Florida Decides Healthcare Executive Director Mitch Emerson talks with reporters outside the federal courthouse in Tallahassee on Feb. 9, 2026. (Photo by Christine Sexton/Florida Phoenix)
The leader of an effort to expand Medicaid access to low-income childless adults in Florida maintained Friday that the outcome of a federal lawsuit could decide the fate of citizen-led ballot initiatives in the Sunshine State and possibly the nation.
Following the end of a two-week federal trial, Florida Decides Healthcare Executive Director Mitch Emerson told reporters the citizen-led initiative process is the sole remaining constitutional path for people to drive change in government.
A 2025 law championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (HB 1205) requires petition circulators to be Florida residents and United States citizens, prohibits convicted felons who have not had their voting rights restored from circulating petitions, and requires all petition circulators to register with the Florida Division of Elections.
The law allows the state to levy a $50,000 fine against an organization that allows those categories of people to even handle petitions.The fine is per violation.
The law also trims back from 30 days to 10 days the time to deliver signed petition forms to a supervisor of elections and makes it a third-degree felony for a petition circulator to fill in missing information on a petition.
What happens in Florida doesn’t stay in Florida
Emerson said the changes are designed to make it “nearly impossible” to get the needed signatures to qualify a proposed constitutional amendment for the ballot. Worth noting: The DeSantis administration announced this month that no citizen initiatives made the November 2026 ballot, even though organizers of a new measure on marijuana have disputed this.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
“When it starts in Florida it doesn’t just stay here. It spreads across the country. And we’ve seen that time and again. So, a win in this case provides a roadmap for defending constitutional rights and a line in the sand that says — you know — ‘Keep your hands off our democracy’ to all those who stand in the way,” Emerson said.
Florida Decides Healthcare challenged the law along with Smart & Safe Florida, which is pushing for recreational marijuana use for adults; the League of Women Voters of Florida; League of Women Voters of Florida Education Fund; League of United Latin American Citizens; and FloridaRightToCleanWater.org.
Witnesses for Florida Decides testified in court that the organization was forced to shut down its efforts to put a proposed Medicaid expansion ballot measure before Florida voters this November. Florida is one of nine states that hasn’t expanded access to Medicaid to low-income childless adults, as allowed under federal law.
Meanwhile, Florida Decides relaunched its petition efforts with a goal of having the proposal appear before voters in the 2028 midterm elections and will be helped by two additional partners: The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network and the American Heart Association.
In a prepared statement, the groups said the need for the state to expand Medicaid is vital, given the recent passage of the One Big Beautiful Act, which slashes the Medicaid program by nearly $1 trillion over a decade to help offset tax reductions.