Florida Group Challenges New Law Restricting Ballot Initiatives
A political committee seeking to legalize recreational marijuana in Florida has joined a court challenge to a new law that makes it harder for groups to place initiatives on the ballot. Smart & Safe Florida, the committee behind the 2024 marijuana proposal, is trying to place a similar measure on next year’s ballot and has already collected about 219,000 valid signatures.
The new law, signed by Governor Ron DeSantis in May, imposes sweeping changes to the initiative process, making it more difficult for signature gatherers to collect petitions, creating new crimes and increasing penalties for wrongdoing, and shortening the time frame for petitions to be submitted to supervisors of elections.
Smart & Safe Florida argues that the law “changes the law at halftime” for sponsors already working to place initiatives on the 2026 ballot, and that the restrictions impose “unconstitutional barriers” to First Amendment rights protecting political speech and freedom of association.
The committee is specifically targeting several parts of the law, including a cap on the number of completed petitions that unregistered signature-gatherers can possess, a felony penalty for violating the cap, and a shortened deadline for submitting completed petitions to supervisors of elections.
The new law also prohibits sponsors from backing more than one amendment, which Smart & Safe Florida argues is an “outright ban on core political speech” with no relation to ballot integrity.
The committee is asking the court to find that the law is unconstitutional and block state and local officials from enforcing it. If the proposal fails to get before voters next year, the group is eyeing the 2028 ballot.
In addition to the recreational marijuana proposal, Smart & Safe Florida is also sponsoring a second proposal that would allow medical-marijuana patients and their caregivers to grow their own cannabis. The committee submitted the proposal to the Department of State on Thursday.
