DeSantis signs law creating new hurdles for Florida's citizens' initiative process

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida voters have long been able to use the citizens' initiative process to bypass the Republican-dominated Legislature and advance progressive policies such as raising the minimum wage, legalizing medical marijuana and restoring the voting rights of people with felony convictions.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law Friday creating new hurdles for citizen-driven initiatives, changes critics say would make it prohibitively expensive and effectively impossible for grassroots campaigners to get them onto the ballot.

Legislatures in dozens of states have advanced bills recently to crack down on the public's ability to put measures up for a vote, according to the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center. Voting rights advocates say the trend betrays the promise of direct democracy.

Under Florida's measure, voters could be charged with a felony if they collect more than 25 signed ballot petitions, other than their own or those of immediate family members, and don't register with the state as a petition circulator.

Months before the bill advanced in the Legislature, Florida voters supported ballot initiatives to protect abortion rights and legalize recreational marijuana, though the measures fell short of the 60% needed to pass.

DeSantis signed the measure Friday evening, hours after lawmakers gave the bill final approval. He marshaled state resources and the power of his office in an aggressive campaign to oppose the measures on the ballot last November.

''This bill has been intentionally designed to make it impossible for any statewide citizen initiative to make it to the ballot ever again,'' said state Sen. Carlos Smith, a Democrat from Orlando, who called the measure ''the final kill shot against direct democracy.''

The bill's Republican sponsors argued the measure is meant to protect rather than restrict the citizens' initiative process, which Florida's Republican Senate president has repeatedly called ''sacrosanct.'' Instead, they say the aim is to reform a process they see as tainted by outside petition-gatherers who they allege have forged petition signatures or misled voters.

''This bill is not an attack on the citizen initiative process,'' said co-sponsor state Sen. Don Gaetz, a Panhandle Republican. ''It's an attack on those who have corrupted it.''

A state election crimes unit created under the DeSantis administration in 2022 helped secure two dozen felony election-related convictions, according to a January report. State officers have made at least 17 arrests of paid petition circulators working on behalf of four different ballot initiatives, the agency says.

The measure ''does not address imaginary, hypothetical fraud, but known fraud," said Republican state Sen. Jennifer Bradley.

One of the reforms lawmakers said was needed aims to rein in the DeSantis administration, which used public funds to create ads opposing the 2024 measures and threatened television stations with criminal penalties for airing commercials in support of the proposals.

''They engaged in behavior that will now be unlawful and will now be prevented,'' Gaetz said, under a provision that outlaws the use of public funds for political ads on any proposed constitutional amendment.

Under the law, more people will be banned from collecting petitions, including Floridians with felony convictions who haven't had their voting rights restored. Noncitizens and people who don't reside in Florida will also be prohibited from gathering signatures, in a state with a significant population of part-time workers and foreign-born residents.

Floridians will have to provide their driver's license number, voter ID card number, or the last four digits of their Social Security number in order to fill out a petition. The form will ultimately become a public record.

Campaigners will face shorter deadlines to return petitions to local election officials, and stiffer fines if they don't return them to the correct county — an issue advocates say can occur due to voter error in filling out the forms.

Former Republican state Sen. Jeff Brandes, a frequent critic of his former colleagues in Tallahassee who now leads the nonprofit Florida Policy Project, criticized the bill in a post on X.

''It should be difficult to change the constitution, but not impossible,'' Brandes wrote. ''Unless you're the Florida Legislature — then you just keep moving the goalpost until only you can keep score.''

___ Associated Press writer Mike Schneider in Orlando, Florida contributed to this report. Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.