Adding Some Starpower, DeSantis Ramps Up Campaign Against Ballot Amendments

The clock is ticking. In his seventh campaign-style event in two weeks, with seven days left until the election, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday implored Floridians to vote against two pro-abortion and pro-marijuana amendments that he believes to be deceptive and dangerous.

While the Governor has blasted the two initiatives since they were slotted onto the ballot in April, his newest form of attacking the ballot initiatives has been campaign-esque events, often labeled as "press conferences" to the media but with no Q&A sessions for reporters.

"When you're reading these amendments, if you don't know what some of the words mean, if you don't know what this would do, if you don't have a very firm sense of that, you should vote no," DeSantis said at a Tuesday morning event at Clearwater Central Catholic High School alongside doctors opposed to the abortion measure, called Amendment 4.

"I don't care where you stand on these issues, this is about something even bigger than normal issues. This is something that is going to be a part of Florida forever, and to go into this without having a firm understanding of what it's going to do...[it's] a ridiculous way to govern," he continued, repeating his original complaint of ambiguity with Amendment 4 and the marijuana initiative, Amendment 3.

Since he began his statewide tour against the amendments last Monday, he's consistently brought out doctors against the abortion amendment and spoken to Catholic or Christian crowds, discussing the alleged "danger" of enshrining abortion access until viability in the state constitution.

Lending some star power to the event, Former NFL coach Tony Dungy came out and spoke against Amendment 4 in Clearwater because "these babies in the womb are lives...my Bible tells me so."

At both his Clearwater event and the Naples affair, held two hours later, he spoke alongside the Department of Children and Families (DCF) Secretary Shevaun Harris and the Agency for the Administration of Health Care (AHCA) Secretary Jason Weida. Both agency heads have directed their state departments to fund advertisements opposing the Amendments.

"I want to thank [DeSantis] and his whole team for allowing his agency heads to have our backs while we speak the truth," said Weida—who faced major backlash for being the first state agency to create an anti-Amendment 4 website and ad—at the Naples event.

According to Seeking Rents, DCF, AHCA, along with the Department of Transportation and the Department of Health have used just over $19 million in taxpayer dollars to keep abortion restricted and recreational marijuana illegal. This includes $4 million from the state's opioid fund being allocated to DCF to create public service announcements against various drugs, including marijuana.

Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried says this is illegal.

"That means [11] times that he has violated Florida statutes," said Fried on a press call Tuesday morning, pointing to DeSantis and First Lady Casey DeSantis' 11 campaign events advocating against Amendments 3 and 4. "That's what I look at. I look at the fact that we are seeing government use and steal our taxpayer dollars to suppress our votes, to suppress our voices."

Fried acknowledged that while neither Amendment may surpass the 60% approval threshold needed to pass, both have the support of a majority of Floridians; one new poll has Amendment 4 at 54% support and Amendment 3, which is backed by some Republicans like former President Donald Trump, at 66%.

"The fact that [DeSantis] has used our taxpayer dollars [and] used dollars that were meant to help with the opioid epidemic and take settlement dollars of people who were killed because of the opioid epidemic..." she trailed off, jumping into a figure that cannabis can help wean opioid addicts off of narcotics. "I certainly hope that the Republicans in the legislature next year find ways to make sure that this does not happen again."

The election is Nov. 5.