Activists start drive to put abortion rights into Florida Constitution

A coalition seeking to put abortion protections before Florida voters will need to raise millions of dollars, gather nearly 900,000 signatures, get state Supreme Court approval and clear hurdles enacted by the Legislature that have made it harder to amend the state’s constitution.

Floridians Protecting Freedom launched a campaign Monday to get an initiative on the 2024 ballot that would bar restrictions on abortion before fetal viability, which is typically defined as about 24 weeks of pregnancy.

That measure would block a six-week abortion ban approved by the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature last month and signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis in a late-night, private ceremony.

But abortion rights groups face a difficult and expensive path to give voters a say, and time is running out, said Aubrey Jewett, a political scientist at the University of Central Florida.

“You’ve got to raise many millions of dollars to get the signatures and then many millions to promote it,” Jewett said. “The clock is ticking, and time is working against them.”

Assuming it gets on the ballot, the measure would need the support of 60% of voters to pass.

Legislative changes have driven up the cost of paying petition gatherers to collect the necessary signatures, said Steve Vancore, a campaign operative who has worked on several statewide and local ballot initiatives in Florida.

“I would estimate it is a minimum $30 million effort, a minimum six months to get there,” he said. “Folks seeking to pass any citizen initiative should have significant financial commitments in the bank before they get started.”

The campaign is backed by the Americans Civil Liberties Union of Florida, Planned Parenthood and Florida Rising, a progressive advocacy group.

Supporters said Monday they have the financial resources and the public support needed to succeed, while not giving an exact figure of commitments.

“This is a multimillion-dollar campaign. … We have an aggressive fundraising effort that is going on right now,” said Kara Gross, legislative director and senior policy counsel for the ACLU of Florida. “It will need everybody. It will need all Floridians to engage in this. This is for our reproductive freedom.”

The first step will be gathering 891,523 signatures from registered voters as required by Florida law to get an item on the ballot. Those signatures must come from across the state and be verified by Feb. 1.

Campaigns rely on paid signature gatherers to meet that requirement, but the Legislature passed legislation that puts more regulations on the process. One of the biggest changes prohibited paying petition gatherers by the signature, which political operatives say led to higher costs.

“I would say mission accomplished. The Legislature wanted to make it more difficult, and it is,” Vancore said. “It takes more money and more time to get to the ballot.”

If the campaign gets the required signatures, the measure would then go to the Florida Supreme Court, which has gotten more conservative because of recent appointments during DeSantis’ tenure. The court is charged with reviewing the ballot language to ensure it deals with a single subject and isn’t misleading.

In recent years, the state Supreme Court has blocked initiatives legalizing recreational marijuana and banning assault weapons from getting on the ballot.

In a separate matter, justices will consider whether to overturn a 1989 case that established the state constitution’s privacy clause protects abortion rights. Striking down that precedent would pave the way for the six-week ban to take effect.

Polling has consistently found a majority of Floridians support abortion rights, Jewett said. One May 2022 poll from Florida Atlantic University showed 67% of Floridians think abortion should be legal in most cases.

The process of getting the measure on the ballot will be “very expensive and time consuming,” but success is possible, said John Morgan, an Orlando attorney who supported ballot initiatives that legalized medical marijuana and raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

“They need 60%, which is doable but will be close,” Morgan said in an email. “It will drive turnout. Many who would normally not vote will vote.”

The abortion initiative also is certain to face opposition from DeSantis and other Republican leaders who strongly support the six-week ban. Having the abortion issue on the 2024 ballot could drive more Democratic-leaning progressives and moderates to the polls who normally sit out elections, which could help boost the party’s candidates, Jewett said.

sswisher@orlandosentinel.com, or @SkylerSwisher on Twitter