Marijuana backers fight Florida's new ballot restrictions law in court
The Brief
Smart & Safe Florida has joined a lawsuit challenging Florida's new law restricting citizen ballot initiatives.
Critics say the law imposes unconstitutional limits on political speech and grassroots petition efforts.
The group is pushing to legalize recreational marijuana and allow home cultivation for medical use by 2026.
ORLANDO, Fla. - Supporters of a renewed push to legalize recreational marijuana in Florida have joined a lawsuit challenging a new state law they say places "draconian restrictions" on the constitutional right of citizens to place initiatives on the ballot.
What we know
Smart & Safe Florida, the group pushing to legalize recreational marijuana in Florida, has joined a federal lawsuit against a new state law (HB 1205) that overhauls the ballot initiative process.
Signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis on May 2, the measure imposes immediate and sweeping restrictions that critics say severely limit Floridians' ability to propose constitutional amendments.
Among the changes: tighter restrictions on who can gather signatures, criminal penalties for exceeding petition limits, a drastic reduction in the time allowed to submit completed petitions, and a controversial ban on sponsoring more than one amendment at a time.
What we don't know
It remains unclear how courts will interpret and rule on the constitutionality of HB 1205. The timeline and scope of the ban on multiple amendment sponsorships are also vague, with no clear guidance on whether it applies indefinitely or only during active campaigns.
It's also uncertain whether Smart & Safe Florida will be able to gather the nearly 880,000 valid signatures required by the Feb. 1 deadline to qualify their proposal for the 2026 ballot — or if they'll need to shift their efforts to 2028.
The backstory
The new law follows heated political battles over high-profile ballot initiatives in the 2024 election cycle, including failed efforts to legalize recreational marijuana and enshrine abortion rights in the state Constitution. Those proposals drew fierce opposition from DeSantis and Republican legislators, who have since pushed to tighten rules around the initiative process. The Florida Chamber of Commerce and other conservative groups have supported these changes, arguing that complex policy matters should be left to lawmakers, not voter referendums.
What they're saying
The legal challenge is not just about marijuana — it's about who gets to shape Florida's Constitution. The case raises broad First Amendment issues, including the rights to political speech, association, and direct democracy.
"This wolf comes as a wolf," wrote Smart & Safe Florida's legal team, quoting the late Justice Antonin Scalia to argue that the new law presents a clear, direct threat to citizen rights under the guise of protecting ballot integrity.
Critics say the law is part of a pattern by state leaders to suppress citizen-driven change and consolidate policymaking within the Legislature.
"The most burdensome of those changes took effect immediately... with no warning nor opportunity to appropriately prepare," wrote attorneys for the group, calling the timing both unfair and unconstitutional.
As a result, this fight could set significant precedent not only in Florida but potentially for other states watching how far governments can go in regulating grassroots political activism.
"Mandating an arbitrary and severely truncated delivery deadline... sets sponsors up for failure," the group argued, accusing lawmakers of intentionally undermining quality control measures and increasing the risk of costly penalties.
The group further described the ban on sponsoring multiple amendments as "an outright ban on core political speech bearing zero relation to ballot integrity," and criticized the law's vagueness as a legal minefield for initiative sponsors.
Meanwhile, supporters of the law maintain that the changes are necessary to prevent fraud and ensure only qualified individuals handle the petition process. However, those arguments were labeled "gaslighting" by the marijuana campaign's attorneys.
STAY CONNECTED WITH FOX 35 ORLANDO:
Download the FOX Local app for breaking news alerts, the latest news headlines
Download the FOX 35 Storm Team Weather app for weather alerts & radar
Sign up for FOX 35's daily newsletter for the latest morning headlines
FOX Local:Stream FOX 35 newscasts, FOX 35 News+, Central Florida Eats on your smart TV
The Source
This story was written based on information shared by The News Service of Florida, and Smart & Safe Florida.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Washington Post
21 minutes ago
- Washington Post
‘Come and get me': Gavin Newsom has entered the meme war
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has found himself in the center of the internet's spotlight after squaring off with President Donald Trump on social media over the deployment of military troops to counter protesters in Los Angeles. While police deployed tear gas and shot at protesters in Los Angeles with rubber bullets on Monday, Newsom shared a screenshot on TikTok of a Washington Post headline reporting that California would sue Trump over the National Guard's presence, paired with a trending sound sampled from the movie 'Mean Girls. ' The video was captioned 'We will not stand while Donald Trump illegally federalizes the National Guard' and was liked more than 255,000 times.
