In Floridians Protecting Freedom, Inc. v. Ladapo, (ND FL, Oct. 17, 2024), a Florida federal district court issued a temporary restraining order barring the head of the Florida Department of Health from continuing to threaten legal proceedings against television stations broadcasting plaintiff's ads which favor Florida's abortion rights amendment that appears on the November ballot. The Department of Health's general counsel sent letters to Florida television stations contending that the ads constituted a sanitary nuisance under Florida Statutes Sec. 386.01. The statute defines a statutory nuisance as anything "by which the health or life of an individual ... may be threatened or impaired." The court said in part:
Plaintiff’s political advertisement is political speech—speech at the core of the First Amendment. And just this year, the United States Supreme Court reaffirmed the bedrock principle that the government cannot do indirectly what it cannot do directly by threatening third parties with legal sanctions to censor speech it disfavors. The government cannot excuse its indirect censorship of political speech simply by declaring the disfavored speech is “false.” “The very purpose of the First Amendment is to foreclose public authority from assuming a guardianship of the public mind through regulating the press, speech, and religion.” ...
By threatening criminal proceedings for broadcasting a “political advertisement claiming that current Florida law does not allow physicians to perform abortions necessary to preserve the lives and health of pregnant women,” ... Defendant has engaged in viewpoint discrimination....
Whether it’s a woman’s right to choose, or the right to talk about it, Plaintiff’s position is the same—“don’t tread on me.” Under the facts of this case, the First Amendment prohibits the State of Florida from trampling on Plaintiff’s free speech.
