Florida awaits a set of key decisions from the state Supreme Court on abortion and marijuana, and former President Donald Trump plans big fundraiser to answer President Joe Biden's massive haul.
Florida Supreme Court may rule Monday on abortion and marijuana initiatives
The Florida Supreme Court may soon release decisions that will determine the fate of two high-profile issues voters are poised to decide upon in 2024: adult use of marijuana and protections for abortion.
Opinions on the two issues were originally expected Thursday, but the court announced on X that it will release out-of-calendar opinions at 4 p.m. on Monday, April 1.
The high court is required by the Florida Constitution to publish opinions on ballot initiatives no later than April 1. However, justices typically publish opinions once a week on Thursdays, which made March 28 the final Thursday before the deadline.
Amendment 3, if court- and voter-approved, would allow adults 21 and older to possess, purchase and use recreational marijuana and marijuana accessories without legal penalty. Voters in 2016 approved medical marijuana in Florida.
“Our proposed amendment respects both personal liberty and community well-being,” wrote Smart and Safe Florida, which is sponsoring the amendment.
Amendment 4, if court- and voter-approved, would protect abortion access up to viability — roughly 24 weeks. Florida bans abortion beyond 15 weeks of pregnancy under current law. The state also approved a six-week abortion ban, although that limitation is pending a separate legal review by the Florida Supreme Court.
The amendment, sponsored by Floridians Protecting Freedom (FPF), carries the potential to undo the 15-week and six-week bans.
“FPF recognizes that all Floridians deserve the freedom to make personal medical decisions, free of government intrusion,” the organization says in the bio on its website.
The two amendments came into question after Attorney General Ashley Moody petitioned the court against placing the initiatives on election ballots in November. She asked the court to strike down the measures, claiming they are vague and misleading, among other claims.
“The ballot summary here is part of a ... design to lay ticking time bombs that will enable abortion proponents later to argue that the amendment has a much broader meaning than voters would ever have thought,” Moody wrote in a 50-page brief in opposition to the abortion initiative.
Ballot amendments require 891,523 verified signatures to make the ballot. To become law, they require at least 60% voter approval.
Outpaced by Biden, Trump aims to raise $33 million at Florida fundraiser
Former President Donald Trump's campaign is seeking to out-raise President Joe Biden next week by taking in more than $33 million to top a new single-event fundraising record set by Biden on Thursday with $26 million, according to a person familiar with the event.
Trump is inviting wealthy donors to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., for an April 6 fundraiser hosted by New York hedge fund billionaire John Paulson, and listing as co-chairs other high-dollar donors like Las Vegas-based businessman Robert Bigelow, casino mogul Steve Wynn and New York grocery billionaire John Catsimatidis.
Guests are being asked to contribute $814,600 per person as a "chairman" contributor or $250,000 per person. Perks of attendance include a personalized copy of Trump's coffee table book with photographs from his administration.
The plans to reach the fundraising goal of $33 million were first reported by the Financial Times.
Assuming that Trump succeeds in raking in the jaw-dropping sum, the glitzy event offers Trump an opportunity to shift the narrative following months of negative headlines that have focused on his dwindling political cash hauls and his use of tens of millions of dollars in donations to pay legal fees from a myriad of court cases he faces.
"We are not only raising the necessary funds, but we are deploying strategic assets that will help send President Trump back to the White House and carry Republicans over the finish line," said Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung.
Trump is also scheduled to hold political rallies Tuesday in Grand Rapids, Mich., and Green Bay, Wis.
Throughout his career in business and politics, Trump has a well-established reputation for inflating, or understating, his cash position — depending on need. His political committees, too, have relied on accounting gimmicks, including the recent clawback of a more than $50 million donation — used to seed a pro-Trump super PAC, it was later refunded to help pay the former president's mounting legal bills.
If successful, the haul would showcase Trump's ability to rake in massive checks now that he is the Republican Party's presumptive nominee. Effectively controlling the RNC, Trump and his political operation can take advantage of the far higher contribution limits that apply to party committees. While candidates alone can accept a maximum donation of $3,300, under a new joint fundraising agreement between his campaign and the RNC, a single donor could write a check for just over $800,000.
The campaign says it has been increasingly raising more money, taking in more than $1 million a day online for six days in a row, and raising more than $10.6 million last week from more than 280,000 digital donations.
Even though the event is slated to give his campaign a massive infusion of cash, it doesn't alter the fact that Trump still faces considerable financial headwinds.
His main campaign account and the Save America PAC, which has paid many of his legal bills, reported raising a combined $15.9 million in February and ended the month with more than $37 million on hand, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission last week. Democrats, meanwhile, had $155 million on hand.
And while Trump can now collect massive sums in conjunction with the RNC, the fine print of a fundraising invitation for the event shows that Save America — the committee that has been paying his legal bills — will be given a cut of the money before the RNC.
A look at the bipartisan effort to ban no-knock warrants
On Monday morning, Tamika Palmer reflected on the four years since she lost her daughter, Breonna Taylor, who was killed by police serving a no-knock search warrant at her Louisville home.
“It continues to be hard, but I still fight, and I still make sure that what happened to Breonna doesn’t happen again," she said at a news conference with state and federal leaders in Louisville. "And that’s really what’s important here."
Police said they knocked and announced themselves before breaking down the door during the 2020 raid at Taylor’s home. But her boyfriend, who fired a shot that struck an officer, said he didn’t know who was there.
Police fired back, killing Taylor.
Rep. Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville, and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., are teaming up to try to pass the Justice for Breonna Taylor Act, banning no-knock warrants on the federal level.
It says federal officers executing a warrant, as well as state and local agencies that receive funds from the Department of Justice, must first announce who they are and why they’re there.
Paul first filed the bill in 2020, but it did not have a Democratic co-sponsor and did not move forward.
“I’m very hopeful that this will move forward,” Paul said Monday. “I’m sorry that it took the death of Breonna to get everybody unified, but people say, ‘Why is there no bipartisanship?’ Well, we had a terrible tragedy, and now there is.”
Since the night of the deadly raid, the city of Louisville banned no-knock warrants, and the Kentucky Legislature passed a law saying the warrants can only be used under certain conditions.
“We’re saying we are tying this law enforcement money to banning no-knock warrants,” McGarvey said. “We think it will be very effective in truly minimizing the practice except for the most exigent and egregious circumstances where it can be justified.”
Democrats control the Senate and Republicans control the House, and Paul and McGarvey said they’re working to move this forward with bipartisan support in both chambers.
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., is co-sponsoring the bill, Paul said. McGarvey added he knows of some Republican members who are interested, including from Kentucky.