Michael Moline, Florida Phoenix

Gov. Ron DeSantis has declared a state of emergency ahead of the winter storm forecast to bring snow and ice storms to North Florida this week “to protect the communities, critical infrastructure, and general welfare of Florida.”

The order empowers the Division of Emergency Management to coordinate the state and local response to the weather, expected to include up to four inches of snow in the Panhandle and one-quarter inch of ice from the eastern Panhandle through the Suwanee River Valley, auguring tree damage, downed power lines, and frozen-over roads and bridges.

Conditions could present a “major disaster” as far south as Central Florida, DeSantis said in his order.

The order provides for the suspension of tolls as necessary on the state’s highways, eases access to utility line crews from Florida and out of state, allows the dispensing of up to 30 days’ emergency pharmaceutical prescriptions, establishes emergency shelters, and more.

The order activates the Florida National Guard and Florida State Guard to respond to the emergency and allows state agencies to close offices where necessary.

Earlier Monday, legislative leaders postponed House and Senate committee hearings scheduled for this week until next week.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.

Twenty-four Republican state attorneys general have interceded in the classified-documents prosecution of Donald Trump, opposing special counsel Jack Smith’s request that the trial judge bar Trump from making hostile statements against federal law enforcement.

In a 27-page amicus brief filed by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, the states complain that Smith’s motion to amend the former president’s bail conditions amounts to interference in the presidential election.

“The free-speech right is at its strongest when it protects political speech,” the brief says.

“Yet special prosecutor Jack Smith, on behalf of the United States, asks this court to curtail that right by ordering a prior restraint on President Trump’s constitutionally protected speech. Such an order is presumptively unconstitutional,” the document continues.

Republican AGs in Iowa, West Virginia, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming have joined Moody’s brief.

“If granted, this request would prevent the presumptive Republican nominee for president of the United States from speaking out against the prosecution and the criminal trial process that seek to take away his liberty,” the brief reads.

“That prosecution, of course, is led by a department that President Trump’s political opponent controls,” it adds, referring to Joe Biden and the U.S. Department of Justice.

“Once again, we are witnessing a prosecutor seek to keep the presumptive Republican nominee for president from speaking in the midst of an election. The First Amendment, at its core, is designed to protect political speech, and I along with my colleagues will not stand idly by and watch the Biden administration trample the free speech of a Florida citizen,” Moody said in a written statement.

Trump stands accused of willfully retaining national defense information, conspiring to obstruct justice, and destroying evidence in the case before U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in Fort Pierce, a Trump appointee.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court is considering Trump’s claim for presidential immunity from federal criminal charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 presidential election. A trial on racketeering and conspiracy charges arising from his alleged attempt to interfere with the election is on hold in Georgia state court.

On May 30, Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to a porn star to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

‘Significant, imminent, and foreseeable danger’

On May 24, Smith filed a motion to alter Trump’s conditions of release “to make clear that he may not make statements that pose a significant, imminent, and foreseeable danger to law enforcement agents participating in the investigation and prosecution of this case.

Trump and his supporters made “several intentionally false and inflammatory statements,” Smith argued, “that distort the circumstances under which the Federal Bureau of Investigation planned and executed the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago,” during which federal agents seized the classified documents at issue.

Trump and others cited a wording in the search warrant reiterating the FBI’s “standard and unobjectionable language setting out the Department of Justice’s use-of-force policy, which prohibits the use of deadly force except ‘when the officer has a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or to another person,’” Smith’s motion says.

It notes that agents coordinated with Trump’s Secret Service detail and entered when Trump was away from his home.

“Trump, however, has distorted the standard inclusion of the policy limiting the use of deadly force by mischaracterizing it as a claim that the FBI ‘WAS AUTHORIZED TO SHOOT ME,’ was ‘just itching to do the unthinkable,’ and was ‘locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger,’” the document continues.

“Those statements create a grossly misleading impression about the intentions and conduct of federal law enforcement agents — falsely suggesting that they were complicit in a plot to assassinate him — and expose those agents, some of whom will be witnesses at trial, to the risk of threats, violence, and harassment.

“The court has an independent obligation to protect the integrity of this judicial proceeding and should take steps immediately to halt this dangerous campaign to smear law enforcement.”

Campaign ‘in full swing’

Attorneys for Trump, in a brief filed Friday, cited Smith’s “most recent shocking display of overreach and disregard for the Constitution.”

It accuses Smith of seeking “to restrict President Trump’s campaign speech as the first presidential debate approaches at the end of this month. Smith’s motion goes one step further in his efforts to interfere in the 2024 presidential election and assist President Biden, by seeking improper restrictions on President Trump’s core protected speech that would continue through the Republican National Convention in July, and thereafter, until this case is dismissed for one or more of the myriad reasons we have identified.”

