Federal judge blocks contribution limits for ballot initiatives

TALLAHASSEE — A federal judge has rejected an attempt by Florida lawmakers and Gov. Ron DeSantis to limit contributions to political committees supporting ballot initiatives, saying such a law violates the First Amendment.

U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor issued an 18-page ruling Wednesday that included a permanent injunction against the $3,000 contribution limit, which passed in 2021 and was revised this year. The limit was part of long-running efforts by Republican leaders to make it harder to pass ballot initiatives to amend the state Constitution.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida and political committees filed the lawsuit, arguing that the contribution limit unconstitutionally restricted speech and was designed to prevent citizens’ initiatives from reaching the ballot. Voters during the past two decades have used the initiative process to make a series of high-profile changes, such as legalizing medical marijuana and increasing the minimum wage.

Committees typically have to raise and spend millions of dollars to collect enough petition signatures to take issues to voters.

Winsor also disputed arguments by attorneys for the Florida Elections Commission, the defendant in the lawsuit, that the contribution limit would help curb fraud in the crucial process of collecting petition signatures to put initiatives on the ballot.

“Here, there is no decent fit between the restriction and the asserted anti-fraud purpose,” wrote Winsor, who was appointed to the federal bench by former President Donald Trump.

The 2021 law placed a $3,000 limit on contributions from in-state and out-of-state donors to political committees gathering petition signatures. Winsor last year issued a preliminary injunction to block the law, saying it violated First Amendment rights to political expression.

The Legislature this year revised the law to apply the $3,000 limit only to out-ofstate donors. The state’s attorneys argued that the change made the lawsuit moot.

Winsor acknowledged in Wednesday’s ruling that the revision was a “complicating factor.” Nevertheless, he ruled the limit unconstitutional.

“If anything, the amendment (this year’s revision) undermines the asserted interest in preventing fraud,” Winsor wrote. “The FEC has argued that (the law limiting contributions) is important to curb the incentives that ‘big money’ has in facilitating fraud. But the amendment will allow unlimited contributions to political committees that support ballot initiatives, so long as the money comes from Floridians.

“This will only undermine any suggestion that there is an adequate ‘fit’ between the law and the asserted interest.”

The law would have applied only to contributions made during the petition-gathering process — not those made after initiatives qualify for the ballot.

But Republican lawmakers have taken a series of steps to clamp down on the initiative process, arguing that many of the issues should be decided by the Legislature rather than by amending the Constitution.