Judge refuses to block Florida’s website on abortion amendment

TALLAHASSEE — Saying courts “must trust the people to decide what information is important to them,” a Leon County circuit judge Monday refused to issue a temporary injunction to block the state Agency for Health Administration from disseminating what critics call “misinformation” about a proposed constitutional amendment on abortion rights.

Judge Jonathan Sjostrom rejected arguments by Floridians Protecting Freedom, a political committee sponsoring the proposed amendment, and wrote that the case is “not justiciable by courts because political power is reserved to the people in an election by means of each ballot.”

“When courts speak of justiciability, the essence of the point is that judges must exercise lawful authority without hesitation but must resist the temptation to power unconstrained by a reasonable resort to judicial process,” he wrote. “In an election campaign under these circumstances, the political power reserved to the people in (part) of the Florida Constitution means that it is not for the courts to intervene in this referendum campaign to decide what the people will be permitted to consider. This case is not justiciable.”

Floridians Protecting Freedom filed a lawsuit Sept. 12 and sought a temporary injunction after the Agency for Health Care Administration began using a website and ads to disseminate information about the proposed amendment. The proposal will appear on the November ballot as Amendment 4 and would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.

With Gov. Ron DeSantis helping lead efforts to defeat the amendment, Floridians Protecting Freedom contends the agency violated state law by using public resources to spread inaccurate information about the proposal.

Issues in the lawsuit included statements on the website such as, “Current Florida Law Protects Women, Amendment 4 Threatens Women’s Safety.”

In seeking the temporary injunction, Floridians Protecting Freedom wanted Sjostrom to declare that the agency’s actions violated the committee’s right to propose constitutional amendments, order the agency to remove advertising or materials that “violate FPF’s (the committee’s) rights and enjoin AHCA (the Agency for Health Care Administration) from disseminating such advertising or other materials in the future.”

“Through this website, AHCA disparages Amendment 4 and Floridians Protecting Freedom as its sponsor, alleging fearmongering and lying,” the motion for a temporary injunction said. It added, “Voters can only be left with the impression that this state agency is advising them to vote no on Amendment 4.”

But in a court document opposing the injunction request, attorneys for the state said the constitution does not give Floridians Protecting Freedom a “right to muzzle AHCA’s public statements about an issue of immense public concern.”

“Nothing in Florida law supports FPF’s attempt to make this court a referee in a fundamentally political dispute over the accuracy of AHCA’s speech about Amendment 4,” the state’s attorneys wrote. “In any event, FPF is wrong when it accuses AHCA of ‘spreading false information about the amendment.’ AHCA has not made false, deceptive or misleading statements about Amendment 4.”

Sjostrom wrote Monday that nothing in his decision “should be considered as expressing the court’s views of the wisdom of the proposed constitutional amendment under consideration for the upcoming election or the relative merits of the arguments mustered for or against the amendment during the current campaign. This order should form no part of any voter’s decision whether to vote for this proposed amendment.”

But he wrote that Floridians Protecting Freedom had not established legal standing to challenge the disputed information.

“Really, this is so because no person or entity has standing to litigate these issues in court during this campaign,” Sjostrom wrote. “The fact finder must be each voter who will choose the information the voter finds convincing and render judgment on each ballot.”

In part, the proposed constitutional amendment says 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.”

Floridians Protecting Freedom began the drive to pass the constitutional amendment after DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Legislature last year approved a law to prevent abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. That law took effect May 1.

The Floridians Protecting Freedom lawsuit came two days after Palm Beach County attorney Adam Richardson filed a case at the Florida Supreme Court about the agency information on Amendment 4. That case remains pending.

Richardson asked the Supreme Court to issue what is known as a writ of quo warranto to Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Jason Weida, DeSantis and Attorney General Ashley Moody “forbidding them from misusing or abusing their offices to interfere with the election for Amendment 4, and to unravel whatever actions they have already taken to do so.”

By Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida

• • •

Tampa Bay Times Election Coverage

2024 primary voter guide: Over 100 local candidates on the issues: Here’s who’s running for office and their stances on abortion, immigration, local schools and more.

Why Florida Democrats should be optimistic — and why they should be pessimistic: For the first time in a while, Democrats seem to have some juice. Is it real?

Here are the 6 amendments Floridians will vote on in November: The proposals relate to abortion, marijuana, hunting and fishing and more.

Florida’s Amendment 1, explained: Partisan school board elections will appear on the ballot this election.

How Florida’s Amendment 2 could affect hunting and fishing: The constitutional right to fish and hunt will appear on the ballot.

Amendment 3: Florida’s recreational marijuana ballot measure, explained.

5 Tampa Bay congressional races are set. Here’s who’s running.

If Florida votes for abortion, marijuana, will legislators abide? The two amendments are opposed by Florida’s Republican leaders.