DeSantis turns to TV lobbyists to stop Florida voters from overturning a statewide abortion ban

Ron DeSantis is using television lobbyists and station owners to boost a taxpayer-funded campaign to keep abortion banned in Florida.

Photo credit: Floridians Protecting Freedom

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Ron DeSantis is teaming up with television industry executives as he tries to stop Florida voters from overturning the state’s near-total ban on abortion. 

Florida’s Republican governor has enlisted TV lobbyists in Tallahassee and local station owners from around the state in a new taxpayer-funded advertising campaign meant to weaken public support for Amendment 4, the proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would overturn Florida’s statewide abortion ban.

The state abortion ban, which DeSantis signed into law last year, is one of the strictest in the nation. It makes abortion illegal in Florida after just six weeks of pregnancy — before many women even realize they are pregnant.

The state-orchestrated campaign against Amendment 4 includes a 30-second television spot state produced by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, the public agency known as AHCA that regulates hospitals and other healthcare facilities.

But the ads, which have been spotted in some markets during football games, are being co-sponsored by the Florida Association of Broadcasters, a lobbying group that represents television and radio station owners, and by the individual stations that agree to air the ad.

Source: Florida Agency for Health Care Administration

The DeSantis administration and its television executive allies are saying almost nothing publicly about the partnership. Representatives for the Governor’s Office, AHCA and the broadcasters’ association all refused to answer specific questions about it.

As a result, the precise details of the arrangement remain unknown. It is possible stations are providing free airtime to the state to broadcast its advertisements against Amendment 4, which DeSantis has characterized as a “public service announcement.”

But it appears more likely that they exploiting a long-running arrangement in which the broadcasters’ association sells steeply discounted air time — 75 percent off — to the governor, state agencies, and nonprofit organizations for “Public Education Programs” while also supplying detailed reports about the ad placements.

A current Florida broadcast executive told Nate Monroe, the statewide columnist for USA Today’s Florida newspapers, that the DeSantis administration appears to be using that discount program. (Nate and I shared reporting on this story.)

Florida has used this program in the past to air non-political PSAs about everything from AIDS prevention to hurricane preparedness. But the AHCA ads attempting to weaken support for Amendment 4 appear much closer to a typical political issue ad.

While the spots do not specifically mention Amendment 4, they defend Florida’s current abortion ban against criticisms that have been leveled by amendment supporters. And the ads end by directing viewers to a state-run website that explicitly attacks Amendment 4, which needs support from at least 60 percent of Florida voters to pass.

Source: Florida Agency for Health Care Administration

The state cannot force television and radio stations to broadcast its advertisements. And Pat Roberts, the president of the Florida Association of Broadcasters, did not respond to emails asking why his organization would sponsor such commercials. Multiple members of the association’s board of directors — which include executives from stations such as WESH in Orlando, WLRN in Miami and WPTV in West Palm Beach — declined to comment, too.

But Roberts is a longtime Tallahassee insider who recently oversaw the founding of a “Florida Broadcasters Hall of Fame” — in which one of the very first inductees was Rush Limbaugh, the late racist radio host who once suggested that abortions should be performed with a gun.

Public Education Programs are also an important moneymaker for the Florida Association of Broadcasters, which pays Roberts an annual compensation package that reached nearly $800,000 in a recent year and also employs his son at an annual salary of nearly $100,000. Tax records show the programs generates more than 90 percent of the association’s revenue.

And helping DeSantis’ try to derail Amendment 4 could be a way for the television lobby to ingratiate itself with the governor and other anti-abortion leaders in Tallahassee — from whom they often seek favors.

Two years ago, for instance, the broadcasters association sought — and received — a favorable ruling from the DeSantis administration allowing television and radio stations to charge higher rates for certain political advertisements. Roberts himself is a television producer who has landed lucrative contracts in the past from state entities like Visit Florida, the taxpayer-funded tourism agency.

Source: Florida Department of State

Amendment 4 boosters say the ads are nothing more than campaign commercials masquerading as PSAs. And as Nate Monroe noted, that makes the Florida Association of Broadcasters and local television stations the equivalent of in-kind contributors to a campaign to keep abortion banned in Florida.

Supporters of abortion access also say the advertising is part of a larger — and potentially illegal — scheme by DeSantis to spend taxpayer resources on a political campaign.

The administration has already been sued twice this month, including one suit asking the Florida Supreme Court to intervene immediately and another filed in circuit court on behalf of the “Yes on 4” campaign.

Among the many questions DeSantis and his staff have repeatedly refused to answer this month is how much money they are spending on their anti-Amendment 4 efforts — and where they are pulling the funding from. 

But DeSantis recently got Republican leaders in the state Legislature to slip $1 million into the this year’s state budget for the Agency for Health Care Administration to spend on marketing.  

And new records suggest that AHCA just began spending some of that cash: The agency reported a $275,000 payment this week to a Tallahassee-based marketing firm called Strategic Digital Services.

The firm’s CEO declined to say whether or not the payment was related to work on the state’s campaign against Amendment 4.