TALLAHASSEE, FL– The Republican Party of Florida (“RPOF”) has formally filed a motion to intervene in several federal lawsuits brought by special interest groups challenging House Bill 1205 (HB 1205), passed by the Florida Legislature and signed by Governor DeSantis. HB 1205 increases integrity and transparency in Florida’s citizen initiative constitutional amendment process. The RPOF seeks to intervene and defend the recently enacted legislation that reforms the requirements for initiative petitions, petition sponsors, and petition circulators.

HB 1205, passed by the Florida Legislature and signed by Governor DeSantis on May 2, 2025, adds election integrity reforms to the citizen initiative process to amend Florida’s Constitution:

• Requires paid and volunteer petition circulators to be registered with the State;
• Requires petition circulators to be U.S. Citizens and Florida residents;
• Prohibits convicted felons from being petition circulators unless their right to vote has been restored;
• Prohibits compensating petition circulators based on the number of signatures collected;
• Prohibits a person that has not registered as a petition circulator from possessing more than 25 signed petition forms (not including their own or immediate family members);
• Enhances petition verification procedures including collection of additional voter identification information;
• Revises deadlines when petitions must be submitted to the Supervisors of Elections;
• Increases fines and creates criminal penalties for fraudulent activities related to petition gathering;
• Requires the financial impact statement to be included on the petition form; and
• Requires voters to be notified of their verified signature and creates a signature revocation process for voters.

RPOF’s Chairman Evan Power said, “These election integrity measures prevent fraud, ensure that petition signatures are valid and authentic, and provide greater information to voters about proposed amendments to Florida’s Constitution being pushed through the citizen initiative process. By seeking to intervene in these lawsuits, the RPOF is affirming its commitment to defending Florida’s election integrity laws that have made Florida the nation’s ‘gold standard’ for election integrity and election administration.”

Numerous special interest groups have filed four lawsuits in federal court to challenge HB 1205, including the political committee, Florida Decides Healthcare (seeking to amend Florida’s Constitution to expand Medicaid coverage); the political committee Smart & Safe Florida (seeking again to amend Florida’s Constitution to legalize recreational marijuana); the League of Women Voters of Florida and other allied organizations (frequent critics of Florida’s election integrity laws); and the political committee, FloridaRighttoCleanWater.org (seeking to amend Florida’s Constitution to allow any person to bring a lawsuit against the State and recover attorney’s fees for a “harm or threat of harm” to Florida waters).

RPOF Chairman Evan Power went on to say, “Whether you as a voter agree or disagree with the individual policies being pushed by citizen initiative groups, we should all agree that voters have a right to complete information and that the process for putting proposed amendments to our State Constitution on the ballot should be valid and legitimate.”

RPOF seeks to intervene in the federal lawsuits challenging HB 1205 to defend the new law and ensure that the process for putting citizen-initiative constitutional amendments on the ballot is transparent to voters and free from fraud.

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