Florida was once a national model for citizen-led reform. From raising the state’s minimum wage against corporate opposition to legalizing cannabis for people with certain medical conditions, the ballot initiative process has given voters a powerful tool to bypass a deeply partisan legislature.
“Through the amendment process, Floridians have had the freedom to vote on the laws that govern their lives,” Kara Gross, legislative director of the ACLU of Florida said in a statement. “For decades, this process has led to significant reforms that improve the lives of all Floridians.”
In response to citizen-driven progress, Governor Ron DeSantis (R) called on legislators to crack down on citizen-led ballot initiatives back in March.
“We need to clean up this out-of-control amendment process,” Gov. DeSantis said in his 2025 State of the State address. “We saw how that constitutional amendment process was perverted.”
And the GOP-controlled legislature responded, launching a blitz of new bills so restrictive that advocates say they would effectively end direct democracy in the state.
Florida is not alone in seeing a backlash against direct democracy. State legislatures from Idaho to Ohio are pushing to weaken or eliminate the ballot initiative process, often after voters use it to pass progressive reforms the legislature opposes.
“Rather than celebrate the virtues of direct democracy, the Governor and the legislature appear to be threatened by it,” Emma Olson Sharkey, Partner at Elias Law Group said following the passing of the Florida bills. “Unfortunately, this new law is just the latest chapter in a nationwide effort to undermine direct democracy.”
But Florida’s response has perhaps been the harshest. House Bill 1205 (HB 1205), signed into law by DeSantis in May, radically reins in the citizen initiative process. It bans non-Florida residents from gathering petitions, imposes criminal penalties for minor technical errors, suspends signature verification during peak campaign months and threatens campaign staff with racketeering charges for vague petition “irregularities.”
Florida Decides Healthcare (FDH), a nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding Medicaid in Florida, joined by two people directly impacted by the law, filed a federal lawsuit earlier this month, arguing that HB 1205 violates the First and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and makes it functionally impossible for all but the wealthiest campaigns to succeed.
“This law is a calculated, cowardly attempt by out-of-touch politicians to rewrite the rules,” Mitch Emerson, Campaign Manager of FDH said after the lawsuit was filed. “It’s not reform, it’s repression.”
Emerson, one of the plaintiffs, could face criminal fines of up to $50,000 and criminal prosecution under Florida’s anti-racketeering laws for his signature-gathering operation. Another plaintiff, a petition circulator and non-Florida resident, could have his employment in the state terminated despite his experience working on lawful campaigns there.
“These lawsuits are nothing more than political actions from groups that can’t win in the legislature,” Evan Power, Chairman of Florida GOP said in response to the lawsuit. Advocates argue this case isn’t about partisan politics but about protecting constitutional rights.
The law, which is set to take effect July 1, doesn’t mark the first time that Florida’s GOP-controlled legislature has tried to undermine the ballot initiative process. After voters overwhelmingly approved a 2018 ballot measure to re-enfranchise formerly incarcerated people, lawmakers added a slew of new bureaucratic hurdles to the process, hugely reducing the number of people who have been able to benefit.
Other states have also tried to stymie the initiative process, too. Arkansas has criminalized common petition practices and imposed residency rules for petitioners. In recent years, Idaho, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, South Dakota and Utah have all passed or attempted to pass laws that inhibit the ballot initiative process or make any reforms achieved through the process harder to enact.
But this rising tide of restriction has not gone unchallenged. Courts have become the battlefield, and in some cases, a final firewall in the fight to save direct democracy.
In 2024, the Utah Supreme Court ruled that voters have a fundamental right to reform their government through initiatives. And in Michigan, the state’s Supreme Court struck down an “adopt and amend” tactic used by the legislature to circumvent citizen-initiated laws.
Voters are also effective defenders of their own power. When voters have had the final say on whether to accept stricter rules, they unsurprisingly choose to preserve their voice in shaping their government. In Arkansas in 2022 and in Ohio in 2023, attempts to bump up thresholds for initiatives to succeed were rebuffed by substantial margins.
Still, Florida captures how quickly direct democracy can be dismantled by lawmakers determined to stop progressive change.
Whether or not HB 1205 survives legal scrutiny, the message for Florida voters is unmistakable. When citizen power becomes too effective, the Republican-led state will try to find a way to shut it down.
Elias Law Group (ELG) Firm Chair Marc Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket.