DeSantis urges Florida Republicans at RNC to ‘get engaged’ on abortion, recreational marijuana amendments on ballot

MILWAUKEE, Wis. – Gov. Ron DeSantis isn’t worried about whether Donald Trump can win Florida. The Republican governor, who was once a challenger to Trump’s nomination, practically guaranteed that the Sunshine State would go to the former president during a speech Wednesday at the Florida GOP delegation breakfast at the Republican National Convention.

REPLAY: Watch Gov. DeSantis’ full speech to the Florida GOP delegation in the video player above

What DeSantis is worried about, however, are two amendments to the state constitution that will be on the ballot in November.

Amendment 3 would legalize recreational marijuana in Florida and Amendment 4 would remove abortion restrictions up to 24 weeks.

Currently, Florida has legalized medical marijuana and abortion is restricted to 6 weeks, before many people know they are pregnant.

DeSantis said the abortion amendment “is wrong.”

“That is something that we have to defeat,” he told the room of Republican leaders from his state. “It’s never the wrong time to just do what’s right.”

DeSantis spent more time arguing against the recreational marijuana amendment, saying similar laws in other states have not delivered on promises of decreased drug trafficking and increased public safety.

“We’ve seen it in practice in a lot of these places. It hasn’t delivered what they said it was going to deliver,” DeSantis said. “It’s not good for quality of life.”

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DeSantis also expressed concern that the way Amendment 3 is written, restrictions put in the constitution for medical marijuana would be stripped away.

“It’s going to affect quality of life, even if you have no interest in it,” he said.

The governor also pointed to what he called “corporate protectionism” language in the amendment, which he said is backed by a single company — Trulieve — that already does medical marijuana business in Florida.

In general, DeSantis called the ballot process for amending Florida’s constitution “a farce” because voters see only an approved summary and not the text of the actual amendment.

“Imagine having to vote on one of the amendments to the federal constitution and not knowing what the text was,” DeSantis said.

He urged the Florida delegation to “get engaged” on the amendments when they return home from the convention.

“A lot of voters don’t pay close attention to this. There’s going to be a lot of advertising on it,” DeSantis said. “I think if Republicans are united on these, I don’t think there’s any way they could get to 60%.”

In Florida, amendments on the ballot must be approved by 60% of voters or more to become part of the constitution.