Florida Democrats think abortion issue could turn the tide in November

TALLAHASSEE — The landmark Florida Supreme Court decisions to allow a six-week ban on abortion to take effect in a month but also let voters decide whether to guarantee access to abortion have given Democrats a sliver of hope that the state could be winnable this presidential election year.

Democrats see a path forward they haven’t seen in years, bolstered by the strategy of attacking former President Donald Trump on abortion.

They anticipate party members will come out in record numbers to vote to overturn the six-week ban and make abortion legal for up to 24 weeks. And leaders believe they also will come out to vote on an amendment to allow adults to buy and smoke recreational marijuana.

And there’s the added attraction of Trump on the ticket again.

“It’s huge. It’s a perfect trifecta of issues to get people off the couch and to the ballot box,” said Bob Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University in Broward County. He predicted a record turnout in November.

The Supreme Court’s ruling to allow the abortion amendment also signals DeSantis’ waning power since dropping out of the GOP presidential primary, Jarvis said.

“He had a tremendous amount of control over the court with five appointees that share his conservative political views,” Jarvis said. “Is he going to care? Is he going to stay engaged or will he be upset that his Supreme Court didn’t deliver?”

One of the justices, Charles Canady, is married to Rep. Jennifer Canady, R-Lakeland, one of the two main sponsors of the six-week abortion ban. Canady, not a DeSantis appointee, voted to allow the amendment on the ballot and to let the six-week ban take effect.

DeSantis’ five appointees were divided: Justices John D. Couriel and Carlos Muniz voted to place the abortion amendment on the ballot. Justices Renatha Francis, Meredith Sasso and Jamie Grosshans voted against putting the amendment on the ballot.

Voters will get to decide in November under Florida’s merit retention system whether Francis and Sasso should stay on the bench.

Even so, Republicans, who maintain a huge advantage of almost 1 million registered voters, are planning to push back with everything they’ve got and by appealing to voters with more moderate views on abortion.

“It is extreme in its scope. It is the product of, really, abortion-rights activists who have crafted this well beyond where most Floridians will find themselves, including Floridians who would consider themselves pro-choice,” said House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast. “When you dig into this amendment, they would find it to be far, far more extreme than anything else in the country or even around the world.”

Renner and Attorney General Ashley Moody say the amendment could allow on-demand, full-term abortions, an allegation that advocates deny. The amendment doesn’t provide a specific time limit on abortions, but it is assumed to ban them after 24 weeks, after which most doctors agree a fetus can be considered viable.

The ballot language says 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.”

Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, said the speaker and bill sponsors are “just tone deaf.”

Continuing to “highlight their extreme, dangerous positions … will ultimately hurt them because the people of Florida overwhelmingly don’t support these policies,” Eskamani said. “This doesn’t reflect the opinion of most Floridians.”

The Yes on 4 group behind the abortion petition collected more than a million signatures to earn a place on the November ballot. A Pew Research Center poll shows 56% of Floridians think abortion should be legal in most or all cases, a survey that included Democrats, Republicans and independents.

“That same politically diverse coalition will ensure Florida remains a beacon of freedom in the South,” said Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic Party, and the last Democrat to win statewide office in 2018. “Florida voters understand that voting yes on Amendment 4 in November is our last line of defense.”

The amendment must get 60% of the vote to be adopted.

Until Monday’s 6-1 ruling in the case regarding the six-week ban, Floridians had one of the most ironclad protections for abortion due to its privacy clause. But the Supreme Court decision undid decades of case law and legal precedence by saying the privacy clause didn’t apply to abortion, even though the people who pushed for it said that is exactly what it was intended to protect.

Democrats blame Trump’s three appointees to the U.S. Supreme Court for helping to overturn Roe V. Wade two years ago, which took away the national right to abortion and placed access into the hands of each state.

That made it easier for the Florida Supreme Court to rule the state’s privacy clause did not protect a woman’s right to an abortion.

In the past, Trump has proudly owned his part in ending national protections for abortion rights.

But asked Wednesday by a reporter in Michigan whether he supported the six-week ban, Trump replied that he’d be making a statement on abortion next week.

A year ago, Trump called Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to sign the six-week ban into law “a big mistake.”

DeSantis signed the six-week ban into law in the middle of the night without a public ceremony and largely refused to talk about it as he campaigned for president. Asked if he supported a nationwide ban on abortion, he would avoid answering the question.

He also has avoided discussing the Supreme Court’s decisions this week despite several public appearances.

The Biden campaign this week put out a new ad in Florida attacking Trump on his views on abortion, part of its $30 million campaign targeting voters in battleground states.

The ad starts with a clip of Trump saying, “For 54 years they’ve been trying to terminate Roe v. Wade, and I did it. And I’m proud to have done it.”

Biden says in the ad that Trump ran in 2016 to overturn Roe v. Wade,” and now “he’s running to pass a national ban on a woman’s right to choose.”

He ends by saying he wants to make Roe v. Wade the law of the land again so women nationwide have a guaranteed right to choose.

“Donald Trump doesn’t trust women,” Biden says. “I do.”

Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Biden-Harris 2024 campaign manager, said Trump “will do everything in his power to try to enact an abortion ban if reelected.”

She said his agenda is out of step with 80% of Americans who oppose a nationwide ban. Two of three voters said abortion would be an important issue in the 2024 election, she added.

“We’re clear-eyed about how hard it will be to win Florida, but we also know that Trump doesn’t have it in the bag,” Rodriguez said during a news conference with reporters.

She also said that his campaign was disorganized and running out of money.

“It was Donald Trump who enabled Republican extremists to pass draconian bans – like the one that just got upheld in Florida – that are hurting women and threatening doctors,” said North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Biden-Harris 2024 National Advisory Board member. “Make no mistake, reproductive freedom is on the ballot this November.”

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