By Jim Saunders and Dara Kam
News Service of Florida
A ballot proposal that would have enshrined abortion rights in the Florida Constitution failed Tuesday, giving a major political victory to Gov. Ron DeSantis — and dealing a huge blow to abortion-rights supporters.
The measure, which appeared on the ballot as Amendment 4, received support from 57 percent of voters, short of the required 60 percent approval to pass.
The failure of the amendment ensures that a law largely preventing abortions after six weeks of pregnancy will remain in effect.
“The demise of pro-abortion Amendment 4 is a momentous victory for life in Florida and for our entire country,” SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a prepared statement. “Thanks to Gov. Ron DeSantis, when we wake up tomorrow, babies with beating hearts will still be protected in the free state of Florida.”
The proposal was spearheaded by the Floridians Protecting Freedom political committee. While the 57 percent support was short of the needed 60 percent, Lauren Brenzel, a spokeswoman for Floridians Protecting Freedom, said a “bipartisan group of voters today sent a clear message to the Florida Legislature” that it should end the six-week law.
The Floridians Protecting Freedom committee began working to pass the constitutional amendment last year after DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Legislature approved the six-week law. That law took effect in May after a Florida Supreme Court ruling.
The proposed amendment said, in part, that 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 healthcare provider.”
Also, the $150 million-plus effort to allow recreational use of marijuana in Florida fizzled out Tuesday, falling short of the needed 60 percent voter approval and delivering a major victory for Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Trulieve, the state’s largest medical-marijuana operator, pumped nearly $144.6 million into the proposed constitutional amendment. The Quincy-based company’s contributions made up more than 94 percent of the overall total of $152.27 million in cash raised by the Smart & Safe Florida political committee that sponsored the measure, which appeared as Amendment 3 on the ballot.
The drive to authorize recreational weed came eight years after voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment allowing medical marijuana. More than 800,000 Florida patients are enrolled in the medical-marijuana program.
But this year’s proposed amendment faced unprecedented opposition from the state’s most powerful elected official — DeSantis — who launched a crusade to defeat Amendment 3 and another ballot measure, Amendment 4, aimed at enshrining abortion rights in the state Constitution. The abortion amendment also appeared to fall short of the required 60 percent voter support.
DeSantis blitzed the state and the airwaves blasting the pot and abortion amendments. His chief of staff, James Uthmeier, chaired two committees that raised more than $30 million to fight the two proposals.
Amendment 3 would have given Trulieve and the state's other medical-marijuana companies the ability to start selling euphoria-inducing cannabis products to anyone in Florida, including tourists, age 21 or older. With 156 retail locations throughout the state, Trulieve sells more than a third of all medical-marijuana products — including smokable marijuana — in the state.
DeSantis targeted contributions by Trulieve, which is publicly traded on the Canadian stock market, as he fought the proposed amendment. The governor argued that the proposal’s passage would cement the company’s “monopoly” on the cannabis market in Florida.
“I don’t think there’s ever been one company that’s put in this much money for one ballot measure in all of American history. And so the only way they can justify that is because this amendment is going to guarantee them a massive profit stream,” DeSantis said at a rally-style event last week.
As of about 9 p.m., the state Division of Elections website showed that nearly 56 percent of Florida voters supported the proposal — not enough to meet the 60 percent approval threshold.
"Tonight, a strong majority of Floridians voted in support of legalizing recreational marijuana for adults. While the results of Amendment 3 did not clear the 60 percent threshold, we are eager to work with the governor and legislative leaders who agree with us on decriminalizing recreational marijuana for adults, addressing public consumption, continuing our focus on child safety, and expanding access to safe marijuana through home grow,” the Smart & Safe Florida committee said in a statement.
