Florida GOP formally opposes abortion, marijuana legalization ballot amendments

ORLANDO, Fla. – The Republican Party of Florida officially announced its opposition to pro-abortion and recreational marijuana legalization ballot amendments that voters will consider in November.

The party voted during its spring quarterly meeting to oppose Amendment 4, which would enshrine the right to an abortion in the Florida Constitution. It also voted to oppose Amendment 3, allowing recreational marijuana usage in Florida.

“Floridians are confident that their legislature has been passing laws that reflect the priorities of our state,” party Chairman Evan Power said. “Amendments 3 and 4 are unnecessary attempts by an increasingly shrinking minority who know the only way to win support for their radical agenda is to confuse and mislead the electorate.”

“In addition, the Republican Party of Florida supports the legislature’s desire to make school board races partisan, create a constitutional right to hunt and fish, and eliminate the taxpayer burden of public campaign financing,” he said.

“The Florida Democrats are a dead carcass on the side of the road, but outside dark money groups are looking to promote their far-left ideology by attempting to confuse Florida voters,” he continued. “The Florida GOP stands ready to correct the record and defeat the radical left while enshrining in our Constitution more rights for our citizens.”

As Power said, in addition to the abortion and marijuana amendments, the party voted to officially support other measures seeking to make school board races partisan, guarantee the right to hunt and fish and advocate for taxpayers on the issue of public campaign financing.

The two major amendments, abortion and marijuana, were approved for placement on the ballot after the Florida Supreme Court reviewed Attorney General Ashley Moody’s argument surrounding the vagueness of the amendments’ language.

Gov. Ron DeSantis expressed his concerns with both amendments, confidently saying that Floridians will make the right choice and oppose the initiatives.

“Once voters figure out how radical both of those are, they’re going to fail,” he said at a press conference. “They’re very, very extreme.”

“Very, very extreme in a number of different ways,” he said. “I think Florida voters over the past four or five cycles have developed a skepticism on these amendments generally, because they’re always written in ways that are confusing, you don’t necessarily know what the intent is gonna be.”

He believes there’s a certain portion of voters who automatically vote “no” on ballot amendments because they are aware of the “tens of millions of dollars” being used to fund these initiatives and efforts to word them in manipulative ways.

“The weed one is not just decriminalize, it’s basically a license to just have anywhere you want. No time, place and manner restrictions.” he argued. “This state will start to smell like marijuana in our cities and towns. It will reduce the quality of life.”

DeSantis explained how he was the one to allow for medical marijuana in the state and stores selling the drug have popped up all across Florida. He questioned why further legalization is needed.

“Do we really want to have more marijuana in our communities?” he said. “I don’t think it will work out well.”

He also mentioned in another instance that the abortion amendment would override parental rights when it came to a minor getting an abortion, and that “parental notification” is not the same thing as consent.

“There’s a difference between consent and notification,” he said. “Notification is after the fact. The consent is obviously a condition precedent. They did that because they know going after parents’ rights is a vulnerability.”