Moody’s brief argues that restricting Trump’s speech would require showing of a “clear and present danger to the administration of justice.” She’s a Republican who has been an ardent supporter of the former president, filing numerous legal proceedings supporting him and attacking President Biden.

“The special prosecutor cannot make that showing because he has not demonstrated that President Trump’s comments have threatened law enforcement or that his comments have resulted in threats to law enforcement,” her latest brief says.

“[T]he presidential campaign is in full swing. As Americans turn their attention to the upcoming presidential election, courts should take special care to ensure voters can judge the candidates on their own merits. A prior restraint that might limit a candidate’s ability to campaign must meet exacting standards. The proposed order here would not meet those standards,” the brief adds.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and X.

Florida bade farewell Friday to Bob Graham during a public memorial at Florida’s Old Capitol, with hundreds of people filing up to the second-floor rotunda where Graham lay in state and sharing memories with his family and friends.

Among the mourners was Graham’s wife, Adele, his daughters, Gwen (a former congresswoman), Cissy, Suzanne, and Kendall, and their families. A military honor guard conveyed the casket to its bier and stood watch throughout the event.

Adele Graham took a few moments before the flower-festooned coffin and then greeted mourners from an armchair nearby.

Graham died on April 16 at age 87.

Gov. Ron DeSantis had ordered U.S. and Florida flags flown at half-staff through the date of Graham’s interment, scheduled to follow the Capitol memorial. DeSantis hadn’t commented on Friday, but Attorney General Ashley Moody offered praise on X.

“An authentic Florida leader, Gov. Bob Graham, receives one of our state’s highest honors today, lying in state at the Old Capitol so Floridians can pay their respects. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and those who mourn him,” Moody wrote.

Many of the gentlemen and several ladies in attendance wore the ties bearing outlines of the state of Florida, a Graham trademark in the day. We spotted at least one of Graham’s campaign pins, shaped like a Graham cracker.

The mourners included gray eminences of Florida politics, people of both parties who’d served with Graham during his career in the Legislature, two terms as governor, and three terms as U.S. senator. In remarks shared with reporters, they also mourned a kinder era in state politics, when members of both parties competed but also cooperated to advance the state.

Among them was Bob Martinez, the Republican former Tampa mayor who succeeded Graham in the Governor’s Mansion. Martinez said he first met Graham when he was a teachers’ lobbyist and Graham was in the Legislature. Education was a key priority for Graham at the time.

“He was so easy to work with. Whether he agreed with you or not, you never left without a pleasant feeling about the meeting,” Martinez said.

‘It was a different time’

Martinez and his wife, Mary Jane, had lunch with the Grahams in Tampa before the pandemic. It was their last meeting, Martinez said.

“He was the first one to put the climate on the front burner. He did a lot of great things but, in my mind, bringing the environment to the forefront was the greatest thing he ever did for the state of Florida,” Martinez said.

“It was a different time. It wasn’t as contentious as it is today. We had a great transition. Whatever we needed was provided, whether it was office space or access to information,” Martinez said.

“You can’t go back – that’s gone. But I’m glad I was in public life yesterday, not today,” he said.

Former Senate President Jim Scott, also a Republican, recalled that he and Graham sat next to each other when the chamber was in the Old Capitol. They remained friends, he said.

“We were taught, and Graham was of that mold, you’re elected as a Democrat, you’re elected as a Republican, but then you’re a senator, or then you’re a governor, and you govern based on the whole state and try to deal with policy,” Scott said.

In fact, Scott added, he supported Graham during his 1978 race for governor. Then-state Attorney General Bob Shevin led in the first primary but Graham prevailed in the runoff and went on to beat drug store magnate Jack Eckert handily in the general election.

“I think he did an admirable job, and a great job in the U.S. Senate, too,” Scott said.

Hairstyle

It had been widely known that Graham planned to run for governor. The future candidate wore his hair slicked back in those days, Scott said. Dempsey Barron, the former Senate president from Panama City who remained powerful, made fun of Graham’s hairstyle.

“Dempsey Barron said, ‘You’ll never get elected governor with that hair.’ The second time he said it, he [Graham] leaned over to me and said, ‘What do you think about what he said?’ I said, ‘I think he’s right.’ I swear, he changed his hair,” Scott said.

While Graham was governor, Scott recalled, a trucking strike in Fort Lauderdale threatened gasoline supplies. “He announced he was going to call out the National Guard to deliver gas. Well, that was the end of the strike. He was willing to take a stand,” Scott said.

“In all those years of public service, I never saw him lose his temper, be rude or impatient,” Scott said.

