Smart & Safe Florida said the new restrictions will “effectively destroy the people’s right to invoke the citizen initiative.”
Christine Sexton of the Florida Phoenix
The group fighting to legalize marijuana for recreational use in Florida joined the legal fight against a recently approved ban on ballot initiatives.
Smart & Safe Florida over the weekend asked to intervene in a federal lawsuit filed last week by an organization seeking to place Medicaid expansion on the 2026 ballot. U.S. Chief District Judge Mark Walker granted Smart & Safe’s request on Monday. Walker has also scheduled a telephone conference for May 14, to talk about the scheduling of the lawsuit, and to decide how to proceed.
Smart & Safe Florida, the group behind the proposed constitutional amendment to legalize recreational use of cannabis in 2024, is actively working to get another measure on the ballot in 2026 and didn’t respond to a request for comment.
But in a lengthy court filing, Smart & Safe Florida called the new restrictions signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis, (R), “legislative shaming,” which is not intended to prevent fraud in the process of citizen initiative as claimed by the Governor and others. But it “effectively destroys the people’s rights to invoke the Citizen Initiative.”
This group has been heavily funded by Trulieve Medical Marijuana, whose 2024 initiative fell short of 60 percent needed for approval. The group has already begun collecting petitions in order to get on the ballot for 2026 and they have verified more than 200,000 of their signatures.
Smart & Safe Florida says some of the restrictions in the law, including a ban on using out-of-state residents to collect petition signatures, have already hampered their efforts. It has decided to stop mailing out petitions forms to voters because of a requirement that petitions be submitted within 10 working days.
This law requires that petition circulators and voters sign petition forms with additional information.
That financial impact statement requirement violates its First Amendment rights, Smart & Safe Florida argues.
While there were many fights between the House and Governor during the legislative session, it was the Republican leaders who came together to support HB 1205. DeSantis enacted the law within three days of receiving it.
A report by the DeSantis Administration that claimed fraud in petition gathering led to the new law.
In a report released in January by the Office of Election Crimes and Security, it is stated that over 100 members of the group who attempted to pass an amendment on abortion rights last year were involved with crimes related to petition gathering.
Florida Decides Healthcare, meanwhile, filed the suit last week. The group is working on getting its constitutional amendment to expand Medicaid onto the ballot for statewide voters in November 2026.
Mitch Emerson, the Executive Director of Florida Decides, called it a “calculated, cowardly effort by politicians to change the laws, not for the benefit of the citizens, but rather to maintain their power.”
Florida Phoenix was the first to publish this story.
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