TALLAHASSEE — Backers of a proposed constitutional amendment to allow recreational marijuana have filed an emergency motion asking a judge to block parts of a new law imposing additional restrictions on the state’s ballot-initiative process, arguing that the pro-pot measure is unlikely to get before voters next year without the court’s intervention.
Smart & Safe Florida, a political committee sponsoring the marijuana proposal, filed the emergency motion for a preliminary injunction on Friday. The request focuses, in part, on a requirement in the law for petition collectors to be Florida residents. Initiative sponsors could face $50,000 fines for each petition collector violating the restriction, which also bans petition gathering by non-U.S. citizens and people who have been convicted of felonies and have not had their voting rights restored.
The prohibition on out-of-state signature gatherers would result in a whopping $23.7 million fine for Smart & Safe Florida if the committee “continued to use its 474 experienced and trained petition circulators merely because those circulators are not Florida residents,” attorneys for the committee wrote in Friday’s motion.
Subscribe to The Florida Jolt Newsletter!
The Florida resident requirement puts Smart & Safe Florida at risk of not collecting enough petitions to make it onto next year’s ballot, lawyers for the committee argued.
Smart & Safe Florida has already submitted more than 377,000 verified petitions to elections officials, surpassing the 220,000 petitions required for Florida Supreme Court review and a financial analysis by state economists, according to the state Division of Elections website. Sponsors must submit roughly 880,000 valid petitions by Feb. 1 for placement on the November 2026 ballot.
Smart & Safe Florida was collecting about 78,000 petitions a week before the law was signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis on May 2.
At that rate, the committee was on pace to collect enough petitions to make it on the ballot by July 1. But Friday’s motion said Smart & Safe Florida thinks it is unclear whether the ban on out-of-state petition circulators took effect May 2 or will start July 1, and that it “stopped using non-resident circulators on May 2 out of a reasonable fear of crippling fines.”
In addition to the out-of-state workers, roughly 600 Florida residents stopped collecting petitions because of another part of the law that shortens from 30 to 10 days the length of time to submit signed petitions to supervisors of elections, according to the motion. It said they “could not comply with the 10-day deadline or reasonably feared being subject to the new fines and criminal penalties” in the law. The drop in workers has decreased the committee’s weekly petition collections by about one-third.
The law (HB 1205) attacks “the constitutional right to pursue a citizen initiative” and “”unduly restricts both sponsors’ and individuals’ abilities to communicate with voters and their respective rights of free association by barring swaths of people from serving as petition circulators,” the motion said.
The Republican-controlled Legislature approved the changes to the initiative process after DeSantis in November helped lead efforts to defeat a similar recreational marijuana proposal, also sponsored by Smart & Safe Florida, and a proposal seeking to place abortion rights in the state Constitution.
Republican supporters of the law argued the additional restrictions and enhanced fines were needed to prevent fraud and protect ballot integrity.
The Florida Decides Healthcare political committee, which is supporting a proposed initiative to expand Medicaid coverage, filed a federal lawsuit on May 4 challenging the law. It was later joined by Smart & Safe Florida and other groups.
Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker on May 22 held a hearing on a request for a preliminary injunction to block the law but had not ruled as of early Monday afternoon. The Smart & Safe Florida emergency motion is in addition to the earlier request for a preliminary injunction.
Also, Florida Decides Healthcare on Friday filed an additional motion for a preliminary injunction. It said that the original injunction request dealt with parts of the law that took effect May 2, while the second request involves changes that will take effect July 1.
The second request asks Walker to block part of the law that places a three-month freeze on petition verification; a restriction limiting people who have not registered with the state from possessing more than 25 completed petitions, in addition to their own and those of certain family members; and criminal sanctions and fines associated with parts of the law.
The three-month freeze on petition verification from July 1 through Sept. 30 “is not a ‘pause’; it will be an effective death knell for FDH (Florida Decides Healthcare),” lawyers for the committee, which had submitted about 90,000 petitions as of Monday, argued in Friday’s motion.
Subscribe to The Florida Jolt Newsletter!
Volunteers won’t waste their time collecting petitions and donors won’t contribute to the effort if they don’t believe the measure will get before voters, the lawyers suggested.
“As explained … the moratorium will not cause FDH mere annoyance or delay. Given the specific way it intersects with FDH’s campaign, it lands a potentially fatal blow to FDH’s campaign,” the motion said.
The Medicaid proposal has relied in large part on volunteers, who previously were able to collect an unlimited number of petitions without registering with the state. Under the new law, people must provide personal information to register and, even if they are not registered, could face investigation and criminal prosecution, lawyers for Florida Decides Healthcare argued.
The restrictions in the new law will only affect three “truly active” measures aimed at the 2026 ballot — the Medicaid proposal, the recreational marijuana measure and an initiative seeking to protect the right to clean water. That amounts to an unconstitutional, “content-based” restriction on speech, the motion said.
“The Legislature knew exactly which campaigns the moratorium would impact,” the motion said. “What’s more, it’s no secret that a majority of the Florida Legislature opposes those petitions.”
The League of Women Voters of Florida and the sponsor of the proposal aimed at protecting clean water also have joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs. Walker last week allowed the Republican Party of Florida to help the state defend the law.
Other stories you may want to read:
- Fight Over Florida Ballot Initiative Law Ratchets Up - June 2, 2025
- Florida Sheriffs Gear Up to Aid Immigration Enforcement - February 24, 2025
- DeSantis Vows to Veto Immigration Bill - January 29, 2025