Supreme Court of Florida

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No. SC2024-1098

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FLORIDIANS PROTECTING FREEDOM, INC., et al.,

Petitioners,

vs.

KATHLEEN C. PASSIDOMO, et al.,

Respondents.

August 21, 2024

MUÑIZ, C.J.

Before the Court is a petition for a writ of quo warranto. The 

petition challenges the authority of the Financial Impact Estimating 

Conference, acting on its own initiative, to issue a revised financial 

impact statement for a proposed constitutional amendment titled 

“Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion,” 

which will appear on our state’s November 2024 ballot. The 

petitioners are Floridians Protecting Freedom (the amendment 

sponsor) and Sara Latshaw (a Florida citizen and taxpayer and the 

amendment sponsor’s chairperson). The respondents are the 
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Financial Impact Estimating Conference and its four principals, 

along with the President of the Florida Senate and the Speaker of 

the Florida House of Representatives, all of whom are named in 

their official capacities. Although the petitioners criticize the 

content of the revised financial impact statement, both sides in this 

case acknowledge that the revised statement’s substantive legality 

is not before the Court; the petition challenges the Estimating 

Conference’s authority to issue that statement.

As we explain, applying traditional principles that govern the 

issuance of extraordinary writs, we deny the petition. The 

petitioners actively participated in the Estimating Conference 

process that they now challenge, without questioning or objecting to 

the Conference’s authority to issue a revised financial impact 

statement on its own initiative. For that basic reason, the 

petitioners waived or forfeited any reasonable claim to extraordinary 

relief from this Court.

I

A

Article XI, section 5(c) of the Florida Constitution requires the 

Legislature to provide by general law “for the provision of a 
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statement to the public regarding the probable financial impact of 

any amendment proposed by initiative.” To implement that 

command, the Legislature has mandated that the ballot for any 

such proposal include “[a] separate financial impact statement 

concerning the measure prepared by the Financial Impact 

Estimating Conference in accordance with s. 100.371(13).” 

§ 101.161(1)(a), Fla. Stat. (2023).1 The Estimating Conference itself 

consists of four principals: one person from the Executive Office of 

the Governor; the coordinator of the Office of Economic and 

Demographic Research; and one professional staff member from 

each chamber of the Legislature. § 100.371(13)(c)1., Fla. Stat.

The financial impact statement process begins when the 

Estimating Conference receives notice of a potential amendment 

from the Secretary of State. § 100.371(13)(a), Fla. Stat. That starts 

the clock on a 75-day deadline—subject to tolling while the 

Legislature is in session—for the Estimating Conference to create 

the financial impact statement. In no more than 150 words of 

“clear and unambiguous” text, the statement must disclose “the 

1. In this opinion, all statutory references are to the 2023 

Florida Statutes.
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estimated increase or decrease in any revenues or costs to state or 

local governments and the overall impact to the state budget 

resulting from the proposed initiative.” § 100.371(13), Fla. Stat. 

Once the Estimating Conference has completed its work, it must 

“immediately submit the statement to the Attorney General.” 

§ 100.371(13)(c)2., Fla. Stat.

The statute that governs the financial impact statement 

process assumes that our Court will review the legality of the 

statement by advisory opinion. § 100.371(13)(e), Fla. Stat. But, in 

Advisory Opinion to the Attorney General re Raising Florida’s 

Minimum Wage, 285 So. 3d 1273, 1281 (Fla. 2019), we held that 

our Court lacks original jurisdiction to review financial impact 

statements. In so holding, we noted that “[i]t is not clear” whether 

“the Legislature contemplated that this Court’s review authority

[would] be exclusive.” Id. at 1279 n.2 (citing § 100.371(13)(c)2., Fla. 

Stat.). Yet we “express[ed] no definite opinion” on whether a 

challenge to a financial impact statement could be brought in a trial 

court declaratory judgment action. Id. at 1279 n.4. To date the 

Legislature has not amended section 100.371(13) to account for our 

decision in Minimum Wage.
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The financial impact statement statute says that, upon finding 

that a statement is invalid, this Court or “a court” may remand the 

statement to the Estimating Conference for “redrafting.” 

§ 100.371(13)(c)2., (e)1., Fla. Stat. Outside that situation, the 

statutory text does not expressly address, one way or the other, the 

Estimating Conference’s authority to redraft a financial impact 

statement that it has already approved and submitted to the 

Attorney General.

B

The Estimating Conference received notice of the proposed 

abortion amendment on September 7, 2023. Then, on November 

16, 2023, it submitted its original financial impact statement to the 

Attorney General. That statement said:

The proposed amendment was analyzed late in the 

2023 calendar year. At that time, litigation was pending 

before the Florida Supreme Court challenging the 

Legislature’s 2022 enactment of a prohibition on most 

abortions being performed if the gestational age of the 

fetus is more than 15 weeks. If the Court upholds the 

2022 law, a 2023 law further reducing the 15 weeks to 6 

weeks will take effect 30 days later. This could lead to 

additional litigation. In order to measure the proposed 

amendment’s impact on state and local government 

revenues and costs, a reasonable expectation of what the 

state of the law will be at the time of the election is 

required. Because there are several possible outcomes 
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related to this litigation that differ widely in their effects, 

the impact of the proposed amendment on state and local 

government revenues and costs, if any, cannot be 

determined.

