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			Florida Health Dept. Lawyer: I Quit Rather Than Carry Out DeSantis’ Censorship Threats
	
	







				Free Speech			


from the yes,-the-governor-is-trying-to-censor-speech dept


		Wed, Oct 23rd 2024 12:24pm - 	
Mike Masnick

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a government official go from sending a clearly censorial First Amendment-violating threat letter to quitting his job to telling a court, “I was pressured to do that and I resigned so that I wouldn’t do that again” so quickly.
Last week, we wrote about the fairly notable ruling in Florida, where federal judge Mark Walker included the classic line: “To keep it simple for the State of Florida: it’s the First Amendment, stupid.”
A group was purchasing airtime for TV commercials in support of a Florida ballot initiative that would protect women’s autonomy in dealing with issues related to pregnancy. Florida’s Department of Health sent a letter, signed by its General Counsel John Wilson, to the TV stations, claiming that airing the commercial could violate the state’s “sanitary nuisance” laws, normally used for getting property owners to clean up a leaking septic tank. At least one TV station then refused to air the ad in question in response to the letter.
The non-profit that bought the ad time sued, and the judge noted (quite easily) that this was about as obvious and blatant a violation of the First Amendment as anyone could remember.
We noted in our original article that Wilson (whose signature appeared on the letter) had already resigned a day after the letter was sent. He told the media that his “conscience” couldn’t allow him to stay.
Late last week, he went a step further and filed an affidavit with the court saying that Ron DeSantis’ office had drafted the letter and told him to send it, which he did. But he resigned when they asked him to follow through with more such letters and to retain lawyers to go after the TV stations who still ran the ad.

On October 3, 2024, in my official capacity as General Counsel, | sent the letters referenced in paragraph 4 of Plaintifl’s complaint.
I received drafts of the letters directly from Sam Elliot, Assistant General Counsel for the Executive Office of the Governor, earlier that day.
I did not draft the letters or participate in any discussions about the letters prior to October 3, 2024.
Ryan Newman, General Counsel for the Executive Office of the Governor, and Jed Doty, Deputy General Counsel for the Executive Office of the Governor, directed me to send them under my name and on the behalf of the Florida Department of Health.
On October 10, 2024, I resigned from my position as General Counsel in lieu of complying with directives from Newman and Doty to send out further correspondence to the media outlets, similar to the October 3, 2024 letters.
On October 10, 2024, prior to my resignation, I was directed by Mr. Newman to execute contracts for outside counsel to be retained by the Department to assist with enforcement proceedings pursuant to the October 3, 2024 letters.

This should be a huge fucking scandal. This is from the very same party that has falsely accused the Biden White House of “censorship” for simply sending reports of possible misinformation to social media companies and asking them if it violated their policies. This is from the very same party that passed laws to force social media companies to host speech, which they claimed was necessary to “support free speech.”
Yet, here they are issuing literally direct threats to TV stations, demanding they not air political ads from their political opponents. It’s one of the most blatant attacks on the First Amendment we’ve seen by government officials in some time. And it’s getting very little attention.
Anyway, kudos to Wilson for at least being willing to admit that this was bad and refusing to follow through on further actions here. It would have been nice if he’d never agreed to send the original letters at all.
Either way, with his affidavit, Floridians Protecting Freedom (the plaintiff in the case and the purchaser of the ads) has now dismissed its claims against Wilson directly. However, it will continue to move forward with the case against State Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo.

In light of the affidavit of former Florida Department of Health General Counsel John Wilson attached as Exhibit A to this notice, which explains the circumstances in which Mr. Wilson was directed to sign his name on the October 3 letter at issue in this case, Plaintiff has determined that it is unnecessary to pursue individual capacity claims against Defendant Wilson.





	Filed Under: 1st amendment, abortion, abortion rights, florida, free speech, john wilson, political advertising, resignation, ron desantis


	Companies: floridians protecting freedom



























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Stephen T. Stone (profile) says: 

October 23, 2024 at 1:03 pm





This plan failing is a good thing, because Texas probably would’ve been the next state to pull something like this and only God knows how well that case would go in Texas courts.


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David says: 

October 23, 2024 at 1:25 pm


						Re: 					



  only God knows how well that case would go in Texas courts.

Actually, God didn’t make it through jury selection.


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MightyMetricBatman says: 

October 23, 2024 at 1:53 pm


						Re: Re: 					


God was rejected as a juror due being a witness to the events in question.
Service of process to subpoena God as a witness failed due to being unable to find.


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Toom1275 (profile) says: 

October 23, 2024 at 2:25 pm


						Re: Re: Re: 					


If God is Truth, then Republicans definitely don’t want Him anywhere around.


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Anonymous Coward says: 

October 23, 2024 at 1:48 pm





Wonder if the Surgeon General of Florida is going to provide a similar “the governor had […] and was using me like a meat puppet” document.  It does look like the Executive Office of the Governor has some ‘splainin’ to do.


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Anonymous Coward says: 

October 23, 2024 at 1:49 pm


						Re: 					


… more vivid description elided.  Thank you.


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ECA (profile) says: 

October 23, 2024 at 2:01 pm


						Go figure, he saved the STATE tons of money.					


Lets ask what would of happened if taken to Court and Sued the state.
Each and every broadcaster with that letter/email/whatever.  then add the Groups that PAID for the advert. Can we Add all the persons WHO DONATED money to the groups?
WHY do we have Such Boneheads in offices?  Lots of SUCKUP AND LIES got him in office..  HOW much has he COST the state?  So far?


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Anonymous Coward says: 

October 23, 2024 at 2:38 pm


						Re: 					


If a court finds that the Health Department’s actions were illegal (and I don’t see how they can avoid such a conclusion), Wilson will probably have a pretty good case for constructive dismissal. And, of course, this affidavit doesn’t seem likely to save the state money.


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ERB says: 

October 23, 2024 at 4:03 pm


						Contacting ABA to promote disbarment for blatant violations					


After reading this article, it occurred to me that it is strongly in the public interest to pressure the American Bar Associate (ABA) to aggressively pursue disbarment for government attorneys who try to use the positions to blatantly violate longstanding Constitutional protections, especially in service of policies which themselves are blatantly unconstitutional, to the point where federal judges weigh in with the kinds of comment offered in this case. 
ABA contacts:  gpsld@americanbar.org, service@americanbar.org


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Kinetic Gothic says: 

October 24, 2024 at 6:12 am


						Petard, Own, Heist.					


The amusing thing here is that if DeSantis’s interpretation of “Sanitary Nuisance” was upheld, it could be applied to all sorts of things, near and dear to MAGA hearts.
Like…oh… Guns and huge Trucks..


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Anonymous Coward says: 

October 24, 2024 at 1:01 pm


						Re: 					


Hoist by their own petard, perhaps while attempting something like a heist.
(The web says the phrase is from Hamlet, the Shakespeare play. And the “hoist” in “hoist by a petard” is a past tense of “hoise” and so is maybe not quite the same as the other famous “hoist” that appears in “hoist the colours” though the meanings of both “hoise” and “hoist” are related to raising so, eh, more investigation is indicated.)


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Anonymous Coward says: 

October 24, 2024 at 6:44 am






  This is from the very same party that has falsely accused the Biden White House of “censorship” for simply sending reports of possible misinformation to social media companies and asking them if it violated their policies.

As we all know, the current GOP has never met a form of hypocrisy it wouldn’t willingly engage in.


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