Judge refuses to block Florida's website on abortion amendment

Saying courts “must trust the people to decide what information is important to them,” a Leon County circuit judge Monday refused to issue a temporary injunction to block the state Agency for Health Administration from disseminating what critics call “misinformation” about a proposed constitutional amendment on abortion rights.

Judge Jonathan Sjostrom rejected arguments by Floridians Protecting Freedom, a political committee sponsoring the proposed amendment, and wrote that the case is “not justiciable by courts because political power is reserved to the people in an election by means of each ballot.”

“When courts speak of justiciability, the essence of the point is that judges must exercise lawful authority without hesitation but must resist the temptation to power unconstrained by a reasonable resort to judicial process,” he wrote. “In an election campaign under these circumstances, the political power reserved to the people in (part) of the Florida Constitution means that it is not for the courts to intervene in this referendum campaign to decide what the people will be permitted to consider. This case is not justiciable.”

Floridians Protecting Freedom filed a lawsuit Sept. 12 and sought a temporary injunction after the Agency for Health Care Administration began using a website and ads to disseminate information about the proposed amendment. The proposal will appear on the November ballot as Amendment 4 and would enshrine abortion rights in the Constitution.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/elections/2024/10/01/judge-refuses-block-floridas-website-abortion-amendment/

Judicial cowardice.