Ron DeSantis loves his abortion ban, and he’d do just about anything to keep it in place. Unfortunately for him, petitions to get Florida’s Amendment 4 — which would nullify his precious six-week abortion ban and make it illegal to restrict abortion prior to viability — on the ballot this November managed to get a million signatures from Florida residents, 100,000 more than was even needed.
"No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient's health, as determined by the patient's healthcare provider,” the amendment reads. “This amendment does not change the Legislature's constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.”
As you might imagine, he is not pleased! While the ballot measure will require a supermajority of 60 percent to become law, polls show that a majority of voters support it, and even Donald Trump said he would vote for it on the grounds that “six weeks” is not enough time — before he said he wouldn’t, on the grounds that anti-abortion activists got really mad at him.
Should the ballot measure get 60 percent of the vote, DeSantis’s six-week abortion ban would be deemed unconstitutional and he would be further prevented from trying to do anything else crazy with regard to abortion. That’s a high percentage, but given the polling and also that every state that’s tried an abortion-rights referendum has passed an abortion-rights referendum, we’ve got a good feeling about it.
Thus, DeSantis has turned to more desperate measures. Over the weekend, he demanded that Florida Republicans not only publicly support his six-week ban, but that they give him some of their campaign funds to fight the effort to overturn it.
Via Sun-Sentinel:
At one point, he divided 22 Republican U.S. senators and U.S. representatives into three categories.
Of the 22, he named 10 and praised who he said are publicly opposed to Amendment 4 and have supported the opposition financially. That group included U.S. Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart and Carlos Gimenez from Miami-Dade County.
DeSantis listed six more who he said are publicly opposing Amendment 4 but haven’t contributed financially, a tier that includes U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar of Miami-Dade County.
Finally he called out the other six — though he didn’t say their names from the stage at the Republican event — for not declaring public opposition to the abortion-rights amendment.
The governor said it is “untenable to just sit here and let George Soros run amendments in our state and not be willing to stand up and say no. Not on our watch. That’s the least you can do as Republicans.”
George Soros, for the record, does not have jack shit to do with any of this.
On top of that, DeSantis has been doing his level best to defeat Amendment 4 ahead of November, with a plan to prove that enough of the signatures were fraudulent that the state would be required to remove it from the ballot.
This plan has involved sending his “election police” to the homes of people who signed the petition in order to interrogate them about whether or not they actually signed it. You know, just to make sure they’re not dead and to helpfully let them know exactly how much information the state of Florida has on them, in case they perhaps had something, like a ballot initiative signature, that they wanted to retract.
The Tampa Bay-Times reported that voter Isaac Menasche was visited recently by a plainclothes officer who wanted to know if he had really signed the petition, asking him twice, as if he might be lying the first time. Posting on Facebook, Menasche wrote that it was “obvious to me that a significant effort was exerted to determine if indeed I had signed the petition,” adding that the officers showed up at his doorstep with a copy of his license and other documents pertaining to him.
Another Floridian, Becky Castellanos, was visited by a police officer who came to her door to tell her that a relative of hers could be a “victim of fraud.”
Castellanos was concerned it could be identity fraud or credit card fraud and invited the officer inside while she called her family member. The officer and her relative talked over Castellanos’ phone as she stood by.
The officer asked about the abortion petition her relative signed, Castellanos said, and sent a picture of it over. One number on the date of birth appeared wrong — a three instead of a two, she said. But her relative confirmed it was his petition that he signed, and the officer accepted it.
So … was she his mom? Did the cops go to someone’s mom’s house to ask about the abortion petition? Regardless, what are the election police doing asking people’s relatives about their political signatures, instead of the people who did the signing?
It’s not entirely unusual for a state to investigate possible cases of forged signatures on such petitions, but these signatures came not from rejected petitions, but rather ones that had already been vetted — often by Republican election workers — and deemed legit.
DeSantis has defended the investigation, insisting that it has already uncovered examples of signature fraud and was spurred by reports that petitioners included fake signatures from dead people.
Considering it’s Ron DeSantis, we will believe that when he gives out any proof.
But that’s not all he’s doing, mind you! He’s also launched a (possibly illegal or at least unethical) website by an official agency of the state, using state funds, to convince voters to vote against Amendment 4, claiming that his gross and terrible ban “protects women,” while legalizing abortion would somehow harm women’s health in some unspecified capacity.
There might have been a chance that some voters would have bought this, but that was before they saw and watched all of the stories of women being refused miscarriage care or forced to give birth to babies doctors knew would be stillborn. We all know what this looks like now, and it’s bad.
My question is this, however — if Ron DeSantis truly believes that the signatures on the petitions are fraudulent, why is he bothered about it? If so many of them are fake, then clearly the measure wouldn’t have enough support to pass the referendum, right? He should be very pleased, actually, to give voters the chance to show the world just how much they love his terrible six-week abortion ban!
But he’s not, and it’s starting to look like he doesn’t actually think it’s what voters want. Weird!
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
I signed that petition, and I'm going to vote Yes on the amendment.
Abortion is sometimes necessary to preserve the lives and health of women, and if you don't like that, you don't have to get an abortion.
Here, I solved that for you, Gov.
What is the proper etiquette for when an "election cop" asks if you signed a petition? Because I am somewhat concerned that my automatic "Go fuck yourself and get the fuck off my porch now, you goddamned Taliban puke" response may cause problems.