On January 7, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody asked the Florida Supreme Court to review a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow casinos in North Florida. Moody wants to determine if the proposal is unduly narrow in scope or misleading.
The action comes after a political committee backing the measure, Florida Voters in Charge, apparently surpassed the number of signatures necessary to start the review process.
On December 10, Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee told Moody’s office that the “Limited Authorization of Casino Gaming” initiative exceeded the 222,898 signatures required for judicial review. Florida Voters in Charge faces a February 1 deadline to submit the 891,589 signatures it needs to get on the November ballot. The PAC submitted 425,523 valid signatures as of January 7, according to the state Division of Elections website.
The ballot initiative would let voters decide if existing parimutuel operators in North Florida can add casino games. It’s been almost completely funded by the Las Vegas Sands Corp., to the tune of $51 million-plus.
But the Seminole Tribe of Florida, which currently has a monopoly on Las Vegas-style casinos in the state, accuses Florida Voters in Charge of “engaging in a widespread, election-law conspiracy” as it works to gather the required signatures. The committee also accused the Seminoles of illegally trying to “sabotage” the petition drive by poaching workers and paying people to stop gathering signatures.
The Seminole Tribe of Florida funded its own political committee, Standing Up for Florida, with $20 million-plus. The committee recently asked a Leon County circuit judge for an “emergency motion for a temporary injunction to prevent election fraud.” It asked the judge to block Leon County Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley and Secretary of State Laurel Lee “from giving legal effect to all illegally-obtained initiative petitions” and to decide if the signatures Florida Voters in Charge has collected so far have been “illegally obtained” and should be tossed. The committee also has spent multi-millions on a multimedia campaign telling voters to avoid signing Florida Voters in Charge petitions.
Committee Chairman Pradeep “Rick” Asnani alleged Florida Voters in Charge and its contractors “are corrupting the petition process throughout Florida by blatantly violating civil and criminal laws to secure illicit access to Florida’s ballots.” For example, Standing Up for Florida attorney William Shepherd claimed Las Vegas Sands petition gatherers are being paid per signature in violation of Florida law. The court filings also accuse businesses and individuals working on the ballot initiative of shredding incomplete petitions and “forging signatures on petitions all over Florida.”
“The constitution of Florida is under attack. The illicit conduct of counter-defendants, Florida Voters in Charge and other parties, is an attack on Florida’s election integrity,” Shepherd wrote. A judge dismissed Shepherd’s lawsuit on December 17.
Florida Voters in Charge also filed a lawsuit alleging “parties acting on behalf of the Seminoles have engaged in concerted and aggressive efforts to harass and intimidate individuals who are exercising their legal right to obtain signatures necessary to place a citizen initiative on the Florida 2022 ballot.” The lawsuit claims signature gatherers were offered money to stop collecting signatures and to leave the state until February 1. It alleges people associated with the initiative’s opponents grabbed clipboards away from signature gatherers, followed workers to their hotel rooms and screamed at voters to prevent them from signing petitions.