Yahoo
21 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump tariffs may remain in effect while appeals proceed, U.S. Appeals court decides
By Dietrich Knauth (Reuters) -A federal appeals court allowed President Donald Trump's most sweeping tariffs to remain in effect on Tuesday while it reviews a lower court decision blocking them on grounds that Trump had exceeded his authority by imposing them. The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C. means Trump may continue to enforce, for now, his "Liberation Day" tariffs on imports from most U.S. trading partners, as well as a separate set of tariffs levied on Canada, China and Mexico. The appeals court has yet to rule on whether the tariffs are permissible under an emergency economic powers act that Trump cited to justify them, but it allowed the tariffs to remain in place while the appeals play out. The tariffs, used by Trump as negotiating leverage with U.S. trading partners, and their on-again, off-again nature have shocked markets and whipsawed companies of all sizes as they seek to manage supply chains, production, staffing and prices. The ruling has no impact on other tariffs levied under more traditional legal authority, such as tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled on May 28 that the U.S. Constitution gave Congress, not the president, the power to levy taxes and tariffs, and that the president had exceeded his authority by invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a law intended to address "unusual and extraordinary" threats during national emergencies. The Trump administration quickly appealed the ruling, and the Federal Circuit in Washington put the lower court decision on hold the next day while it considered whether to impose a longer-term pause. The ruling came in a pair of lawsuits, one filed by the nonpartisan Liberty Justice Center on behalf of five small U.S. businesses that import goods from countries targeted by the duties and the other by 12 U.S. states. Trump has claimed broad authority to set tariffs under IEEPA. The 1977 law has historically been used to impose sanctions on enemies of the U.S. or freeze their assets. Trump is the first U.S. president to use it to impose tariffs. Trump has said that the tariffs imposed in February on Canada, China and Mexico were to fight illegal fentanyl trafficking at U.S. borders, denied by the three countries, and that the across-the-board tariffs on all U.S. trading partners imposed in April were a response to the U.S. trade deficit. The states and small businesses had argued the tariffs were not a legal or appropriate way to address those matters, and the small businesses argued that the decades-long U.S. practice of buying more goods than it exports does not qualify as an emergency that would trigger IEEPA. At least five other court cases have challenged the tariffs justified under the emergency economic powers act, including other small businesses and the state of California. One of those cases, in federal court in Washington, D.C., also resulted in an initial ruling against the tariffs, and no court has yet backed the unlimited emergency tariff authority Trump has claimed. Errore nel recupero dei dati Effettua l'accesso per consultare il tuo portafoglio Errore nel recupero dei dati Errore nel recupero dei dati Errore nel recupero dei dati Errore nel recupero dei dati
Associated Press
21 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Judge tosses lawsuit over Trump's firing of US African Development Foundation board members
A federal judge has tossed out a lawsuit over President Donald Trump's dismantling of a U.S. federal agency that invests in African small businesses. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington, D.C., dismissed the case on Tuesday, finding that Trump was acting within his legal authority when he fired the U.S. African Development Foundation's board members in February. In March, the same judge ruled that the administration's removal of most grant money and staff from the congressionally created agency was also legal, as long as the agency was maintained at the minimum level required by law. USADF was created as an independent agency in 1980, and its board members must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. In 2023, Congress allocated $46 million to the agency to invest in small agricultural and energy infrastructure projects and other economic development initiatives in 22 African countries. On Feb. 19, Trump issued an executive order that said USADF, the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Inter-American Foundation and the Presidio Trust should be scaled back to the minimum presence required by law. At the time, USADF had five of its seven board seats filled. A few days later, an administration official told Ward Brehm that he was fired, and emails were sent to the other board members notifying them that they had also been terminated. Those emails were never received, however, because they were sent to the wrong email addresses. The four board members, believing they still held their posts because they had not been given notice, met in March and passed a resolution appointing Brehm as the president of the board. But Trump had already appointed Pete Marocco as the new chairman of what the administration believed to now be a board of one. Since then, both men have claimed to be the president of the agency, and Brehm filed the lawsuit March 6. Leon said that even though they didn't receive the emails, the four board members were effectively terminated in February, and so they didn't have the authority to appoint Brehm to lead the board. An attorney for Brehm did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Another lawsuit over the dismantling of the agency is still pending before the same judge. In that case, two USADF staffers and a consulting firm based in Zambia that works closely with USADF contend that the Trump administration's efforts to deeply scale back the agency wrongly usurps Congress' powers. They also say Marocco was unlawfully appointed to the board, in part because he was never confirmed by the Senate as required. Leon's ruling in Brehm's case did not address whether the Trump administration had the power to install Marocco as board chair on a temporary basis.
