NBC News projects that Florida has failed to enshrine protections for abortion access in the state constitution, essentially upholding the state’s six-week ban.
Amendment 4 failed to reach 60% of the vote needed for the proposal to pass, NBC News projects. The ballot initiative faced intense resistance from the start from Republican lawmakers, as well as Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration. In 2023, as abortion-rights advocates were collecting petition signatures, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody filed a brief with the state Supreme Court urging the justices to prevent the proposed amendment from going before voters. The court ultimately ruled that the proposal could appear on the ballot, while simultaneously upholding Florida’s six-week ban.
The DeSantis administration then waged what was essentially a campaign of intimidation and misinformation against Amendment 4. The administration oversaw the launch of a website replete with misleading details about the proposal, deployed state police to question people who had signed the petition, and tried to get TV stations to remove ads supporting Amendment 4.
Republican lawmakers also successfully pushed for revised language alongside the amendment that suggested a negative impact on state taxpayers, which Amendment 4 supporters called inaccurate and misleading. Three weeks out from Election Day, the DeSantis administration released a report accusing the ballot initiative organizers of using fraudulent signatures, and an anti-abortion group filed a lawsuit to get the measure removed based on that report.
Florida is the first state where an abortion rights ballot amendment has failed since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. DeSantis had warned that passage of Amendment 4 would represent “the end of the pro-life movement.” But despite state Republicans’ relentless attacks on the proposal, GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump sought to distance himself from his fellow Florida Republicans’ extreme abortion stance; at one point, he even left open the possibility that he would support Amendment 4, though he later walked that back after intense criticism from his party. On Tuesday, when pressed by a reporter on how he voted on Amendment 4, Trump snapped and said, “Just stop talking about that.”
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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