Also spotted were Florida Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz, former Lt. Gov. Bobby Brantley, Tallahassee Mayor John Daley, former Tallahassee Mayor and Florida Public Service Commissioner John Marks, former Chiles aide Doug Cook, former Secretary of State Bruce Smathers (who served when that office was elective), state Sen. Linda Stewart of Orange County, and Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried.

‘Joyful’

People attending the memorial were “joyful because they have this remembrance of a great leader that really cared about the average Floridian, their problems, their concerns,” said Bud Chiles, son of the late Gov. and U.S. Sen. Lawton Chiles.

Graham “dedicated his life to meeting those needs. Put that above power, fame, money, and made the sacrifices that you needed to make,” Chiles added.

He recalled a “golden age” for Florida governors stretching from Leroy Collins during the 1950s through Reubin Askew and Graham during the ’70s and ’80s, and then Lawton Chiles during the ’90s, who fought the conservative rural interests who ran the state and brought Florida into the modern world on race relations, the environment, education, and more.

It was Lawton Chiles who ousted Martinez in the 1990 election after a single term and defeated Jeb Bush in a close 1994 election (Bush won the next time around). Lawton Chiles died suddenly of a heart attack in the Governor’s Mansion in 1998.

“Today, who is rising to the occasion, to really become a leader in governance and elective politics that will answer that call and be there for their needs, whether it’s the cost of housing in Florida, insurance issues, all the things that are really not being addressed?” Chiles said.

He also praised Adele Graham. “I think Bob Graham was elevated tremendously by Adele, and by how she was the strength at his side and how she was so open to treating everyone kindly. She was a wonderful First Lady.”

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Diane Rado for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation Friday designed to make it harder for undocumented immigrants to live in the state — thereby, he said, possibly deterring them from coming here.

The measures include driving without a license, “non-official ID cards,” and bumping up certain criminal penalties, all to highlight immigration restrictions just days before the state’s Republican presidential preference primary. (There’s no Democratic primary on Tuesday.)

DeSantis staged the press conference before a friendly crowd at the Polk County Sheriff’s Office in Central Florida. Keep in mind that DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson, Vivek Ramaswamy and Ryan L. Binkley are still on the Florida ballot though they’ve dropped out of the race. But Donald Trump is the only major Republican who hasn’t suspended his campaign.

Backing DeSantis Friday were Sheriff Grady Judd, Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez, and Attorney General Ashley Moody. The event had all the hallmarks of a political rally, including attacks on President Joe Biden for allegedly intentionally refusing to police the U.S. Mexico border. None mentioned the bipartisan border control bill that Congressional Republicans have refused to vote on because Trump told them not to, to preserve immigration as a campaign issue this fall.

Also there were state Rep. Kiyan Michael, a Duval County Republican who lost her son Brandon, to a 2007 auto accident blamed on an undocumented immigrant who’d already been deported twice and who was driving without a license; and Nikki Jones, who lost her husband under similar circumstances in 2019. Like the other participants, Jones stressed that immigrants threaten public safety through what she called “illegal alien crime.”

The bills DeSantis signed underscored that theory. HB 1589, for example, doesn’t mention migrants specifically but imposes a mandatory 10-day jail sentence for a third or subsequent conviction for driving without a license or with a license that has been suspended, cancelled, or revoked.

“One of the biggest deterrents we can do for illegal immigration is to make sure people that are doing that are facing serious consequences,” DeSantis said.

“You come here, you’re not getting a license. We’re not recognizing your California license that you may have gotten in a sanctuary state,” he said.

He also signed SB 1036, bumping criminal penalties for people who commit felonies after having been deported and returning to the United States or who are found to be members of “transnational crime organization,” defined as “an organization that routinely facilitates the international trafficking of drugs, humans, or weapons or the international smuggling of humans.”

For example, aggravated assault is now a felony of the third degree, punishable by up to five years in prison and fines of up to $5,000; after the new law takes effect on Oct. 1 the crime would bring up to 15 years in prison and $10,000 in fines. The most serious crimes, first-degree felonies, now worth up to 30 years in prison and $10,000 in fines, would bring 30 years to life behind bars.

“We are throwing the book at you, and you are going to regret coming to the state of Florida,” DeSantis said.

Identification

One of the bills, HB 1451, prohibits the state and local governments from recognizing non-official ID cards sometimes issued by community groups to provide people lacking official ID with at least one way to establish their identities.

Last year’s heavily restrictive immigration legislation had already stopped local governments from financing these documents but Legal Aid nonprofits in counties including Broward and Palm Beach issue them for a fee of $20-25 to people with other picture IDs such as passports and proof of residence in the county.

Unhoused people also use these community IDs and would be affected by the new law, which Michael sponsored.

