A new law making it harder to amend the state constitution is the subject of a legal challenge just days after the governor signed the bill.
Florida Decides Healthcare, the advocacy group that filed the case, had already been trying to place Medicaid expansion on the 2026 ballot when the bill became law. They’ve gathered about 100-thousand petitions so far.
Holly Bullard works with the group. She says the new law’s large fines, tight deadlines and potential criminal charges will now make the state’s citizen initiative process more difficult.
“Florida already has the strictest citizen-led process in the country: nearly one million signatures and a 60-percent vote threshold to pass," she said. "It wasn’t written in good faith. It was written to break the back of grassroots campaigns and consolidate power in the hands of a few. But Floridians are still fighting. We are still organizing, and we are still collecting signatures, building coalitions and refusing to give up.”
Bullard sees the new law as an attempt to stop citizens from moving forward with proposals that the legislature has already turned down.
“This is how we’ve raised wages, protected our environment and demanded change," she said. "It’s not perfect, but it’s powerful -- and that’s exactly why they’re trying to undermine it. With HB 1205, lawmakers have layered on unnecessary and deliberately punitive barriers.”
DeSantis says the new law is needed because state officials say they found evidence of petition fraud during the 2024 election cycle.
