U.S. District Court Judge Mark E. Walker of the Northern District of Florida has issued a temporary restraining order preventing the state’s health department from moving forward with threats to criminally prosecute local TV stations for airing ads supporting abortion rights.
Walker issued the retaining order after finding the Florida government's threats would censor constitutionally protected political speech.
“To keep it simple for the State of Florida: it’s the First Amendment, stupid,” Walker wrote in his opinion.
The case involves the Florida Department of Health, which sent letters to local TV stations that threatened to bring criminal charges against stations for airing political ads supporting Amendment 4, a ballot proposition that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.
Prior to the letters, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, had been attempting to block the ballot measure. The state government has also been spending public money on ads defending the six-week abortion ban that the ballot measure would overturn.
The letter to stations, which can be found here, escalated that battle saying the pro-Amendment 4 ad was both “false” and “dangerous.” If the stations didn’t stop airing the ad, the Department of Health threatened to prosecute them for violating sanitary nuisance laws. Those statutes are typically used to prosecute people for things like overflowing septic tanks.
In response, FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has issued a statement strongly condemning the threats as “dangerous” and for “undermining free speech.”
In his Oct. 17 ruling, Walker noted that Floridians are already voting on an amendment to the state constitution that would protect abortion rights titled “Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion.“
“The State of Florida opposes Amendment 4 and has launched a taxpayer-funded campaign against it,“ Walker wrote. “Floridians Protecting Freedom Inc., the Plaintiff in this case has launched its own campaign in favor of Amendment 4. Plaintiff does not challenge the state’s right to spend millions of taxpayer dollars opposing Amendment 4. The rub, says Plaintiff, is that the state has crossed the line from advocating against Amendment 4 to censoring speech by demanding television stations remove Plaintiff’s political advertisements supporting Amendment 4 or face criminal prosecution.”
Walker agreed that the letters were, in fact, censoring political speech and issued a temporary restraining order. That order expires on Oct. 29, when the court will hold a hearing on issuing a preliminary injunction.