Vanessa Coe, managing attorney for the community ID program at the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County, said she plans to continue issuing the cards notwithstanding the new law.

“People who get community ID cards are largely using them for other reasons, things that are a little more accessible, like being able to enter a gated community or pick up a prescription,” Coe said in a phone interview. “So, this decision [to sign the new law], while it is unfortunate, is not the end of our programs throughout Florida.”

She continued: “I think it’s a big waste of our government’s time to be focusing on something so small, but that is where they’re at, apparently.”

Coe emphasized the human stakes.

“A lot of folks cannot conceptualize just how desperately someone might need that level of identification to just exist, and I’m happy for people who aren’t in that situation, who can access everything with whatever ID card they have,” she said. “But for those who cannot, they’re struggling, and this is a very basic tool that they can use to just exist a little bit easier.

“So, I think it is just mean for anybody to sit there and think that this is somehow taking advantage of our system, or our government, or our country.”

Surveillance

Finally, DeSantis praised the Legislature for passing a resolution urging Congress to designate drug cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations.”

Last year’s immigration bill — a sweeping blow at the ability of undocumented immigrants to live and work in Florida, passed when DeSantis was still planning his presidential run — increased penalties for businesses employing them; required harvesting of DNA samples from immigrants who get arrested and forwarding of their information to immigration enforcement; established a “Domestic Security Oversight Council” to pursue immigration crime and terrorism; and pumped another $12 million into DeSantis program rounding up migrants out of state for transport to “sanctuary” states before they could move to Florida, and more.

DeSantis started those flights in 2022, while still running for reelection as governor.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Diane Rado for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.

Amid the weekend’s commemorations of Roe v. Wade and lamentations over Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, some observers acknowledged the elephant in the room: two pending Florida Supreme Court rulings governing abortion rights.

The state’s high court heard oral arguments on Sept. 8, 2023 in a challenge by Planned Parenthood affiliates and other providers to Florida’s 15-week abortion ban but, more than four months later and now in 2024, has yet to issue its ruling.

If the court does uphold the 2022 law, which anticipated the Dobbs ruling that same summer, a second law banning abortions after six weeks’ gestation would take effect 30 days later. That’s before most people realize they are pregnant.

Dobbs is the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned 1973’s Roe decision establishing a constitutional right to abortion.

The second pending case concerns a proposed Florida constitutional amendment overturning both bans. A group called Floridians Protecting Freedom gathered enough petition signatures to place the initiative before voters in November, presuming the Florida Supreme Court approves its ballot language. But that might not be the case.

The court will hear oral arguments in that matter on Feb. 7.

During a news briefing Monday in the Florida Capitol, state Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book reminded people that the Planned Parenthood ruling could come down “at any time.”

The court typically releases opinions on Thursday mornings but isn’t bound to that schedule. No court rule establishes a deadline for deciding the case, court spokesman Paul Flemming said.

“I’m hopeful that we have a little bit more of a reprieve from that,” Book said of the impending ruling. But still, “It could happen at a point and at any time.”

Pessimism

Whistling past the graveyard? There’s ample ground for pessimism for abortion-rights advocates. Since first assuming office in 2019, the anti-abortion Gov. Ron DeSantis has shifted the state Supreme Court firmly to the right, appointing five of the seven sitting justices.

Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz (DeSantis appointee) was openly skeptical of the abortion-rights case during oral arguments, which tested the court’s 1989 holding that Florida’s 1980 privacy constitutional amendment covered matters of personal autonomy including access to abortion. He even referred to fetuses as “human beings.”

(This even though Muñiz acknowledged in a law review article in 2004 that “one purpose of the privacy amendment clearly was to give the abortion right a textual foundation in our state constitution.”)

Other Democratic women expressed hope the justices would rule favorably on access to abortion, including regarding the constitutional amendment.

Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody and other abortion-rights foes have urged the court to reject the ballot language, but the court isn’t supposed to rule on the underlying political issue, merely whether the language could confuse voters.

That text reads: “No law shall 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. This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.”

“I do feel confident. And we also saw it in the recreational marijuana case [also pending] that the justices heard. They seemed to be very fair, impartial, and nonbiased, and that’s what we’re hoping will happen with the abortion amendment,” said State Sen. Lori Berman, representing part of Palm Beach County who practices real estate, probate, and trust law.

‘They know what the law is’

Geraldine Thompson of Orange County, a nonlawyer but whose lawsuit against the DeSantis administration blocked the governor’s first attempt to place Renata Francis on the Florida Supreme Court, noted that the justices might not feel the need to abide by DeSantis’ anti-abortion policies.

The justices sit for fixed terms, subject to merit-retention elections, but no justice has ever failed of reelection, Thomspon observed. “For all intents and purposes,” she said, they serve “a lifetime appointment.”

