The Republican controlled Florida House of Representatives has passed a measure that will make it prohibitively harder for a citizen-led constitutional amendment to get on the ballot. The vote was 76-31.
Its passage comes just five months after two constitutional amendments that would have respectively enshrined abortion rights and legalized recreational cannabis for adults narrowly fell short of passage.
The bill (HB 1205), sponsored by Lee County Republican Jenna Persons-Mulicka, includes a number of provisions that Democrats and voting-rights advocates say could essentially kill most attempts to place citizen-led constitutional amendments on future ballots.
At the heart of the argument by advocates is the need to prevent fraud. The Office of Election Crimes and Security published a report in January asserting that more than 100 representatives of the group attempting to pass the abortion-rights last year committed crimes related to gathering petitions.
And last week the Office of Election Crimes and Security informed Smart & Safe Florida, the group working to get a constitutional amendment regarding the adult use of cannabis on the 2026 ballot, that the Division of Elections was fining them $121,850 for allegedly submitting petitions more than 30 days after voters signed them — a violation of existing law.
“We have seen widespread and rampant fraud in this state and in this process,” said Persons-Mulicka. “We have evidence that we cannot take a blind eye to. We must take further action to put integrity back into the initiative process.”
The changes
Among the most contentious provisions is a requirement that the state Office of Elections Crimes and Security investigate if more than 10% of submitted petitions during any reporting period are deemed invalid.
The requirement amounts to a 90% validity rate, which Democrats say is impossible to overcome.
Orlando Democratic Rep. Anna Eskamani offered an amendment to reduce the percentage of submitted petitions deemed invalid to trigger an investigation to a 60% validity rate. It was struck down.
Other provisions include:
- Requiring the petition sponsor to post a $1 million bond payable to the Division of Elections once the sponsor has obtained a letter from the department confirming that 25% of the requisite number of signatures has been obtained.
- If a person who is collecting or handling initiatives petitions is found to not be a U.S. citizen or has been convicted of a felony without having his right to vote restored, the petition sponsor is liable for a $50,000 fine for each person.
- The bill revises the deadline by which petitions must be delivered by the sponsor to a supervisor of elections from 30 days to 10 days and increases the fines from a $50 flat fee for each late petition form to $50 for each day late for a total fine of up to $2,500 per late petition form. If the sponsor or petition circulator acted “willfully,” the bill increases the penalty from $250 for each petition form to $2,500.
- The bill requires all petition circulators — volunteers as well as paid staffers — to be residents of Florida. It says that before a paid petition circulator is registered, he or she must submit to a criminal background check to be paid for by the applicant or petition sponsor.
- Removes the coordinator of the Office of Economic and Demographic Research from the Financial Impact Estimating Conference, which prepares financial impact statements to accompany any proposed constitutional amendment. (The sitting coordinator of the office, Florida chief economist Amy Baker, is the only member of the Financial Impact Estimating Conference not directly appointed by a Republican politician).
To get a proposed amendment by initiative on the general election ballot, currently a petition must be signed by 891,589 voters and the signatures must come from at least half of Florida’s 28 congressional districts. To pass, it must win 60% support from the voters.
Voters silenced?
During debate on the House floor, Broward County Democratic Rep. Robin Bartleman argued it would be unfair to make an onerous process even harder to accomplish.
“You are shutting out our fellow Floridians,” she said. “If we really are about the free state of Florida — which is we always like to say we are — then it’s our duty that the power remains in the hands of the people. Every hurdle that you are putting up here today takes it out of their hands. Our citizen-led constitutional amendment provision is already the strictest in the country.”
Before the floor debate, voting rights groups held a news conference in the Fourth Floor rotunda of the Capitol, where they blasted the bill as “undemocratic.”
“They are trying to silence us,” said Amy Keith with Common Cause Florida. “They are trying to make it impossible for everyday Floridians to put citizen-led amendments on the ballot. They don’t want us to be able to directly pass policies that we know our communities need. They think that they have the right to silence us but we are here to say, ‘No.’”
“Why are the legislators afraid of the average citizen talking to their neighbor?” said Cecile Scoon, co-president of the League of Women Voters of Florida.
“Who are the legislators listening to? It appears when you look at these bills to limit citizen’s constitutional amendment process, they’re listening to big companies, they’re making it so that only big money can use the citizen process, which is supposed to be for the everyday person.”
–Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix
