Florida abortion rights advocates, who have seen access to the procedure erode in the state and nationally in recent years, reached a major milestone that could shape abortion access throughout the south.
Groups seeking a constitutional amendment protecting abortion on Friday secured enough state-certified signatures by the Feb. 1 deadline to put a referendum on the 2024 ballot.
If successful, voters in the country’s third-most populous state could undo Florida’s abortion bans, keeping access open to thousands of patients throughout the South who travel to Florida from neighboring states — and from as far away as Texas — to avoid more restrictive prohibitions.
Florida has been blue in the past, I wonder if an abortion amendment in the state will flip it or if the state will largely vote for both the amendment and trump - similar to their previous votes for this like min wage.
It won’t. We’ve had ~300k people per year move here from other states for a couple years in a row, mostly chuds evading COVID restrictions.
That migration may have knock-on effects in the rest of the country however.
Yeah we were a purple state with a completely dysfunctional state Democratic party (even by Democratic party standards). Hence the going Democrat in national elections and conservative in local.
The number of conservative people that have moved here over the last few years is astounding. Me and my wife are progressive but her conservative parents and three of her siblings and their families have all moved here from Colorado in the past 3 years. Mostly I suspect because Colorado is going blue thanks to Denver.
Combine that with the massive gerrymandering and were are becoming a Republican dream state. I used to be in a swing district but have been packed into a supper blue district.
There is a local board with 5 member. It’s been 4 Conservatives and the one Democrat from my precinct. She can’t swing any votes but can make the public aware of the worst things they are trying to vote through.
The number of calls and flyers I got bashing her during the last election were similar to what I would get during a presidential election. I even had a guy knock on my door running against her claiming to be a progressive.
I looked him up and he had just moved into the state and was a failed Republican candidate from Tennessee two years earlier.