By Dara Kam ©2025 The News Service of Florida
TALLAHASSEE — A Florida House committee on Wednesday approved a controversial ballot-initiative measure that would impose new requirements on gathering, submitting and validating petition signatures and increase penalties for wrongdoing.
The plan, in part, came in response to intense ballot fights last year about proposals that would have enshrined abortion rights in the state Constitution and allowed recreational marijuana use for adults. Backers of the proposals spent more than $100 million on each of the initiatives, which fell short of garnering the 60 percent voter approval needed to pass.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has made a crackdown on the initiative process, which is included in the Florida Constitution, one of his main priorities for the 2025 legislative session. The governor unleashed the power of his executive agencies to help defeat the abortion and marijuana proposals.
The bill approved along party lines Wednesday by the Republican-controlled House State Affairs Committee would impose a number of new restrictions on signature gatherers and the groups that back ballot initiatives.
Bill sponsor Jenna Persons-Mulicka, R-Fort Myers, pointed to investigations that found dozens of instances of fraud by some petition gatherers working on last year’s abortion proposal.
“Our citizen initiative petition process is broken, and we are the ones that must fix it,” Persons-Mulicka said.
The proposal, for example, would require signature gatherers to be residents of Florida and the U.S. Also, one of the most contentious parts of the bill (HB 1205) would shorten from 30 days to 10 days the length of time signature gatherers would have to submit petitions to supervisors of elections and increase penalties for late-filed petitions. The proposal also would require voters to provide identifying information, such as their driver’s license numbers, when signing petitions.
Critics maintain a shortened turnaround time for petitions combined with the additional information requirements would increase the likelihood of errors, which could result in significant fines — or even felonies. The bill would make it a felony for anyone to fill in missing information on a petition.
“There is a desire not to have citizens petitions anymore. So, instead of just flat-out saying that, this show is being put on. You don’t want citizen initiatives. Just say that,” Larry Colleton, who said he is with the Orange County branch of the NAACP, told the committee.
Dozens of speakers and voting rights groups also urged the panel to reject the proposed changes.
“This bill is not about ‘We the People.’ This bill is about a big government takeover that will hand this process to billionaire corporate elites,” Amy Keith, executive director of Common Cause of Florida, said.
The measure also would require supervisors of elections to notify voters whose petition signatures have been verified and allow them to revoke their signatures.
In addition, the bill would require the state Office of Elections Crimes and Security to investigate if more than 10 percent of submitted petitions during any reporting period are deemed invalid. Supporters of proposed constitutional amendments often submit more signatures than are needed to get on the ballot, with the expectation that some will be rejected.
The requirement amounts to a 90 percent validity rate, a “frankly impossible” hurdle, according to Rep. Dotie Joseph, D-North Miami.
The 2024 abortion-rights initiative had a 68-percent validation rate, “the highest we’re aware of in Florida history,” Joseph said.
“No citizen-led amendment has ever reached a 90 percent validation rate, like not even 70 percent, in the history of Florida,” Joseph added. “What you’re asking for is an impossible threshold.”
The proposal also would require sponsors of initiatives to post a $1 million bond after they have collected 25 percent of the necessary signatures to get on the ballot, to cover any potential fines.
The committee on Wednesday also added a provision that would change the makeup of a panel responsible for calculating the financial impact of proposed initiatives. The plan would remove the director of the Legislature’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research, who is currently Amy Baker, as a voting member of what is known as the Financial Estimating Impact Conference.
The usually obscure panel became a battleground last year in determining the financial impact of the abortion proposal, with Baker often disagreeing with representatives of DeSantis, the House and the Senate.
“We think it will have a chilling effect on citizen-led amendments. It will disempower voters and fully make this a process for wealthy special interests,” Brad Ashwell, Florida state director of All Voting is Local Action, told the committee Wednesday.
John Labriola of the Christian Family Coalition was among a handful of supporters of the bill who addressed the committee.
“It’s an excellent bill which would provide safeguards to limit corrupt outside influence on our state Constitution and preserve the integrity of the process,” he said.
But Lauren Brenzel, campaign director of the Floridians Protecting Freedom committee that sponsored the abortion proposal, said the bill would restrict citizens’ ability to pursue ballot changes.
“It would be a travesty to see this process ripped out of the hands of Floridians because certain people didn’t like certain elements in the last election,” she said.
Persons-Mulicka, however, said the effort is aimed at ensuring the initiative process remains in the hands of Florida voters.
“It is a process to allow Floridians to go into their community to convince their fellow Floridians to support changing our Constitution. … This process has been taken over by out-of-state fraudsters looking to make a quick buck and by special interests intent on buying their way into the Constitution,” she said.
But voting-rights groups fear the proposed changes, which are now positioned to go to the full House, would diminish citizens’ ability to exercise their constitutional rights.
“We don’t elect lawmakers to educate us. We don’t elect lawmakers to lead us. We elect lawmakers to represent us and the audacity that they would want to take our constitutional right from us is horrendous and outrageous,” Pamela Burch Fort, a lobbyist who represents the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, Common Cause Florida and other groups, told The News Service of Florida after the meeting.
Leave a Reply
