Attorney General Ashley Moody calls anti-abortion webpage ‘good government’

The Florida Supreme Court building. (Photo by Michael Moline/Florida Phoenix)Attorney General Ashley Moody has asserted to the state’s highest court that the efforts she and other state officials have undertaken against Amendment 4 don’t constitute election interference but rather “good government.”

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody. (Office of Attorney General)

Lawyers for Moody filed a sharply worded rebuttal late Monday to a push to get the Florida Supreme Court to block the Agency for Health Care Administration’s efforts against the abortion-rights amendment, including warnings that the measure threatens the safety of women. 

Palm Beach County lawyer Adam Richardson asked the high court to step in after AHCA put together a website attacking the amendment plus radio and television ads with the same message. The ads are being financed in concert with the association that represents broadcasters in the state.

Moody’s brief asserts that Richardson lacks standing to even ask the state Supreme Court to consider the case — known officially as a “quo warranto” challenge to the authority of Gov. Ron DeSantis, Moody, and AHCA to pursue their anti-Amendment 4 campaign using state resources. Standing means the right to file a lawsuit because a party has suffered or may suffer an injury. Richardson cited his standing as a taxpayer.

‘Offhand theory’

“Petitioner has no connection to the underlying facts other than his personal quest to undermine the state’s abortion laws,’’ Moody’s filing states.

“The court should not permit every taxpayer to bypass the ordinary judicial process and force the Attorney General’s Office, and many other governmental components, to expend considerable public resources on an expedited basis just because the taxpayer has an offhand theory that the government has done something unlawful,” the brief continues.

Richardson claims those actions are against Florida law banning officers and employees of the state from using their “official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with an election.”

Moody’s brief contends the law does not apply to her and DeSantis and that the court should throw out the case because it “threatens to impose dangerous constraints on the free-speech rights of elected officials. “

If passed by 60% of voters, Amendment 4 would undo Florida’s existing ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, which took effect earlier this year, through the point of viability, or around 24 weeks’ gestation.

While opponents of the abortion ban were unable to slow the legislative effort to pass the law, they were able to gather the necessary signatures to get the abortion amendment on the ballot in November.

The DeSantis administration and other Republicans mounting the political campaign against the measure and have turned to using government resources to urge voters to vote no. In addition to the abortion webpage launched earlier this month, they used state resources to pay a Heritage Foundation staff member to join a panel of state economists deliberating the costs of Amendment 4. 

Moody’s filing was the second in as many days in the case. Liberty Counsel and the related Liberty Counsel Action, which focus on religious-rights litigation, filed an amicus brief with the court also arguing the First Amendment protects the webpage.

The legal tussle at the Supreme Court is one of two lawsuits actively challenging AHCA’s actions. Floridians Protecting Freedom, the group sponsoring the initiative, has filed its own lawsuit with the help of attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

A trial court judge in Tallahassee has scheduled an emergency Zoom hearing on Wednesday to consider a temporary injunction against AHCA. The injunction request maintains that AHCA is “grossly misrepresenting” Amendment 4.