DeSantis may attack TV stations airing pro-abortion ads
Records show the DeSantis administration is lawyering up for a potential legal action against TV stations airing ads in support of a ballot measure to end Florida's near-total abortion ban.
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis may be preparing to take legal action against television stations airings ads in support of a constitutional amendment that would end the state’s near-total abortion ban.
Records show DeSantis’ Department of Health signed contracts last week with two law firms hired to represent the state agency “in regard to false political advertisements under chapters 381 and 386.”
Those are the same sections of state law that the Health Department cited earlier this month when it sent letters to TV stations across Florida threatening to criminally prosecute them unless the stations took down an ad produced by Floridians Protecting Freedom, the group sponsoring Amendment 4.
Amendment 4 is the proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would — if approved by 60 percent of Florida voters — end a statewide abortion ban that DeSantis signed into law last year, just before launching his failed campaign for president.
But Amendment 4 supporters are fighting back: Floridians Protecting Freedom on Wednesday filed a federal lawsuit accusing the DeSantis administration of violating the organization’s First Amendment rights to free speech by engaging in a “deeply disturbing example of constitutional coercion” against the TV stations airing the group’s ads.
The suit, filed in the district court for North Florida, asks the court to forbid the Department of Health from taking any action against broadcasters.
“The election is just three weeks away, and FPF is running and intends to continue running television advertisements and to engage in other political speech advocating for the passage of Amendment 4 and calling attention to the dangerous consequences of current Florida law on women’s rights and health,” lawyers for Floridians Protecting Freedom wrote in the complaint.
“It is intolerable,” they added, “that FPF do so with the state dangling a sword of Damocles over anyone who would facilitate that core political expression — threatening broadcasters with criminal prosecution if they air viewpoints the State disagrees with, and silencing FPF’s speech in the process.”
Representatives for the Florida Department of Health did not immediately respond to an email asking for more detail about why it retained the two law firms, which records show were hired on Oct. 10. But the contracts call for the firms to recommend potential legal actions the agency could take and to prepare and file court pleadings, motions, and briefs.
Florida taxpayers will pay attorneys from the two firms up to $750 an hour — and as much as $1.5 million total.
The specific commercial targeted by the DeSantis administration, called “Caroline,” focuses on a woman who was diagnosed with brain cancer while pregnant with her second child. She needed to end her pregnancy in order to undergo chemotherapy — something she would have not been able to do under Florida’s current abortion ban, which went into effect earlier this year and prohibits most abortions after just six weeks of pregnancy.
The 30-second spot began airing across Florida on Oct. 1. Two days later, records show, the Department of Health’s top attorney sent letters to stations warning them to take down the ad or face potential criminal prosecution under laws meant to protect public health against contamination from facilities like slaughterhouses and sewage plants.
The legal threats prompted national outrage. A leading First Amendment scholar at Harvard Law School told Slate.com that the threat was “about as blatant a violation of the First Amendment as you’ll see.”
Even the chair of the Federal Communications Commission condemned the action.
“The right of broadcasters to speak freely is rooted in the First Amendment,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement issued after news of DeSantis’ threats broke. “Threats against broadcast stations for airing content that conflicts with the government’s views are dangerous and undermine the fundamental principle of free speech.”
The DeSantis’ administration’s threats have already worked to a certain extent. In its federal lawsuit, Floridians Protecting Freedom said that at least one station decided to pull “Caroline” from its airwaves in response to the threat from the Department of Health.
The station — WINK TV in Fort Myers — then “refused to discuss the matter with FPF’s counsel for several days,” Floridians Protecting Freedom said.
Of course, even as the DeSantis administration attempt to bully into television stations into taking down ads promoting Amendment 4, it is also spending millions of dollars in taxpayer money on its own TV commercials against the amendment — as well as against Amendment 3, which would legalize marijuana in Florida.
The Governor’s Office and individual state agencies have repeatedly refused to answer questions about how much money they are spending in total against the only two citizen-led constitutional amendments on the Florida ballot this fall.
But a Seeking Rents review of purchase orders and vendor payments suggests the total is now nearly $17 million, when including the latest legal contracts.
And Florida’s Republican governor may go further still.
A DeSantis appointee who oversees the state’s Division of Elections last week released an innuendo-filled report claiming unspecified evidence of widespread fraud in the petition process for Amendment 4. Floridians Protecting Freedom collected nearly 1 million signatures from voters in order to qualify for the ballot — all of which were independently verified by independently elected county election supervisors.
The report, which was leaked late on a Friday night, came long after the legal deadline had passed to challenge the validity of petitions. But the last-minute maneuvering has prompted speculation that DeSantis may attempt to use the unsubstantiated allegations as a pretext to stop ballots from being counted or have the measure retroactively invalidated.
I'm out canvases mostly because I can't stand that DeSatan in Tally.
$750 per hour and USE OUR TAX DOLLARS!!!!
We will see how dedicated the people of FloriDUH will be to protecting their free speech and their freedom to live without the government in their bedrooms and the monitoring of news sources for "liberal" content.
I sure hope they, being the fascists in their government, get what they deserve-- which would be something like a 70-30% passing of abortion rights and the legalization of marijuana.