Democrats lack faith in FL Supreme Court to uphold abortion rights in state

[In It to Win It]

Democrats lack faith in FL Supreme Court to uphold abortion rights in state

Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said Thursday that she doesn’t trust the Florida Supreme Court, with its supermajority of conservatives placed there by Gov. Ron DeSantis, to vindicate Floridians’ privacy right to abortion.

During a news conference in Miami, called in advance of Saturday’s one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling overturning 1973’s Roe v. Wade, recognizing the right to abortion, Fried said that DeSantis chose his court appointees for their willingness to take a conservative line. DeSantis, now running for president as a Republican, signed a 15-week abortion ban into law last year and a six-week ban this year.

“We’ve heard the stories coming out in the last week and half how Ron DeSantis has packed the Supreme Court with members of the Federalist Society,” she said, referring to reports that Republican governors including DeSantis have politicized the nomination process, originally designed to remove politics from judicial picks.

“As an attorney it pains me to say this, but I do not have faith that this Florida Supreme Court will abide by these rights of privacy that is in our Florida Constitution and do believe that they are going to hold up the 15-week abortion ban, which is the trigger for the six-week ban,” Fried said.

However, she noted that a citizens’ initiative is underway to amend the Florida Constitution to enshrine the right to abortion. It’s called the Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion.

[FloridaBlues]

1. Even if it reached 60% voter threshold does anyone believe he will let that stand

Just like the felon rights that reached the threshold there’s so many loopholes the governor did to where it’s meaningless
Desantis will never let it happen. We will need a plan B.

[In It to Win It]

2. The abortion amendment is plan B

They'll find any reason and latch onto any argument to justify the "conservative" thing. If the Florida Constitution had no privacy right, they would say there is no right to an abortion because there is no privacy right. However, we have an explicit privacy right, and they may justify upholding the abortion bans by saying that although we have a privacy right, it doesn't include the right to an abortion.

They found a disgusting loophole in the wording of the felon reenfranchisement amendment. IIRC, they interpreted "sentence" to include their fees and fines they may owe to the state, rather than just no longer being incarcerated.

The proposed abortion amendment doesn't leave much room for reinterpretation. However, I don't doubt their ability to be imaginative when they need to be and wrap that up in legal jargon and citations.

If they were honest justices of the Court, the existing privacy clause in the state constitution should be a sufficient enough foundation for the right to choose an abortion. The state argument fails, and their own evidence disproves their argument in my view. I'm not hopeful they'll give a fuck about that.

Separately, as of right now, I'm not confident that an abortion amendment on the ballot would reach the 60% threshold. That's a really high threshold.