DeSantis' Special Session to Rework Citizen Petition Process After Abortion, Marijuana Battles

Gov. Ron DeSantis' newly announced special session will consider altering Florida's citizen petition process, prompted by the state's slew of battles against now-failed amendments legalizing marijuana and most abortions.

DeSantis claimed that many of the petitions to get those amendments on the 2024 ballot were not just fraudulent, as the Department of State alleged, but the product of "special interests" using "clever language" to deceive voters—though both initiatives were voted for by more than half of Floridians.

This means Florida needs to further regulate how petitions are collected and reviewed, DeSantis insisted at a Monday press conference. He hopes the special session set for Jan. 27 will do just that.

"To have the amount of fraudulent petitions that were verified as fraudulent by the Secretary of State's investigation for Amendment 4—that is a huge, huge problem," the governor said, referencing the Department of State's lengthy report that reviewed around 37,000 verified pro-abortion petitions for alleged fraud.

DeSantis is asking the Legislature to draft bills requiring petitions for constitutional amendments to meet the same, if not similar, requirements for absentee ballots. If they're mailed in, he wants an ID and verified signature to be sent with the petition. And if a petition-gatherer is going up to people on the street?

"Maybe someone [can] notarize it so we know [it's valid]," he suggested at the Tallahassee press conference, before asking that the Legislature also look at the Supreme Court's role in approving ballot summaries—referring to the State of Florida's failed objections that Amendment 3, the recreational marijuana item, and Amendment 4 be barred from the ballot due to "vague" language.

DeSantis had also argued that the allegedly false petitions—mostly from Amendment 4—should have prevented the item from going to voters in the first place. Controversially, his administration diverted millions of state and taxpayer dollars into campaigns to shoot down both initiatives—arguing everything from deception to fraud in hopes of squashing both.

And it worked. Though both initiatives failed to meet the 60% voter approval threshold needed to amend the constitution, both scored well over half of the Floridian vote. Amendment 3 failed with 55% support and Amendment 4 with 57% support.

At Tallahassee's press conference, he blasted the backers of Amendment 4 and Amendment 3 for transforming citizen initiatives into "well-funded interests" initiatives that "pay people to gather petitions."

He referred to Trulieve, the state's largest medical marijuana company, pumping millions into Amendment 3 and the hefty $164,000 settlement to be paid to the state by the group behind Amendment 4, Floridians Protecting Freedom, amid allegations that petition circulators submitted false petitions.

"Our Constitution should not be for sale to the highest bidder, so reform is needed," DeSantis said.