Florida bill to change petition process decried as aiding special interests

Yahoo

06-03-2025

TALLAHASSEE — Florida's Legislature is eyeing changes to the ballot initiative process after last year's intense fight over two proposed amendments on abortion access and recreational marijuana.
Opponents say the bill would consolidate more power in the hands of Tallahassee and monied special interests. Proponents say the changes ensure the integrity of the process and keep out-of-state special interests out.
Florida's ballot initiative process, a right guaranteed in the constitution, has long been used by groups to pass measures that have been otherwise stymied by state lawmakers. It's how Florida got a $15 minimum wage, medical marijuana and felon voter restoration.
The process is among the hardest of any of the 24 states that allow citizens to directly amend their laws or constitution. Legislative changes have made the process in Florida harder and costlier in recent years.
HB 1205 would continue that trend, about a dozen public commenters warned during the bill's first committee meeting Thursday.
They pointed to the bill's requirement that sponsors put up a $1 million bond before collecting any petitions, as well as its proposals to increase fines, add new requirements and tighten the window to return petitions.
But Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, R-Fort Myers, the bill sponsor, argued that her proposal was the way to keep the ballot initiative process so that 'only those with a stake in our constitution can change it.'
The legislation comes on the heels of two high-profile failed constitutional amendments heavily opposed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and state Republicans: Amendment 3, which would have allowed for recreational marijuana use, and Amendment 4, which would have protected abortion access and undone the state's six-week abortion ban.
When talking about her motivations for filing the bill, Persons-Mulicka pointed to a state report that alleged widespread fraud in the abortion amendment campaign.
Critics of the state's report accused Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration of applying uneven scrutiny toward a campaign he disliked.
Her bill changes the law to require that all petition collectors — both paid workers and volunteers — be Florida residents, citizens and not have certain felony convictions.
Persons-Mulicka's bill would also require that all petitions collected be turned into a supervisor of elections office within 10 days, down from the current 30-day window. Related fines for being late would be increased.
It also would allow fraud related to petitions to be prosecuted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, Act.
Brad Ashwell, the Florida director of All Voting is Local, said the bill's proposals would have a 'pretty serious chilling effect' on an ordinary campaign's ability to move forward but could be easily overcome by well-off groups.
'It puts the process more firmly in the hands of those who have the resources, who have the wealth,' Ashwell said.
Rich Templin, political director for the Florida AFL-CIO, said that over the last two decades, Florida's petition process has become cost-prohibitive for grassroots efforts — which he said was the Legislature's design.
'These bills are only filed after something happens at the ballot box that the majority in the Capitol doesn't like,' he said.
Templin said the Legislature began making major changes after a 2004 minimum wage amendment passed. One of those changes required that signatures expire in a shorter time frame.
In order to get the nearly 900,000 needed petitions in a tight window, Templin said campaigns need to rely on paid circulators, rather than volunteers.
'If the petition process is broken, it's bills like this that broke it,' Templin said at Tuesday's committee meeting.
Changes to the petition process are one of DeSantis' priorities for this session. But his proposal, which would effectively dismantle petition circulation as it exists today, is significantly different from Persons-Mulicka's bill.
Persons-Mulicka said that she wanted to balance the integrity of the petition process while still ensuring citizens can petition to amend the constitution.
'That power belongs to the people, and I want to ensure that that power's protected,' she said.
Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, has filed a sweeping election bill in the Senate that mirrors DeSantis' proposals, but the Senate's election committee is planning to put its own not-yet-revealed bill forward.
It's unclear what that bill will include. House Speaker Danny Perez, R-Miami, said Tuesday that he believed the House, Senate and governor were on different pages about how they should approach changes to the petition process. Perez and Senate President Ben Albritton said they are in support of taking action, though.
The Florida Supervisors of Election association is in support of the House bill but wants some changes, said lobbyist David Ramba, including requiring voters themselves to return petitions to elections offices instead of allowing the amendment sponsor to do so.
The proposed House bill would require election supervisors to notify a voter once their petition is verified as valid, and tell the voter they can revoke their petition if it was signed fraudulently.
Lauren Brenzel, the campaign director for Amendment 4, said there's no state where the petition process operates the way Ramba suggested.
Brenzel said that some of the bill's suggested fines, including a $500 fine for petitions sent to a different elections supervisor, could be incurred by a campaign for simple paperwork mistakes.
'I really do think it is so sad to see legislation like this that claims to be for the people that really is further alienating people from the process,' Brenzel said.