“Even though the governor appointed them, they know what the law is, and I believe they’re going to apply it,” Thompson said.

Bob Jarvis, professor of constitutional law at Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of Law, cautioned against drawing any conclusions from the court’s languid schedule.

“Like all courts, the Florida Supreme Court moves at its own pace, and there is no rhyme or reason that outsiders can detect,” Jarvis told the Phoenix by email.

Meanwhile, Anna Eskamani, a House Democrat from Orange County, has been reminding her social media followers to keep an eye on the Florida Supreme Court’s opinion releases.

“I don’t have any intel beyond my own opinion that the court was waiting for the Iowa Caucus to take place,” Eskamani said by email.

Her comment reflects the widely held feeling that DeSantis pressed the hard line on abortion to appeal to conservative voters in early caucus and primary states.

He still lost to Donald Trump in Iowa by nearly 30 percentage points and suspended his presidential campaign.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Diane Rado for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.

Attorneys for the DeSantis administration and the Florida Legislature are urging the Florida Supreme Court to dismiss an appeal testing whether the destruction of a North Florida congressional district that elected a Black Democrat violates the state and U.S. constitutions.

Should the justices decline to hear the case, a lower appellate court’s rejection of arguments in favor of the district filed by voting-rights organizations would stand. That would mean that Blacks living in Florida’s old plantation belt would be denied representation by one of their own.

Briefs filed in late December on behalf of Cord Byrd, the DeSantis-appointed Florida Secretary of State who administers elections, and the Florida House and Senate noted that the Legislature is due to convene for its regular session next Tuesday and wouldn’t have time to redraw North Florida’s congressional districts if the Florida Supreme Court proceedings drag out.

“Further review in this court would revive uncertainty over the Enacted Plan’s validity and prolong this controversy beyond the parties’ contemplated deadline as we approach the 2024 elections,” the Byrd brief reads.

Both briefs note that the parties to the case — including Black Voters Matter Capacity Building Institute, League of Women Voters of Florida, Equal Ground Education Fund, Florida Rising Together, and individual voters — agreed to seek expedited Supreme Court review of a trial judge’s decision striking down the North Florida map, hoping to resolve the dispute by the end of the year and in advance of the legislative session.

In spring 2022, the state House and Senate approved a redistricting plan that would have preserved a Black-opportunity district in North Florida, meaning one where Blacks had a chance to elect their candidate of choice. Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed it and insisted the Legislature adopt his own map, which abolished the district, and the lawmakers complied.

Expedited appeal

Rather than pass the case up to the Supreme Court, the First District Court of Appeal, an intermediate appellate court that sits in Tallahassee, insisted on hearing the case before a rare full-court panel and upheld the execution of what’s been referred to in court documents as the “Benchmark District,” the rough equivalent of the district formerly represented by Al Lawson. Now, white Republicans represent the entirety of North Florida.

“Respondents [Byrd and the Legislature] honored that commitment by agreeing to expedition before the First District, and in expediting jurisdictional briefing in this court. Respondents nowhere consented to additional appellate proceedings in this court following a First District decision. There has now been an appellate resolution about the legality of the state’s maps — before December 31 — as the stipulation contemplated,” the Legislature’s lawyers argue in their brief.

The voting-rights groups argue that the existing map violates both the federal Voting Rights Act and Florida’s Fair Districts state constitutional amendment by diminishing Black voters’ power to elect the candidate of their choice. The state Supreme Court itself drew the Benchmark District in 2015, following extended litigation following the 2010 congressional reapportionment.

DeSantis insisted the district amounted to a “racial gerrymander” forbidden by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection clause.

The First District Court upheld the DeSantis map on Dec. 1, ruling that the non-diminishment language didn’t apply because the 2015 Supreme Court decision was based not on racial considerations, but a political one, namely that the court had rejected an original legislative map that unlawfully benefited Republicans.

The First District majority held that the Benchmark District didn’t benefit the required “naturally occurring,” “geographically compact” Black “community.” Instead, it said, the district’s Black population was “far-flung” and “artificially brought together.” The district stretched around 200 miles to capture Black voters between Duval and Gadsden and Leon counties.

Jurisdiction

The voting-rights groups, in their own brief on Dec. 14, argued “the First DCA expressly contravened and cast aside this court’s decisions interpreting the Fair Districts Amendments and established a new test that cannot be reconciled with multiple decisions of this court. The court should assert jurisdiction to correct the First DCA’s brazen attempt to ignore this court’s precedent.”

The Supreme Court is not obliged to hear the appeal, although the Legislature’s brief notes that the justices could do because the case involves a constitutional challenge. However, both sets of state lawyers argued the justices back then didn’t decide the specific issue before it now because nobody had raised it: Whether the district was a racial gerrymander.

