Opinion: DeSantis’ anti-amendment campaign crosses a line

Mark Lane
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Florida has not used state money and power to influence any election issue the way it does to promote the governor’s current fight against Amendments 3 and 4. State websites have been included in anti-Amendment campaigns 3 and against Amendment 4. State-funded advertisements have aired fighting against the measures.

Amendment 3 would legalize the regulated sale of marijuana for recreational purposes. No medical necessity card would be needed anymore. Amendment 4 would codify the right to abortion, overriding Florida’s strict new anti-abortion law.

Certainly, governors have campaigned hard against several state constitutional amendments in the past and have worked to prevent them before they could reach voters. Governor Jeb Bush, for example, campaigned vigorously against the classroom size amendment in 2002 and was even recorded promising to sabotage it if it passed. (It passed anyway, and yes, the Legislature found ways to water it down.) But the Department of Education still stayed out of that fight. So far, no governor has invested taxpayer resources in voting; no campaign on this scale.

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign against the amendments extended to ordering the Florida Department of Health to send frightening-sounding cease-and-desist letters to television stations airing ads supporting Amendment 4. The letters called the ads misleading. and threatened state sanctions against stations that did not immediately boot them. One station quickly pulled the ad off the air.

Consider this for a moment: A Florida state agency threatened to criminally prosecute television stations for daring to air political opinions that conflict with those of the governor. This is harsh government censorship of the media in the Free State of Florida.

Floridians Protecting Freedom, the group campaigning for the amendment, quickly filed a lawsuit in federal court, and the result was another judicial drubbing for DeSantis by U.S. District Judge Mark Walker.

Further: Federal judge: DeSantis can’t threaten Florida TV stations that air pro-abortion rights ads

Walker’s opinion cited a 1945 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down a Texas law that muzzled union organizers. That court declared: “Each person must be his own guardian of the truth because the ancestors did not trust any government to separate the true from the false for us.” And then, in case the court’s meaning needed a little more exposition, Walker added: “To make it simple for the State of Florida: It’s the First Amendment, stupid.” Hard.

And then the court granted a restraining order prohibiting Florida’s health department from taking action against the stations that ran the ads.

Meanwhile, the Department of Health general counsel who signed the letters abruptly resigned from his position citing conscience and said in an affidavit that the letters were dictated to him from the governor’s office.

In addressing this issue, the court focused only on the state’s threats against broadcasters for daring to air political ads that did not please the governor’s office. He did not address the state’s other election efforts against the amendment.

“Plaintiff does not challenge the state’s right to spend millions of taxpayer dollars in opposition to Amendment 4,” the court noted. “The problem, the plaintiff says, is that the state has crossed the line from upholding Amendment 4 to censoring speech by requiring television stations to remove plaintiff’s political ads that support Amendment 4 or face criminal prosecution.”

While it is reassuring that a court ruled decisively on the threats to broadcasters, the rest of the state’s election efforts remain concerning. If not checked by the courts, they set a troubling precedent by using taxpayer money to tell Floridians how to vote.

Once a policy tool is used, it rarely remains at the back of the toolbox for long. The Free State of Florida is now in the government propaganda business funded by you. And unless the courts and Legislature act, don’t count on this being the last time.

Mark Lane is a News-Journal columnist. Your email is [email protected].