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Florida Define and Prohibit Political Retaliation Initiative (2026)
| Florida Define and Prohibit Political Retaliation Initiative | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Election date November 3, 2026 | |
| Topic County and municipal governance and Direct democracy measures | |
| Status Not on the ballot | |
| Type Constitutional amendment | Origin Citizens |
The Florida Define and Prohibit Political Retaliation Initiative (Initiative #23-09) {Greener | start =11/3/2026 9:30pm MST | before = is|after = was}} not on the ballot in Florida as an initiated constitutional amendment on November 3, 2026.
The initiative would have defined and prohibited political retaliation. The measure would have prohibited the removal of government officials without criminal conviction and required a recall election of any government official found by a court ruling to be engaged in political retaliation. The ballot initiative would also have required a two-thirds (66.67%) vote of approval from voters of the county or district to dissolve or change the functions or boundaries of any county, municipality, district, department, or agency.[1]
Text of measure
Ballot title
The ballot title would have been as follows:[1]
| “ |
Prohibit political retaliation and require recall of any government official engaged in such unconstitutional practices[2] |
” |
Ballot summary
The ballot summary would have been as follows:[1]
| “ | Define as unconstitutional, political retaliation against individuals, companies, organizations, governmental entities or officials, and prevent such practices by prohibiting the removal of government officials without criminal conviction, requiring supermajority voter approval to dissolve governmental entities and requiring a recall election of any government official engaged in political retaliation.[2] | ” |
Full text
The full text can be accessed here.
Path to the ballot
The state process
In Florida, the number of signatures required for an initiated constitutional amendment is equal to 8% of the votes cast in the preceding presidential election. Florida also has a signature distribution requirement, which requires that signatures equaling at least 8% of the district-wide vote in the last presidential election be collected from at least half (14) of the state's 28 congressional districts. Signatures remain valid until February 1 of an even-numbered year.[3] Signatures must be verified by February 1 of the general election year the initiative aims to appear on the ballot.
Proposed measures are reviewed by the state attorney general and state supreme court after proponents collect 25% of the required signatures across the state in each of one-half of the state's congressional districts (222,898 signatures for 2024 ballot measures). After these preliminary signatures have been collected, the secretary of state must submit the proposal to the Florida Attorney General and the Financial Impact Estimating Conference (FIEC). The attorney general is required to petition the Florida Supreme Court for an advisory opinion on the measure's compliance with the single-subject rule, the appropriateness of the title and summary, and whether or not the measure "is facially invalid under the United States Constitution."[4]
The requirements to get an initiative certified for the 2026 ballot:
- Signatures: 880,062 valid signatures is required.
- Deadline: The deadline for signature verification is February 1, 2026. Officials have 30 days to check signatures.
In Florida, proponents of an initiative file signatures with local elections supervisors, who are responsible for verifying signatures. Supervisors are permitted to use random sampling if the process can estimate the number of valid signatures with 99.5% accuracy. Enough signatures are considered valid if the random sample estimates that at least 115% of the required number of signatures are valid.
Details about the initiative
- Disney Defenders filed the ballot initiative on September 14, 2023.[1]
- The initiative was withdrawn on January 19, 2025.
See also
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External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Florida Division of Elections, "Initiative #23-09," accessed October 16, 2023
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Before the passage of Florida Senate Bill 1794 of 2020, signatures remained valid for a period of two years
- ↑ Florida State Senate, "Florida Senate Bill 1794," accessed April 13, 2020
