeSantis disputed whether the measure should even be on the ballot. His State Department, which oversees state elections, recently released a 348-page “preliminary” report alleging that fraudulent signatures helped propel the proposition to the ballot while petition collectors were illegally paid per signature.

DeSantis’ efforts echo election denial

With the release of the report, clearly designed to undermine support for the abortion measure, some critics have heard echoes of Trump’s election denials, which the Republican presidential nominee is rehashing with unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud on the battlefield from Pennsylvania.

DeSantis’ fight against Amendment 3 involves claims that smoking will be widespread and public throughout Florida. The governor fails to note, however, that the state’s smoking laws already impose some restrictions and that the pro-Amendment 3 campaign is urging the Legislature to impose more limits if the measure passes.

“We’ve seen more and more campaigns with exaggerated claims, false claims or outright lies,” said Aubrey Jewett, a political scientist at the University of Central Florida. “It seems to be more and more standard operating procedure.”

Jewett said DeSantis appears to have embraced the tactic of Trump, who crushed his bid for the Republican presidential nomination but which DeSantis later supported.

DeSantis “is willing to push the boundaries of what’s legal and go beyond the norms that have kind of existed in Florida politics and American politics,” Jewett said.

“He said he would use every lever of power a governor has to push his agenda, to the limit. And he did that. Using state resources to fight these two ballot amendments is just the latest example,” he added.

Allegations that Amendment 4 is on the ballot fraudulently fit this Trump-like pattern, voting rights advocates say. The signatures were verified by election supervisors, and the measure was certified for the ballot by Secretary of State Cord Byrd, a DeSantis appointee, in January.

“Undermining the integrity of elections seems to be part of the GOP playbook,” said Brad Ashwell, director of All Voting is Local, a national nonpartisan voting rights organization. “The common themes we see are complaints that non-citizens are voting, there are people on the rolls who shouldn’t be there, and that the vote counting machines are unreliable or hacked in some way.

“It appears to be a coordinated message from the top down,” he added.

John Kennedy is a reporter in the USA TODAY Network’s Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at [email protected]or on X at @JKennedyReport.