Supporters of the ballot proposal to enshrine the right to abortion in the Florida Constitution hold signs outside of the Florida Supreme Court on Feb. 7, 2024. (Photo by Jackie Llanos/Florida Phoenix)
The group behind the unsuccessful bid to enshrine abortion rights in Florida’s Constitution dropped its challenge to the $328,000 fine the state brought against the group for alleged fraud in the petition-gathering process.
Floridians Protecting Freedom filed paperwork Tuesday to voluntarily dismiss its administrative dispute over the fine plus its lawsuit challenging state threats against broadcasters that aired an ad from the group.
The dismissals end the legal fights between the sponsor and the state as Amendment 4 failed to win the required 60% approval at the polls in November.
Why the group fought the fine
The administrative case against the Department of State’s Office of Elections Crimes and Security was slated for a Jan. 27 hearing before administrative law judge G.W. Chisenhall, but instead officially closed Wednesday. The department brought the fine against FPF on Oct. 11, releasing a preliminary report claiming the group’s petition-gathering efforts amounted to “widespread election fraud.”
Lauren Brenzel, FPF’s campaign director, has denied wrongdoing and criticized the report’s timing, disputing the allegations including that the sponsor willfully failed to deliver 328 fraudulent petitions, as required by law.
In the letter levying the fine, the department alleged that the owner of a local petition circulation business suspected that eight of his employees had turned in more than 600 fraudulent petitions because of inconsistencies in handwriting and incorrect birth dates.
Even had Chisenhall sided with the sponsor, the department wouldn’t have had to adhere to the judge’s recommendation. The case docket doesn’t indicate that the parties have settled the dispute, and the lawyer representing FPF didn’t return Florida Phoenix’s request for comment. Neither did a spokesperson for department return the Phoenix’s request for comment about whether the sponsor has paid the fine.
“We all will continue to look at the ways in which we can ensure that reproductive freedom is seen in Florida and that these abortion bans come to an end,” said Keisha Mulfort, spokesperson for the state’s American Civil Liberties Union affiliate who worked on the Yes on 4 campaign, to a States Newsroom national reporter on Monday. States Newsroom is the Phoenix’s national partner.
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Suit against health department lost steam after the election
After an initial and temporary victory in federal court for the sponsor, Mark Walker, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, dismissed FPF’s suit against the Florida Department of Health on Tuesday, as first reported by the News Service of Florida.
Walker granted the sponsor’s request for a temporary bar on the health department’s threats against broadcasters airing an ad titled “Caroline,” in which a Tampa woman says Florida’s abortion restrictions would have prevented her from undergoing an abortion had they been in place when she began chemotherapy to treat her brain cancer.
However, Walker denied a preliminary injunction extending the bar one day after the election because the “Plaintiff has not identified what other speech it intends to engage in going forward that would likely be the target of such an enforcement action,” he wrote in the Nov. 6 order.
FPF moved to voluntarily dismiss the case Tuesday, a day before the deadline for DOH’s attorneys to file their own motion to dismiss the case.
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