The Florida Young Republicans is a conservative leadership organization that serves members ages 18-40.
They are facing pressure after going against the DeSantis administration by throwing their support behind Amendment Three – which would legalize marijuana.
Jake Hoffman is the executive director of the Tampa Bay chapter.
“There are people, very high up in Tallahassee, that are not happy about this – that these Young Republicans just come out and they do something wild like this, and they come against the GOP,” he said. “This is something that they’re going to try to reverse. But at the end of the day, you know, you can’t you can’t really reverse the fact that two-thirds of the organization of thousands of people want to do this.”
Months ago, the Tampa chapter polled around 500 members of the group to learn how they’d vote on Amendment 3. Hoffman said more than 60% said they would vote yes for the pot referendum.
And 60% is what the proposed amendment needs to pass in November.
But despite overwhelming support for the measure, Hoffman said some of the Young Republicans are feeling pressure from Tallahassee to reverse course, especially since most members of the group hold entry-level positions and legislative staffing roles within the GOP.
“They feel pressured, like anybody else at their job if there is something an organization like this happens and if they’re told, ‘You guys really need to reverse course on this.’ They get worried,” he said.
The Young Republicans’ support of Amendment Three is evidence of the generational gap within the party, and said a lot of younger people watched the “war on drugs” fail.
“The GOP platform has been just entirely against marijuana for decades and decades and decades,” Hoffman said.
And while he still supports the governor in “every way possible,” he said it would have gone against his brand to support the amendment since most of the GOP in Florida is made up of older people.
Notably, DeSantis has come out in opposition against the measure, saying “we cannot have every town smelling like marijuana.”
As far as the smell, Hoffman said state lawmakers are already working on legislation to build some framework and place guardrails around the measure if it passes.
“The governor’s office and all of these people up in Tallahassee that don’t want this to pass, they’re trying to pretend like they can’t legislate around this, and they’re trying to pretend like it’s just going to come in and it’s going to be this uncontrollable force. But that’s just not true,” he said.
Hoffman is working alongside Smart and Safe Florida, the committee responsible for getting Amendment Three on November’s ballot.
Spokesperson Morgan Hill said she wasn’t surprised the Florida Young Republicans are backing the measure.
“Marijuana does not have the same stigma that it had many years ago,” she said. “We’ve seen both presidential candidates speak on this issue.”
Vice President Kamala Harris and Former President Donald Trump support the legalization of marijuana.
And Trump posted to Truth Social Sunday night saying as a Floridian, he would vote yes on Amendment Three in November.
“We’ve seen both (candidates) talk about decriminalize possession, rescheduling of marijuana, the need for greater research,” Hill said. “I don’t think that we’re talking about marijuana in the same way that our parents and grandparents were talking about marijuana.”
The amendment’s passage would have a wide range of impacts on Floridians, according to Hill.
Most notable would be its economic impact, around half a billion dollars in tax revenue would be available for public programs and use, like in infrastructure, schools, and even police forces around the state.
