Group hoping to expand Medicaid sues Florida over new constitutional amendment restrictions

Three days after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill (HB 1205) making it more challenging to place citizen-led constitutional amendments on the ballot, an organization working on just such an effort announced Monday that it’s going to court to block the measure.

Florida Decides Healthcare has been working for more than a year to get its proposed constitutional amendment on expanding Medicaid on the statewide ballot in November 2026. The organizers complain the state has changed the rules in the middle of the process — which is why the organization has so quickly filed its lawsuit.

The plan is to seek a temporary restraining order to stop the law from being enforced.

“This bill is not about improving the ballot initiative process. It attacks the fundamental freedom of Floridians to participate in their own democracy,’ said Mitch Emerson, executive director of Florida Decides Healthcare, in a remote press call on Monday morning. “It’s a calculated and cowardly attempt by politicians in Tallahassee to rewrite the rules, not to serve the people, but to protect their own power. This is not reform, this is repression.”

Republicans led by the governor claim that such legislation is required because of concerns about alleged fraud in the petition-gathering process. For proof, they cited throughout the legislative session a report published by the state’s Office of Election Crimes and Security in January asserting that more than 100 representatives of the group attempting to pass the abortion-rights amendment last year committed crimes related to gathering petitions

“We have seen widespread and rampant fraud in this state and in this process,” said Lee County Republican Jenna Persons-Mulicka, who sponsored the bill in the House. “We have evidence that we cannot take a blind eye to. We must take further action to put integrity back into the initiative process.”

The bill prohibits felons, noncitizens, and non-Florida residents from acting as petition circulators; requires additional personal identifying information for voters signing petition forms and for petition circulators; requires the sponsor to deliver petitions to supervisors of elections in the counties in which the voter resides within 10 days after the voter signs the form; and says that anyone who doesn’t register with the state as a signature-gatherer and possesses more than 25 signed petitions beyond their own and immediate family members faces a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

‘Traps’

“These are not tweaks, they are traps,” Emerson said Monday. “These new rules are designed to make it nearly impossible for everyday people to have a voice in the laws that change their lives.”

The lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of Florida on Sunday night. In it, Emerson claims that the new law will force Florida Decides Healthcare “to impose an extended moratorium on its petition circulation activities, severely impacting or eliminating the ability to circulate petitions and gather sufficient support for the placement of its 2026 initiative on the 2026 general election ballot.”

Floridians in recent years have raised the minimum wage, legalized medical marijuana, and restored the rights of felons to vote by going through the constitutional amendment process.

“Floridians have fought for these things that they have advocated for at the Capitol year after year after year, and then to see the immediate response in the Legislature a year after those amendments have passed making it harder and more difficult to access this constitutional right,” said Matletha Bennette, a senior staff attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center. “The implementation of this law affects all Floridians, whether they have signed the petition or not, because it affects the ability to make the changes that they want when they really want to see it.”

In 2024, there were two high-profile proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot in Florida — one to legalize the adult recreational use of cannabis, the other to enshrine abortion rights into the Florida Constitution. Both received more than 55% support, a clear majority but short of the 60% threshold required for passage.

Gov. Ron DeSantis campaigned intensely against both measures and ended up spending taxpayer dollars in that effort. That action could not repeated, however, under a provision of the new law that prohibits anyone in state government from authorizing expenditure of public funds for a political advertisement or any other communication for a citizen-led constitutional amendment campaign.

‘Dark money’

Amendments 3 and 4 were also opposed by the Republican Party of Florida. In a statement on Monday, RPOF Chair Evan Power blasted the announcement that a lawsuit against the new law had been filed.

“It’s no surprise that well-funded, left-wing dark money groups —many backed by anonymous donors and based outside of Florida — are resorting to lawsuits in a desperate attempt to overturn HB 1205,” Power said “These shady organizations masquerade as grassroots activists but are part of a coordinated national effort to mislead voters, bypass the legislative process, and manipulate our state constitution for political gain.

Twenty separate organizations are promoting proposed constitutional amendments for next year, according to the Division of Elections.  They must submit 880,062 valid signatures by Feb. 1, 2026, to qualify.

Florida Decides Healthcare claims to have collected more than 100,000 signatures so far.

Smart & Safe Florida, the group that attempted to get the constitutional amendment legalizing recreational use of cannabis in 2024 and is actively working to get another measure on the ballot in 2026, declined to respond to a request for comment.

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