Florida GOP Goes After TV Stations

The Republican Party of Florida is suing a dozen TV stations in Central Florida, seeking to block a state Democratic Party election advertisement about the Hope Florida scandal, in which $10 million of federal Medicaid funds may have been misappropriated by Gov. Ron DeSantis and his former chief of staff, James Uthmeier — as well as reporting about the grand jury proceedings referenced in the ad.  

Both DeSantis and Uthmeier, who is now running for attorney general, had spent hundreds of thousands in state funds to keep the grand duty report secret until it was leaked to a South Florida broadcaster in late August. Both men admonished media outlets for reporting on the leaked material, saying it was a crime. In the lawsuit filed on Oct. 16, the state GOP also threatened broadcasters with criminal prosecution for airing the material.

The lawsuit relies on a recent Florida appeals court decision ordering the grand jury report about the scandal expunged. But the requested injunction goes well beyond the court order, threatening news coverage and Floridians’ access to information about an affair that has dominated headlines in the Sunshine State for more than two years.

The Freedom of the Press Foundation Executive Director Bobby Block weighed in:

“This lawsuit is an attempt to ride roughshod over the First Amendment by trying to bully broadcasters into silence. The First District Court of Appeal ordered the report expunged, but it did not order the media to stop reporting on information already made public. Expungement does not erase the First Amendment protections. Politicians do not get to decide what the press can report or what voters are allowed to know. The constitutional rights of Americans cannot be sacrificed on the altar of anyone’s political ambitions.”