Constitutional amendments on weed and abortion could make for his toughest state-level fight yet.
Constitutional amendments on weed and abortion could make for his toughest state-level fight yet.
R on DeSantis has reshaped the political landscape in Florida since his nail-biter win over Andrew Gillum in the 2018 governor’s race.
In just five and a half years, he has gotten maps through that have ensured GOP supermajorities in both branches of the state legislature and the congressional delegation — the latter arguably responsible for Republican control of the House of Representatives.
And on a host of issues, DeSantis and lawmakers have delivered on conservative wish-list items, including an expansion of school choice and passage of legislation that blocks Chinese nationals from buying homes in much of the state.
The governor has won, over and over again, and that was foundational to his rapid rise nationally, which included a best-selling book and a presidential campaign that underperformed against Donald Trump but that set the stage for 2028 — as he has suggested to supporters.
And during his final two and a half years as governor, DeSantis is well positioned for future legislative sessions.
However, November’s ballot presents two significant tests to his legacy and political capital that bear watching, not just to understand Florida but perhaps to preview DeSantis’s own political future.
The constitutional amendments would roll back much of what DeSantis has fought for, building on the work done by 24 years of Republican governance before him. One amendment would unravel restrictions on abortion imposed after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision; the other would legalize cannabis usage by adults.
If these pass with the requisite 60.01 percent of the vote, they would do what feckless, underperforming Florida Democrats have failed to do for many years: They would send a “buyer’s remorse” message to Republicans who thought that DeSantis’s landslide win over Charlie Crist in 2022 had a shelf life of more than two years.
Floridians Protecting Freedom is the political-action committee behind the abortion amendment that would nullify any law that would “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.” The group has raised nearly $38 million and still had more than $15 million on hand at last check.
Smart & Safe Florida, heavily backed by the multistate operators of Florida’s medical-marijuana sector, is the best-funded cannabis-legalization-amendment push in American history. It has raised more than $60 million and has more than $13 million on hand in support of the Adult Personal Use of Marijuana initiative.
DeSantis has set up a political committee opposed to these initiatives, but fundraising has floundered.
The Florida Freedom Fund has brought in only $121,400 in the six weeks of fundraising activity ending June 28, 2024. That number seems impossibly low for a candidate who was a fundraising juggernaut during his 2022 gubernatorial campaign, raising so much money that he could transfer more than $81 million from his state political committee to his federal super PAC.
DeSantis has attempted to counter the disappointing fundraising with media appearances, which he has ample opportunity to create in his regular press conferences, suggesting that big donors and reliable GOP supporters will arrive to take up his cause sometime before November despite a lack of evidence to that end so far.
“We are working with a lot of stakeholders who are interested in making sure that we defeat Amendment 3, which would basically [be] ‘Do marijuana, wherever you want, just smoke it, take it.’ And it would turn Florida into San Francisco, or Chicago, or some of these places,” DeSantis said at a press event in June, where he warned that the amendment would make Florida streets “smell like marijuana.”
He has also suggested, despite the amendment leaving room for legislators to craft laws to govern public consumption, that the measure would lead to people bringing joints to restaurants and schools.
DeSantis has offered similar takes on the abortion measure, which would nullify the Heartbeat Protection Act — a law he signed last spring that has only recently taken effect after court challenges. The law makes abortion illegal after six weeks of gestation, with limited exceptions for rape, incest, and the health of the mother.
“This amendment is written maybe more liberal than New York and California, but you would basically have a cottage industry where people would be coming into Florida for this purpose,” the governor told faith leaders last month, regarding the abortion amendment.
Compounding DeSantis’s problem here: Polling suggests that both legalized cannabis for adults and guaranteed access to abortion up to the point of fetal viability are more popular than he is.
The Fox News survey from June shows DeSantis above water, with 52 percent approval against 47 percent disapproval, yet far behind the amendments he is fighting.
The abortion amendment is at 69 percent support. And it’s even above water with Republicans, with 50 percent saying they support it and 45 percent saying no.
The cannabis question is similarly positioned, with 66 percent approval against 32 percent disapproval, and majority GOP support as well, with 57 percent approval and 41 percent disapproval. (It’s over 70 percent with independents and Democrats, meanwhile.)
DeSantis argued this spring that the amendments will “have a tough time getting to 60 percent if people kind of have a sense of what’s going on.”
But as we get deeper into the summer and closer to November, it’s clear that, for the governor to educate voters, his “stakeholders” are going to have to pony up, making up for lost time exploited by proponents of both initiatives.
While counting out Ron DeSantis politically is a fool’s errand, this appears to be his toughest fight yet, beyond the one with Team Trump that wrapped six months back.