Moreover, there’s no need for the court to provide guidance for the future, both state parties argue, because this situation is unlikely to recur.

“No other Florida court has addressed the unique scenario presented to the First District: whether a court-imposed map connecting far-flung communities of minority voters from different regions of the state into a single congressional district in which those voters comprise less than a majority of voters can constitute a valid benchmark district under Florida’s non-diminishment provision,” the Legislature’s brief reads.

“No other litigation is currently pending on this question. And the Enacted Plan contains no other districts that remotely resemble [the district] making it unlikely the Legislature will need to address this question during the state’s next redistricting cycle,” it adds.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Diane Rado for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.

Gov. Ron DeSantis was blunt following a GOP presidential primary debate on Nov. 8: Abortion-rights referenda are becoming a problem for leaders like himself who want to come as close as possible to outlawing the procedure.

“Pro-lifers in particular have a big problem on these referenda,” DeSantis said during an interview with NBC News, referring in particular to Ohio voters’ decision that very week to enact a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights, even though, as he noted, many of the voters support Republican candidates.

“But if the [abortion] issue is presented the way it is, they’re willing to vote for what from a pro-life perspective was a very extreme, very expansive pro-abortion amendment,” said DeSantis.

“So, I think the pro-life movement has got to start keying in on these referenda. You gotta be strategic about how you’re doing it; you need to know the landscape that you’re dealing with. There may be some states where you shoot in a certain direction; there may be others, you shoot in a different one. But they have been getting their clock cleaned on the referenda.”

In other words, either change the terms of the debate by injecting it with misinformation or look for ways to override the referendum process.

That’s being attempted in Florida, where Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody has asked the Florida Supreme Court to block a popular vote on a proposed constitutional amendment to enshrine protection of abortion rights in the Florida Constitution.

It’s happening in Arkansas, where state Attorney General Tim Griffin simply rejected a pro-abortion rights referendum on the ground that its ballot language was ambiguous.

Ohio

Then there’s Ohio, where, after voters OK’d the abortion-rights referendum called Issue 1 by a 13-point margin last month, anti-abortion Republicans immediately began looking for legislative avenues to undermine the initiative, as the Phoenix-affiliated Ohio Capital Journal has reported. That’s the state a 10-year-old rape victim had to flee to secure an abortion.

We don’t know yet how those efforts will work out, but at least the Missouri Supreme Court has blocked an attempt by Republican Secretary of State John Ashcroft to rewrite ballot language for a proposed abortion-rights initiative to make it less attractive — including that the measure would “nullify longstanding Missouri law protecting the right to life, including but not limited to partial-birth abortion.”

The court in November let stand a lower court’s finding that Ashcroft’s language was “replete with politically partisan language.”

“This is something that’s obviously affects folks in Florida, but it’s also a larger national trend that we’re seeing — which is really far right policymakers and others trying to go out of their way to either keep things off the ballots, keep voters from being able to exercise their voice on important issues, or to engage in misinformation to sort of confuse things,” Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, an advocacy group, told the Phoenix in a telephone interview.

In Florida, an organization called Floridians Protecting Freedom is circulating petitions to add explicit protections for abortion access to the Florida Constitution. The drive was a response to enactment of a 15-week abortion ban in 2022, in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal that summer of Roe v. Wade, and then, earlier this year, of a six-week ban.

Court challenge

The Florida Supreme Court could rule at any time whether the 15-week ban is constitutional, but that would require the justices to reverse a 1989 precedent to the contrary. If it does, the six-week ban takes effect 30 days later. That case tests whether the constitution’s privacy clause was intended to cover abortion access. The title of the new initiative leaves no doubt to its intention: It’s called the “Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion.”

Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz participated in oral arguments over abortion rights in Florida on Sept. 8, 2023. Source: Screenshot/Florida Channel

The court also must decide whether the amendment can go on the 2024 general election ballot. The justices aren’t supposed to consider the merits of the policy it would enact — merely whether the ballot summary would confuse voters about what the initiative would do. That said, members of the court’s majority, including five DeSantis appointees, are longstanding opponents of abortion rights.

The Florida ballot language at issue reads: “No law shall 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. This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.”

In briefs filed with the Supreme Court, Moody argues the language would “hoodwink” voters. She asserts that the meaning of “viability” is ambiguous.

“The ballot summary here is part of a similar overall design to lay ticking time bombs that will enable abortion proponents later to argue that the amendment has a much broader meaning than voters would ever have thought,” her brief says.

Initiative supporters argue that voters well understand that viability means the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb, with the state allowed to intervene past that point if it can show a compelling reason, similar to the situation under Roe.

