Republicans like to present themselves as champions of free speech and the Fist Amendment. They are liars. Right now, the DeSantis Administration is spending state tax dollars in an effort to censor this political advertisement.
https://youtu.be/7jJiEE_AkPA?si=zildg-z7HTR0YGR5
The 30 second advertisement is in support of Amendment 4, aimed at restoring abortion rights in Florida lost when Roe v. Wade was overturned. It tells the story of a woman diagnosed with brain cancer who would not be able to get an abortion in Florida today.
Florida Department of Health’s General Counsel John Wilson has sent a cease and desist letter to Florida television stations carrying the advertisement. Wilson threatens the stations with criminal prosecution under the state’s sanitary nuisance law. That law is (as described by the Washington Post) is often used to prosecute things like overflowing septic tanks or unclean slaughterhouses. You can read that law HERE. It reads:
Sanitary nuisance. — A sanitary nuisance is the commission of any act, by an individual, municipality, organization, or corporation, or the keeping, maintaining, propagation, existence, or permission of anything, by an individual, municipality, organization, or corporation, by which the health or life of an individual, or the health or lives of individuals, may be threatened or impaired, or by which or through which, directly or indirectly, disease may be caused.
The law is clearly not intended to reach acts of political speech on an issue before voters. These are the real attacks on our First Amendment. They come from Republican MAGA fascists in Florida’s state government.
I call upon the Medium community to Streisand Effect this. Spread this advertisement far and wide.
