hondawin Does new state website advocating against Florida abortion ballot question cross a line?
Updated:2024-10-16 03:43 Views:82Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration is leaning on the state’s power to combat a proposed abortion amendment on Florida’s November ballots.
On Thursday, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration launched a website opposing Amendment 4, saying that it “threatens women’s safety.”
The website, which includes the agency’s seal, reiterates much of the same rhetoric used by political committees dedicated to fighting the amendment, including concerns about a lack of definitions in the amendment.
The website notes that some out-of-state groups have donated to the amendment effort. It tells visitors that “Florida is protecting life” and warns, “Don’t let the fearmongers lie to you.”
A document on the page, which compares current law to Amendment 4, has the state seal on it.
Democrats, supporters of the amendment and some legal experts criticized the website as an unethical and potentially illicit use of state resources for a political message.
Bacardi Jackson, the executive director of the ACLU of Florida, said that it was “unprecedented for the State to expressly advocate against a citizen-led initiative.”
“This kind of propaganda issued by the state, using taxpayer money and operating outside of the political process sets a dangerous precedent,” Jackson said in a statement. “This is what we would expect to see from an authoritarian regime, not in the so-called ‘Free State of Florida.’”
A spokesperson for the Agency for Health Care Administration, when asked whether this use of state resources was legal, said that part of the agency’s mission “is to provide information and transparency to Floridians about the quality of care they receive.”
The state did not say how much the website cost or whether any outside groups were involved in its design.
“Our new transparency page serves to educate Floridians on the state’s current abortion law, and provide information on the impacts of a proposed policy change on the ballot in November,” the agency said in a statement. “The law is the law however many in the media have not covered it correctly.”
The abortion amendment would protect access to abortion until viability, generally considered to be around 24 weeks of pregnancy. If approved by 60% of voters, it would undo Florida’s six-week abortion ban.
Barry Richard, an elections lawyer who worked on the amendment in its early stages, said he thinks the state’s website is “completely inappropriate.”
Richard said that while some officials are expected to take political stances as part of their jobs, he doesn’t think that an agency is supposed to push for a position.
“They shouldn’t be able to advocate for, no matter which side you’re on, for or against a constitutional amendment that’s on the ballot,” he said.
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a professor of election law at Stetson University, pointed to a Florida statute that says no state employee or officer shall use their “official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with an election … or coercing or influencing another person’s vote or affecting the result thereof.”
Torres-Spelliscy suggested that statute could mean the state’s website is illegal.
Supporters of the constitutional amendment have already accused the government of levying its power to affect their campaign in other instances.
For instance, earlier this year, a state panel of mostly political appointees rewrote a financial impact statement that will be below the amendment on voters’ ballots. The rewritten statement questioned whether the amendment could lead to state-funded abortions and said it would lead to additional costs to the government from litigation.
Floridians Protecting Freedom, the group sponsoring the amendment, criticized the rewritten statement as a “dirty trick,” noting the group’s prior estimate didn’t include that information.
Meanwhile, in a move that the amendment’s supporters worry could be “political interference,” the DeSantis administration is reviewing thousands of already-verified petitions that were used to get the amendment on the ballot.
The Department of State has asked election supervisors in Hillsborough, Palm Beach, Orange, Osceola and other counties for signatures they verified months ago. The state said it is looking into potential fraud.
Floridians Protecting Freedom surpassed the required number of signatures statewide by about 100,000.
Whether the reviewed petitions could be used to challenge the amendment’s standing on the ballot is unclear. The state certified the amendment to appear on the ballot back in January. Two election supervisors called the state’s request, for only petitions already deemed valid, highly unusual.
This story was originally published September 6, 2024, 2:28 PM.
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