Florida
Governor
Ron
DeSantis
is
getting
spanked
in
court
again.
And
once
again
it’s
at
the
hands
of
Judge
Mark
Walker,
who
granted
a
temporary
restraining
order
against
the
state’s
Department
of
Health
on
Friday.
“To
keep
it
simple
for
the
State
of
Florida:
it’s
the
First
Amendment,
stupid,”
the
judge
wrote
scornfully.
It
would
appear
that
DeSantis
(HLS
’05)
requires
the
court
to
explain
the
concept
of
free
speech
to
him,
as
if
to
a
toddler.
Because
the
governor
and
his
minions
are
under
the
impression
that
that
they
can
censor
their
constituents
simply
by
rebranding
their
speech
as
a
“sanitary
nuisance,”
akin
to
pollution
dumped
in
the
waterways.
The
ruling
comes
in
response
to
the
state’s
efforts
to
dissuade
voters
from
supporting
Amendment
4,
a
ballot
referendum
which
would
enshrine
the
right
to
an
abortion
in
the
state’s
constitution.
DeSantis
and
his
cronies
are
engaged
in
extensive
shenanigans
to
block
it
including:
a
taxpayer-funded
advertising
campaign;
threats
to
prosecute
the
ballot
organizers
for
signature
fraud;
and
screwing
with
the
financial
impact
statement
to
include
the
litigation
cost
of
defending
the
law
in
court
from
the
very
people
pushing
for
its
passage.
That
last
one
is
ironic
in
light
of
the
fact
that
DeSantis’s
pre-enactment
antics
include
hiring
a
law
firm
which
calls
itself
First
&
Fourteenth
PLLC
—
get
it?
get
it?
—
to
attack
supporters
of
the
referendum,
at
a
projected
cost
of
about
$1
million.
The
debacle
started
on
October
3,
when
John
Wilson,
the
now-former
general
counsel
for
the
Florida
Department
of
Health,
sent
multiple
cease
and
desist
letters to
local
television
stations
threatening
them
with
prosecution
if
they
failed
to
take
down
an
ad
in
which
a
woman
named
Caroline
describes
needing
an
abortion
after
a
cancer
diagnosis.
The
woman
says
that
she
would
have
been
denied
this
medically
necessary
treatment
under
Florida’s
Heartbeat
Protection
Act.
Wilson
threatened
to
prosecute
the
stations
for
continuing
to
air
the
ad
under
a
provision
of
the
Florida
Clean
Air
Act
usually
reserved
for
slaughterhouses
and
factories
releasing
effluent.
His
theory
was
that
Caroline
was
lying
about
the
Heartbeat
Bill
(she
wasn’t),
and
that
this
lie
harmed
public
health
by
leading
women
“to
believe
that
such
treatment
is
unavailable
under
Florida
law,
[so
that]
such
women
could
foreseeably
travel
out
of
state
to
seek
emergency
medical
care,
seek
emergency
medical
care
from
unlicensed
providers
in
Florida,
or
not
seek
emergency
medical
care
at
all.”
Floridians
Protecting
Freedom
(FPF),
the
group
which
pushed
the
ballot,
sued
in
federal
court
to
block
the
state,
and
Judge
Walker
granted
the
TRO
through
October
29.
This
case
pits
the
right
to
engage
in
political
speech
against
the
State’s
purported
interest
in
protecting
the
health
and
safety
of
Floridians
from
“false
advertising.”
It
is
no
answer
to
suggest
that
the
Department
of
Health
is
merely
flexing
its
traditional
police
powers
to
protect
health
and
safety
by
prosecuting
“false
advertising”—if
the
State
can
rebrand
rank
viewpoint
discriminatory
suppression
of
political
speech
as
a
“sanitary
nuisance,”
then
any
political
viewpoint
with
which
the
State
disagrees
is
fair
game
for
censorship.
Moreover,
the
record
demonstrates
that
Defendant
has
ample,
constitutional
alternatives
to
mitigate
any
harm
caused
by
an
injunction
in
this
case.
The
State
of
Florida
has
actively
undertaken
its
own
anti-Amendment
4
campaign
to
educate
the
public
about
its
view
of
Florida’s
abortion
laws
and
to
correct
the
record,
as
it
sees
fit,
concerning
pro-Amendment
4
speech.
The
State
can
continue
to
combat
what
it
believes
to
be
“false
advertising”
by
meeting
Plaintiff’s
speech
with
its
own.
In
the
meantime,
Wilson
has
not
only
resigned
his
position
with
the
Department
of
Health;
he’s
filed
an
affidavit claiming
that
the
letter
bearing
his
name
came
directly
from
the
governor’s
office;
that
he’d
been
instructed
to
hire
outside
counsel
to
actually
sue
the
TV
stations
for
running
the
ads;
and
that
he’d
resigned
rather
than
obey
a
direct
order
to
send
further
threatening
letters.
It
would
probably
be
churlish
to
point
out
that
Wilson
knew
damn
well
that
the
first
letter
was
a
gross
violation
of
the
First
Amendment,
and
it
didn’t
seem
to
bother
him
until
every
major
media
outlet
in
the
country
picked
up
the
story
and
started
pointing
out
how
wildly
inappropriate
it
was.
The
important
thing
is
he’s
here
now.
And
I
think
we’ve
all
learned
a
valuable
lesson
here.
And
that
lesson
is
…
…
STREISAND
EFFECT.
Because
if
Florida
voters
weren’t
paying
attention
to
this
bill
before,
they
sure
are
today.
Floridians
Protecting
Freedom
v.
Ladapo
[Docket
via
Court
Listener]
Liz
Dye lives
in
Baltimore
where
she
produces
the
Law
and
Chaos substack and podcast.