Florida, Going Like Ohio?

Buoyed by last Tuesday's ballot initiative in Ohio which added abortion rights to the state's constitution, the Florida movement to get an abortion rights ballot initiative on their ballot has only until February 1st to gather another 400,000 valid signatures to make the deadline. If they make that deadline, and if a proposed constitutional amendment actually gets on the ballot in Florida, the new amendment would read in part, “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s health care provider.”

The Florida abortion rights initiative has already gathered 500,000 verified signatures, and its fundraising has soared since last Tuesday (money used to pay petition-gatherers), as Florida women continue to react to the new 6-week abortion ban signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis and realize that they too might turn around their state with a citizen-generated movement to restore and preserve women's freedom.

The Florida initiative faces huge odds -- not just those additional 400,000 signatures. The conservative Florida Supreme Court must approve the ballot language, and Florida's Republican attorney general has  already announced a court challenge to the measure, alleging that the language is too broad, vague, and misleading. Plus ultimate passage of a citizen ballot initiative requires 60 percent of the vote. Some 57 percent of Ohio voters approved their amendment.

But if this thing actually makes it to next year's ballot, watch out! (Which reminds me that the state of North Carolina doesn't allow citizen-generated ballot initiatives -- and we ought to make a political movement out of that prohibition -- and also denies home rule to local municipalities and through "local bills" can meddle in any local issue they please, to the benefit of whom they please.)