TALHASSEE — Supporters of new attempts to pass constitutional amendments to recreational marijuana have joined the courts’ challenges to new laws that make it more difficult for the group to place initiatives on the ballot, saying the measure imposes “dramatic restrictions on Floridian sovereignty.”
The law, finalised by Congress on May 2 and quickly signed by Governor Ron Desantis (HB 1205), includes drastic changes to the initiative process that makes it more difficult for a collection of signatures to gather petitions, create new crimes, shorten false fines, and shorten the time frame for submitting to election supervisors.
Republican-controlled Congress approved the change following a fierce battle over a voting proposal in November 2024 aimed at allowing the use of marijuana recreation and placing abortion rights in the constitution. Desantis led the Crusades to defeat the measure. This urged state legislators to impose strict regulations on the voting start process because they were unable to receive the 60% approval needed to pass.
Smart & Safe Florida, the political committee behind the 2024 marijuana proposal, is trying to make similar recreational weed measurements for next year’s vote, with an effort to sign around 219,000 valid signatures. The group is launching proposals that will allow medical marijuana patients to grow their own cannabis.
US District Judge Mark Walker on Monday granted Smart & Safe Florida’s request to take part in the lawsuit filed last week.
In court documents filed Saturday, the Smart & Safe Florida lawyers argued that the new law will “change the law at halftime” for sponsors who are already working to set up an initiative in the 2026 vote.
“What’s worse, the most burdensome of these changes came into effect as soon as it became law on May 2, 2025. There was no warning or opportunity to prepare properly,” Glenburghans and other lawyers wrote Miller Aradef & Sitterson of Sternsweaver, Pennsylvania.
The law is the latest initiative by business groups such as the Congress and the Florida Chamber of Commerce, making it more difficult for groups to set up initiatives for votes. Supporters of the restrictions have in part argued that policy changes should be made by Congress rather than by constitutional amendments.
Supporters of the new law also argued that changes were needed to prevent fraud.
However, court documents filed Saturday, called the argument justifying laws that “gas lighting” the law, arguing that the new restrictions “impose an unconstitutional barrier” and that “impose an unconstitutional barrier” to Article 1’s right to protect political speech and related freedoms.
The new law “covers behind the heartfelt principle of ensuring vote integrity as justification that imposes strict restrictions on Floridian sovereign rights to amend the civic initiative process on the Floridian sovereign constitution.
The restrictions “effectively destroy the rights of those who call citizen initiatives,” they added.
Smart & Safe Florida targets many parts of the law.
For example, the law limits the number of petitions that can be owned by unregistered signatories, and makes violations of the restrictions a felony. Only Florida residents who are US citizens who have regained their right to vote if convicted of a felony can register to collect signatures. Unregistered people are permitted to own petitions for themselves, 25 other people, and certain families. Petitions collected by ineligible people or unregistered individuals who violate the 25 petition limit will not count towards the number of signatures required to place the vote.
The new law “already dramatically violates Smart & Safe’s core speech,” wrote the lawyer sponsoring the marijuana proposal.
Out-of-state petitioners have “already seduced” workers from Florida.
Another controversial part of the law would be 30-10 days to shorten the time it takes for a completed petition to be submitted to the election supervisor and increase penalties for later petitions. Sponsors face $50 a day fine for each petition that has recently received a $2,500 fine for a “willful” violation of the time limit. Completed petitions must be converted to supervisors of the election offices in the county where the voters live, regardless of where they are signed.
The 30-day deadline allowed Smart & Safe Florida to adopt “quality control” such as flagging incomplete or defective petitions, making the verification process more efficient against election officials, and dealing with fraudulent filings and allegations of penalty.
“Required deadlines for arbitrary and badly truncated delivery have nothing to do with protecting vote integrity,” and “setting up sponsors for failure, creating unfair constraints on the petition collection process and making meaningful quality control impossible.
According to court documents, Smart & Safe Florida is also preparing to sponsor a second proposal for the 2026 vote that will allow medical marijuana patients and their caregivers to raise their own cannabis.
The committee submitted a proposal to the State Department on Thursday to the “home cultivation of medical marijuana,” an email from the Bullhans to the state elections department showed.
The legal challenge also covers some of the new laws that prohibit sponsors from supporting multiple amendments. The law does not specify whether a sponsor is backing only one proposal at a time, or whether the limit on a single proposal will last forever.
“This is not only a complete ban on core political speeches that zero relation to vote integrity, but the provisions are vague and vague,” argued the smart and secure Florida lawyer.
As of Monday, Smart & Safe had submitted 218,983 valid signatures to its recreational marijuana proposal. This is just shy of the 220,000 signatures needed to trigger the Financial Impact Statement and Florida Supreme Court review. The committee will need to submit approximately 880,000 signatures by February 1 to do so in the 2026 vote. According to court documents, the group will look to the 2028 vote if the proposal is not received in front of voters next year.
The committee’s lawyers are asking Walker to ensure that the law is unconstitutional and prevent state and local officials from enforcing it.
