Florida abortion rights brawl transforms normally boring budget committee into a battleground

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — A normally prosaic budgeting process for proposed constitutional amendments in Florida ended in frustration — and legal threats — after Gov. Ron DeSantis and another state Republican leader tapped anti-abortion advocates to sit on a panel overseeing the state’s abortion-rights ballot measure that will be in front of voters in the fall.

The fighting around obscure language related to the measure — which is Amendment 4 on November’s ballot — is just the latest battlefield in an incredibly contentious brawl over the procedure in the nation’s third-largest state, where pro-abortion rights activists say anti-abortion Florida Republicans are using every possible cog in government machinery to try to stop the amendment’s passage.

In Florida, each proposed constitutional amendment must receive a financial impact statement estimating the total cost to the state budget if it passes. The initial language for Amendment 4 was approved last year without much fanfare, but pro-abortion rights activists wanted it to be updated in light of the state’s six-week abortion ban going into effect, suing to try to force the state’s hand.

But the rewritten statement the Floridians Protecting Freedom committee received this week was instead loaded with talking points that made it sound like an anti-abortion advertisement, Laura Goodhue, executive director of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, wrote in a statement.

"The fiscal analysis accompanying ballot initiatives isn’t supposed to be political, just informational, but the language being pushed by the State is a perfect illustration of the kind of political interference that Amendment 4 is trying to save us from,” Goodhue wrote. “The language pushed through yesterday by political bad actors reads more like an opposition ad than information on the fiscal impacts of the amendment."

A shorter version of the statement that is set to be printed on the ballot next to Amendment 4 predicts the measure will significantly increase the number of abortions and decrease the number of “live births” that occur in the state, and says the measure would also strip other regulatory controls.

“The increase in abortions could be even greater if the amendment invalidates laws requiring parental consent before minors undergo abortions and those ensuring only licensed physicians perform abortions,” the statement said.

The newly finalized statement, which was sent to the Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd and state Attorney General Ashley Moody on Tuesday, also warns voters that Amendment 4 could compel taxpayers to start covering the costs of abortion through Medicaid.

The statement is the work product of a four-person committee, which typically includes budget experts from both legislative chambers and the governor’s office. For this conference, appointees handpicked by Gov. Ron DeSantis and House Speaker Paul Renner had prominent anti-abortion credentials.

DeSantis’ pick was the governor’s former budget director, Chris Spencer — who was assisted during the process by Catholic University professor Michael New, whose university bio describes him as an academic who “researches and writes about the social science of pro-life issues.” Renner picked Rachel Greszler, a senior research fellow at the right-leaning and anti-abortion Heritage Foundation.

A spokesperson for the governor’s office declined to comment on the budget panel.

Disagreements over the statement among the panel came to a head during Monday’s meeting after Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research Coordinator Amy Baker refused to sign the finalized statements. Her decision was the conclusion of three weekly meetings in which she and the two panelists appointed by DeSantis and Renner clashed on adding information that would make the statements sound political.

“There are just too many disagreements that I can’t,” Baker said during the meeting. “I will not be signing this.”

Financial impact statements for ballot initiatives rarely see much attention, but the issue of abortion and politics made things different. DeSantis and other state Republican leaders have pledged to defeat Amendment 4 in November and defend the six-week ban they hurriedly approved after the Supreme Court struck down Roe vs. Wade . Floridians Protecting Freedom, the group pushing the ballot measure, is hoping to replicate the success of other pro-abortion rights measures that have won in other Republican-led states since Roe was overturned.

But Amendment 4 was more complicated for the estimating conference than other ballot measures. When the conference met about Amendment 4 last November, the state’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy was still awaiting adjudication by the Florida Supreme Court. And the state’s six-week ban that’s currently in effect was only triggered by a favorable high court ruling on the 15-week ban in April.

The initial statement left the costs and savings of the measure as indeterminate due to the uncertainty over the pending court action.

After the Florida Supreme Court upheld the 15-week ban, the Amendment 4 campaign sued the Financial Impact Estimating Conference to reassess the statement to include the tighter ban. A state court judge sided with the campaign, but Moody’s office appealed and that decision is currently on hold.

Despite the court action, Renner and Senate President Kathleen Passidomo independently called on the Financial Impact Estimating Conference to reassess Amendment 4 now that the six-week ban is in effect. But rather than appoint the same budget staffer who took part in the November statement, Renner replaced him with Greszler.

The four-member panel also included Senate Tax Committee Staff Director Azhar Khan, who eventually agreed with the details that Spencer and Greszler sought to add.

Spencer pushed the conference to include costs tied to a predicted tidal wave of litigation that will appear if voters approve Amendment 4. Spencer believed much of that litigation would come after pro-abortion rights groups sued the state’s Medicaid program to start covering the cost of abortion. He also warned that the ambiguity of the amendment would lead more medical professionals to begin performing illegal abortions, increasing law enforcement costs. He also argued that local school districts could see a drop in revenue with fewer students due to Amendment 4.

“What we’re trying to do here is look at the why,” Spencer said, who took control of much of the changes on Monday after Baker bowed out.

Greszler sought to add information that would “place statistical value on human life,” even though Baker warned her that the conference has to handle demographic evidence carefully or face potential rejection by the courts.

“These are issues that the state is going to see in the years and decades down the road,” Greszler said.

ACLU of Florida spokesperson Keisha Mulfort said the campaign is now exploring legal avenues as state courts continue their review of their earlier lawsuit.

“Rather than clarifying the original statement as mandated, the FIEC’s majority drafted a new statement that reverses its previous findings and focuses on speculative future litigation,” Mulfort wrote in an email. “This action is not just deceitful, but explicitly aligns with anti-abortion advocates’ quest to mislead voters.”