Disinformation

But abortion rights opponents underscored Moody’s argument. “Proposed Amendment hides from voters its sponsors’ true purpose: to codify unrestricted abortion as a fundamental right in Florida’s Constitution and allow abortions for virtually any reason, at any stage of the pregnancy,” the brief filed in November by the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops reads.

“What we know is that far right extreme actors have invested in organizations that seek to produce inaccurate information in the context of reproductive health care,” said Perryman, who contributed an amicus brief supporting placing the Florida amendment on the ballot.

DeSantis himself has accused Democrats of supporting “post-birth abortions” or “infanticide” — a blatant distortion of the facts widely circulated within the anti-abortion movement.

“There are organizations that have labeled themselves, such as the American Academy of Pro-Life OBGYNs, who routinely put information into the public domain that is not based on medical science or evidence, that is out of step with the views of the mainstream medical and research communities in this country,” Perryman said.

“We also know that there are many other efforts by this movement to try to perpetuate misinformation online in various forms in order to prevent people from being able to participate in their democracy,” she said — mentioning Moms for Liberty and their campaign against schoolbooks containing LGBTQ+ material and Black history, “stoking culture wars and perpetuating misinformation about books and ideas and educational systems.”

‘A lot of thought’

Initiative supporters fully expected Moody to raise the issues she did, Amy Weintraub, reproductive rights director for Progress Florida, one of the organizations assisting in the petition drive, said in a phone interview.

“The people who put together the wording for our ballot measure put a lot of thought into what would meet the state standards for ballot initiatives, and we are very, very confident that we have taken everything into consideration,” Weintraub said.

As doctrinaire as the court might be, “They still have to abide by Florida law,” she added.

“They don’t have to agree with the amendment, but they do have to agree that it’s within a certain number of words, that it’s clear, that it is one issue, and we believe that we’ve hit all of those [legal criteria].”

Since Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturning Roe, came down from the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2022, abortion has roiled state politics across the nation. Voters in Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, and Vermont have defeated initiatives to restrict abortion or else passed protections for abortion rights, to name a few.

In Ohio, Republican state legislators have proposed a variety of crimps on abortion rights since Issue 1 passed, including a 15-week ban on the procedure and moving enforcement of abortion rights from the state judiciary to the Legislature, the Ohio Capital Journal reported.

In Missouri, the secretary of state reviews ballot initiatives and prepares summaries to appear on the ballot. The incumbent, Ashcroft, wrote that a number of proposed abortion-rights initiatives would “allow for dangerous, unregulated, and unrestricted abortions.” He also used the expression, “right to life,” according to the Missouri Independent, another Phoenix affiliate.

A trial judge objected, and an intermediate state appeals court agreed, concluding, for example, that “the use of the term ‘right to life’ is simply not an impartial term.”

Anti-abortion efforts

Abortion opponents are availing themselves of the ballot as well. Iowa, for example, will have an initiative on the 2024 ballot to restrict abortion rights.

Anti-abortion activists are not giving up.

“The true lesson from last night’s loss is that Democrats are going to make abortion front and center throughout 2024 campaigns,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said in a written statement following the Ohio amendment’s passage and statehouse elections in which Virginia Democrats gained control of both chambers of the General Assembly, seen as a rebuke of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s call for a 15-week abortion ban.

“The GOP consultant class needs to wake up. Candidates must put money and messaging toward countering the Democrats’ attacks or they will lose every time,” she added.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Diane Rado for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.

The declaration will mean activation of the Florida National Guard and the Florida State Guard, the latter of which answers to DeSantis alone. Jeremy Redfern, press secretary to the governor, confirmed that the state will send aircraft to Israel to evacuate Americans and deliver supplies.

DeSantis’ seven-page emergency order doesn’t say directly what this means for average Floridians, except for plans to boost security around pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrations, including on campuses.

Emergency declarations allow disaster managers to cut through administrative and budgetary red tape to respond to a crisis. Kevin Guthrie, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, will manage the response. They also are intended to smooth coordination with other states and the federal government where warranted.

“This Executive Order allows the State of Florida to carry out logistical, rescue and evacuation operations to keep its residents safe. Specifically, this order enables the Florida Division of Emergency Management to bring Floridians home and transport necessary supplies to Israel,” DeSantis communications director Jason Mahon said in a written statement.

“There are more than 20,000 Americans, including Floridians, in Israel who wish to return home but are unable to do so. This Executive Order allows the State of Florida to carry out logistical, rescue and evacuation operations to keep its residents safe.

The order cites “demonstrations and fundraising campaigns throughout the United States, including Florida, intended to intimidate and threaten the Jewish population and to support Hamas, a U.S. Secretary of State-designated foreign terrorist organization.”

