New Orleans       Not every state still enjoys the Progressive Era reform that embedded the initiative and referendum process in local and state politics in many US political jurisdictions.  The preponderance of these systems exists in the West and South.  The purpose of these democratic participation tools is to allow citizens to bring forward measures to directly legislate based on their own popular will, rather than partisan divisions and legislative action.

Over the years, ACORN used these measures in states as diverse as South Dakota, Florida, Arizona, Ohio, Arkansas, and Missouri to win increases in minimum wages, take the taxes off food and medicine, and push back on utility rates.  It takes a huge effort to qualify for the ballot, collecting hundreds of thousands of signatures and more than a million in a state like Florida.  It’s a battle then to win with corporations and sometimes politicians of every persuasion opposing these measures.  We often won, and sometimes we lost.  We were almost always swamped by money the utilities and business groups marshalled against us.  That’s politics, and that’s why the peoples’ votes matter so much when they directly legislate.

Reportedly, there are nine states where there are measures on the ballot this November about choice.  With the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade unsettling the law a woman’s right to choose concerning her pregnancy, abortion measures on the ballot in subsequent elections have found voters overwhelmingly approving choice even in deep red states to the consternation of many conservatives and anti-abortion activists.

In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis, the recently failed aspirant for the Republican nomination for president, is firmly opposed to the choice ballot measure.  He has created a PAC to oppose the issue and is campaigning against it.  All of that is within his rights.

What is both against state law and unethical is a state agency, funded by taxpayers’ dollars to operate in the interest of the public – all of the public – to campaign on one side or the other on a ballot measure.  Yet, that is exactly what the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration is doing.  Its secretary has used the agency’s website, staffing, and resources to campaign against the measure, which would allow a woman to have an abortion within 24 weeks, before viability.  He has claimed that Amendment 4 would threaten women’s safety and that “Florida is Protecting Life.”  All of this crosses the line.

DeSantis had already tried to stack the deck.  A handpicked, Republican dominated panel had already tried to scuttle the vote by mandating language that supposedly required an unusual and unprecedented financial impact statement as part of the proposed amendment.  The statement claims passage would increase abortions and litigation in the state and “may negatively affect the growth of state and local revenues over time.”  You don’t have to be an economist to understand that such a statement is nothing but a political and ideological speculation meant to encourage “no” votes and has nothing to do with economics.

Not that I’m surprised.  In the current era of acute divisiveness, the limits and accountability of power regularly exceed customary and legal boundaries.  A “win at all costs” attitude has become too common.  Voters may be the only last line of defense in forcing their will over the politicians and ideologues, if in fact they are allowed to vote and able to make their own decisions.