Recreational pot campaign still wants Florida Supreme Court to review ballot measure – Florida Politics
The campaign behind a recreational marijuana ballot measure still wants the Florida Supreme Court to review its ballot language.
The Smart & Safe Florida campaign has multiple lawsuits already filed regarding the State Department’s newly imposed rules on petition gathering.
The State Department on Sunday declared no citizen initiatives had submitted enough valid petitions to appear on the ballot, and Attorney General James Uthmeier subsequently withdrew an official request for the state Supreme Court to consider language to appear on the ballot.
But the weed campaign, which said it submitted a number of petitions before a Sunday deadline that the State Department has yet to recognize, still wants justices to move ahead as if the constitutional amendment could make it across the line.
“The day before the Secretary’s announcement, the Sponsor submitted a public records request to all 67 County Supervisors of Elections to ascertain the number of verified valid signed petitions, as well as the number of signed petitions that should have been verified as valid,” a legal brief reads.
“Depending on the results of that request, the Sponsor may file an action in the coming weeks directly challenging the Secretary of State’s determination that the Sponsor did not obtain the requisite number of verified petition signatures.”
Officials with the Smart & Safe campaign said it won’t simply abandon a fight after submitting 1.4 petitions for consideration. State law requires 880,062 verified signatures for a citizen initiative to make the ballot.
“We are asking the court to continue forward for two very specific reasons. First, the Florida Constitution is crystal clear that the court shall review the ballot language for sufficiency,” a spokesperson for Smart & Safe said, “and second, between the pending lawsuits and outstanding county counts, this ballot initiative is still very much alive.”
The campaign in mid-2025 sued Florida over the constitutionality of several new requirements imposed on the initiative process this year. Later, it sued over a State Department interpretation of law that called for petitions to be tossed if signed by “inactive voters,” meaning those who still are registered to vote but haven’t done so in recent elections.
Jacob Ogles has covered politics in Florida since 2000 for regional outlets including SRQ Magazine in Sarasota, The News-Press in Fort Myers and The Daily Commercial in Leesburg. His work has appeared nationally in The Advocate, Wired and other publications. Events like SRQ’s Where The Votes Are workshops made Ogles one of Southwest Florida’s most respected political analysts, and outlets like WWSB ABC 7 and WSRQ Sarasota have featured his insights. He can be reached at [email protected].
February 3, 2026 at 8:23 pm
I guess that is 1.4 million petitions. Amazing how Tallahassee works overtime to thwart ballot initiatives,
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