“[B]eginning on Oct. 7 and continuing to the present date, the State of Florida responded immediately by surging law enforcement resources upon request to prevent violence at these demonstrations and to protect the Jewish population in their schools and places of worship,” the order continues.

Additionally, DeSantis has mobilized law enforcement agencies including the Florida Highway Patrol and Florida Department of Law Enforcement, plus officials at schools, colleges, and universities, “to ensure that Florida does not tolerate the harassment of its citizens and to prevent terrorist activities, including the unlawful harboring and financial support of foreign terrorist organizations.”

“The Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) is arranging for chartered flights home for Floridians currently in Israel. FDEM is also working on transporting supplies. As the governor stated, this Executive Order will allow the State to carry out logistical, rescue and evacuation operations,” Amelia Johnson of the agency’s press office said in an email.

Political pushback

DeSantis, who is running in the Republican primaries for president, acted amid broader criticisms within his party of the Biden administration’s response to the violence that began when the Islamist organization Hamas attacked Israeli military outposts and civilians near Gaza on Saturday.

President Joe Biden and congressional leaders said Wednesday that the administration was attempting to extract Americans being held hostage by Hamas. “We’re working on every aspect of the hostage crisis in Israel, including deploying experts to advise and assist with the recovery efforts,” Biden said. The administration released more details on Thursday.

As of Wednesday, 22 Americans were confirmed dead in Israel and 17 unaccounted for but those numbers were expected to rise.

“Today I signed an executive order authorizing rescue operations in Israel to bring Floridians home and transport supplies to our allies. We will not leave our residents behind. To the many Floridians who are stuck in Israel, trying to get home — help is on the way,” DeSantis announced on X, formerly Twitter.

Florida Congressman Cory Mills, a veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, claimed on X that he’d evacuated more than six dozen Americans from Israel in two days.

“If Biden and his administration won’t prioritize American lives then I will step up and do his job for him! 77 Americans in 2 days safe and no longer trapped in Israel while Biden thinks of a plan,” Mills wrote.

“Politician Talk and Statesmen Act! This is the second country (Afghanistan 2021 & Israel 2023) we’ve had to save Americans because Biden had no plan and No leadership! This never happened under President Trump!”

What Biden’s doing

Biden has sent U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Israel and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was due on Friday. Government evacuation flights were also to begin on Friday, The Washington Post reported.

Additionally, the president has ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier group and the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier group into the Eastern Mediterranean to support Israel.

In Boca Raton Wednesday, a march in support of Palestine at Florida Atlantic University drew a counter protest and subsequent clashes ended with three arrests, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.

Earlier in the week, 30 people were injured during a stampede during Jewish-led candlelight vigil at the University of Florida. The Independent Florida Alligator reported that 911 calls to report that an attendee had fainted caused the panic.

“Most pro-Israel governor’

DeSantis claims to be the “most pro-Israel governor” in the country and has traveled to that country multiple times while in Congress and after moving into the Governor’s Mansion. His latest trip was in April, part of a swing through Japan, South Korea, and the U.K. preliminary to launching his presidential bid. Shortly after taking office as governor, he led a 98-member trade delegation on a trip that included a visit to the then-recently relocated U.S. embassy in Jerusalem.

Also early in his first term, during a religious gathering in the Capitol DeSantis described being moved during a stay in the Holy City.

“Having been to Israel and actually stood in the City of David, been walking along the path that Abraham walked, seeing the different scenes for Jesus when he was alive and then ultimately crucified, and seeing the site of the tomb – all these things come alive. It will change your life forever,” he said at the time.

He has described baptizing at least one of his children with water drawn from the Sea of Galilee.

Florida is home to 672,465 Jewish people, according to the Jewish Virtual Library, or 3.1 percent of the state’s population. The World Population Review pegs the state’s Muslim population at 127,172.

State Rep. Anna Eskamani of Orange County, daughter of immigrants from Iran, noted that religious-based violence cuts both ways between these communities in a series of posts on X.

“There is major concern from our community about a surge in hate crimes against Jews and Muslims right now, which have already soared in recent years — especially here in Florida where Nazis have marched openly in our streets,” Eskamani wrote.

“Online we have witnessed harmful rhetoric, images and vandalism perpetuated towards already marginalized communities. From antisemitism to Islamophobia; the hate seems to have no bounds. Disagreeing with policy is one thing, but hate crimes are unacceptable. Be a role model for your peers and lead with love. And if you see something, say something,” she continued.

“Starting tomorrow the federal government will have chartered flights to assist U.S. citizens and their immediate families from departing Israel. This is essential, and we should also not forget about American Palestinians who may be in Gaza,” Eskamani said in a text message.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Diane Rado for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.