State agency wades into political battle over FL’s abortion-rights amendment

Screenshot from Florida Agency for Health Care Administration web page against Amendment 4.

The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration launched a webpage Thursday bashing the proposed state constitutional amendment to restore abortion access beyond six weeks, prompting Florida Democrats to call out the use of state funds against the measure.

The agency’s secretary, Jason Weida, wrote on X that the page is meant to “combat lies and disinformation surrounding Florida’s abortion laws.” However, the page states that Amendment 4 “threatens to expose women and children to health risks.”

“The Florida Legislature will lose the ability to protect basic, common-sense health care regulations due to these open-ended arbitrary terms,” the webpage declares.

Florida Democrats responded that the webpage violates Florida statutes barring state employees from using their authority to interfere with an election.

“This anti-Amendment 4 website from AHCA is bullshit. Ron and his buddies know they’re losing, and they’re willing to do anything — including breaking the law — to rig the results in their favor,” Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried wrote in a statement.

“Using state agency resources for campaign purposes is illegal, and we’re looking into any and all recourses to take this website down,” she added.

Near the bottom of the page, the agency highlights funding Floridians Protecting Freedom, the sponsors of the amendment, received from organizations outside Florida. AHCA includes additional arguments against Amendment 4, mimicking thoughts Gov. Ron DeSantis has expressed, including that the language of the abortion-rights measure is too vague.

The agency’s webpage includes a list of laws and regulations that supposedly would be at risk if Amendment 4 passes, such as sanitation standards and use of anesthesia.

Florida Department of State looking into Amendment 4 signatures

With just 60 days until the election, the DeSantis administration is ramping up its campaign against the effort to protect abortion access in the state constitution. On Wednesday, the Tampa Bay Times broke the news that the Florida Department of State is reviewing 36,000 signatures among the 1 million collected to place Amendment 4 on the ballot.

The state decided to conduct the review looking for fraud seven months after Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd certified the signatures.

In August, the Florida Supreme Court allowed the state to include language on the November ballot asserting that the amendment could lead to expensive litigation and public funding of abortions through Medicaid. Aides to DeSantis and Republican legislative leaders sat on an estimating conference and insisted upon including that language in defiance of precedent.

Democratic Rep. Ashley Gantt of Miami-Dade County told the Phoenix she was shocked and infuriated by the webpage.

“This is completely anti-democratic behavior. This is insanity. And when people talk about ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and that’s dystopian and it’s so far off, this is how it starts,” Gantt said. “It starts like this, and this people are emboldened and continue to be emboldened.”

This was not the only controversy from AHCA on Thursday. A broadcast report from WCJB stated that a source within the agency had provided documents disclosing that the whistleblower of the administration’s plan to place golf courses and hotels in state parks had resigned from AHCA in January 2022 after being accused of sending harassing messages to a co-worker he had been in a relationship with.