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State panel assesses financial impact of Florida abortion rights ballot measure | Orlando
Photo by Matt Keller Lehman
A state panel has again addressed questions about the potential financial effects of a proposed constitutional amendment on abortion rights, with opponents of the amendment warning that the measure would lead to costly litigation if it were approved in November.
The panel, known as the Financial Impact Estimating Conference, spent more than five hours discussing how — or whether — passing the amendment could affect things like education and health care budgets. The panel will meet again on July 8 to try to agree on a “financial impact statement” that would appear on the ballot with the proposed constitutional amendment.
The ballot proposal, Amendment 4, seeks to enshrine abortion rights in the state Constitution. It says, in part, that no “law shall prohibit, penalize, delay or restrict abortion prior to viability or when necessary to protect the health of the patient, as determined by the patient’s health care provider.”
Financial impact statements typically attract little attention, but the statement for the abortion measure has spurred a court fight. The Financial Impact Estimating Conference approved a statement for the proposal in November, but that was before the Florida Supreme Court issued a ruling on April 1 that allowed a six-week abortion limit to go into effect.
Floridians Protecting Freedom, a political committee leading efforts to pass the constitutional amendment, filed a lawsuit arguing that the November declaration needed to be revised following the Supreme Court’s ruling.
While the case remains pending in the 1st District Court of Appeal, the estimates conference on Monday discussed possible revisions to the declaration. Panel member Chris Spencer, who represented Gov. Ron DeSantis, and groups opposing the amendment repeatedly pointed to potential litigation costs if the amendment is approved.
As examples, they said they would expect lawsuits over how to define “health care provider” under the amendment and how the measure would affect a current law that requires parental consent before minors can get abortions.
Jason Gonzalez, an attorney with Protect Women Florida Action, an opponent of the amendment, said the measure could lead to more litigation than a 2016 constitutional amendment that allowed medical marijuana in Florida. The 2016 amendment generated years of lawsuits and administrative cases.
“That’s going to happen, probably times 10, with this amendment,” Gonzalez told the panel. “There are several provisions that are not defined. … All of them will be litigated. There are terms like viability that are not defined in the amendment, health care provider, maternal health, those things are not defined. They will be litigated endlessly, and it will be at extraordinary cost to the state.”
But Michelle Morton, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida who represented supporters of the amendment, said the Florida Supreme Court ruled that potential litigation costs should not be included in financial impact statements.
“The court has been very clear, both now and in previous cases, that speculation about future litigation is not within the bounds of the financial impact statement,” Morton said.
Spencer, who was recently named executive director of the State Board of Trustees after serving as DeSantis’ budget chief, acknowledged that it may not be possible to predict how much the lawsuits will cost, but said “we know it’s not zero.”
Panel member Amy Baker, coordinator of the Legislative Bureau of Economic and Demographic Research, agreed that the amendment would lead to lawsuits but said trying to address the issue in the statement was “not an easy task.”
When the panel drafted its November statement, it was uncertain whether the six-week abortion limit would go into effect. At the time, abortion rights advocates were challenging a 2022 law that barred abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The Supreme Court upheld that law in April, also effectively allowing the six-week limit to begin May 1.
The November statement included caveats about challenging abortion restrictions and concluded: “Because there are several possible outcomes related to this litigation that differ widely in their effects, the impact of the proposed amendment on state and local government revenues and costs, if any, cannot be determined.”
A conference analysis of estimates, however, indicated that it is “likely” that the amendment would lead to cost savings in criminal justice, education and health and human services programs. Among the factors is that the amendment would reduce the state’s birth rate.
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