On April 1, 2024, our Court issued an advisory opinion 

approving the abortion amendment for placement on the ballot, 

Advisory Op. to Att’y Gen. re Limiting Gov’t Interference with 

Abortion, 384 So. 3d 122 (Fla. 2024); for the reasons already 

explained, our opinion did not address the financial impact 

statement. That same day, we also issued our decision in Planned 

Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida v. State, 384 So. 3d 67 

(Fla. 2024), where we held that the Florida Constitution’s Privacy 

Clause does not guarantee a right to abortion.

Less than a week later, the petitioners filed a circuit court 

declaratory judgment action alleging that the original financial 

impact statement contained outdated information and was 

inaccurate and misleading, in violation of section 100.371(13) and 

article XI, section 5 of the Florida Constitution. The government 

defendants sought dismissal of the complaint on jurisdictional 

grounds but did not defend the original impact statement’s 

substantive validity. On June 10, the circuit court granted 
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summary judgment in favor of the challengers and remanded the 

financial impact statement to the Estimating Conference for 

redrafting. The government immediately appealed that ruling to the 

First District Court of Appeal and eventually obtained a stay of the 

circuit court’s order pending the appeal.

The same day the circuit court issued its ruling, the Senate 

President and House Speaker directed that the Estimating 

Conference be reconvened to review the original financial impact 

statement and to “mak[e] changes, if any, the conference deems 

appropriate.” The Estimating Conference then held public meetings 

on July 1, 8, and 15. “Those meetings were voluntary, not 

pursuant to the circuit court’s order.” Fin. Impact Estimating Conf.

v. Floridians Protecting Freedom, Inc., No. 1D2024-1485, 2024 WL 

3491704, at *1 (Fla. 1st DCA July 22, 2024). And the petitioners 

actively participated in each meeting.

On July 15, the Estimating Conference (over a dissent by one 

of its members) adopted and submitted to the Attorney General a 

revised financial impact statement for the abortion amendment. 

The revised statement reads:
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The proposed amendment would result in 

significantly more abortions and fewer live births per year 

in Florida. The increase in abortions could be even 

greater if the amendment invalidates laws requiring 

parental consent before minors undergo abortions and 

those ensuring only licensed physicians perform 

abortions. There is also uncertainty about whether the 

amendment will require the state to subsidize abortions 

with public funds. Litigation to resolve those and other 

uncertainties will result in additional costs to the state 

government and state courts that will negatively impact 

the state budget. An increase in abortions may 

negatively affect the growth of state and local revenues 

over time. Because the fiscal impact of increased 

abortions on state and local revenues and costs cannot 

be estimated with precision, the total impact of the 

proposed amendment is indeterminate.

The next day, the First District issued an order that 

acknowledged the Estimating Conference’s adoption of a revised 

financial impact statement and directed the parties to show cause 

why the still-pending appeal should not be dismissed as moot. The 

sponsor and the government both maintained that the case was not 

moot and argued against dismissal. They noted that the issue in 

the appeal was not the substantive legality of the original financial 

impact statement but whether a circuit court has the authority to 

review a financial impact statement at all. The sponsor/appellee 

pointed out that the appeal was necessary to resolve “whether the 

circuit court can review the redrafted statement,” either in a 
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continuation of the existing lawsuit or in a new one. The sponsor’s 

response to the First District’s show cause order did not say or 

imply that the Estimating Conference lacked the authority to adopt 

the revised statement.

The First District rejected the parties’ arguments and on July 

22 dismissed the appeal as moot. It reasoned that “the order on 

review is based on a financial impact statement that is no longer 

operative” and that “[n]o judicial determination or action remains 

for the circuit court based on the complaint before it.” Fin. Impact 

Estimating Conf., 2024 WL 3491704, at *2. The district court added 

that, if the challengers wanted to “raise new claims about the 

revised financial impact statement,” “they may do so in a separate 

proceeding,” where the government could contest the justiciability 

of those claims in the context of “an actual controversy.” Id.

Two days later, the petitioners sought quo warranto relief from 

this Court.

II

A

The petitioners argue that the Estimating Conference’s 

“unilateral revision of the Financial Impact Statement violates the 
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text of section 100.371(13), which contemplates judicial review of 

Financial Impact Statements and provides for the revision of those 

Statements only when ordered by a court.” They ask us to issue a 

writ of quo warranto “invalidating the revised Financial Impact 

Statement for Amendment 4 as unlawful because the Respondents 

lacked legal authority to adopt it.”

The government responds that the petitioners waived or 

forfeited any objection to the Estimating Conference’s authority to 

voluntarily issue a revised statement and that the Court should 

therefore exercise its discretion to deny the petition; that the 

Estimating Conference’s voluntary revision of the financial impact 

statement is permissible under the governing statute, section 

100.371(13); that the Court should deny the petition on the basis of 

the “de facto officer doctrine”; and that the sponsor lacks standing. 

As to its final argument, the government says that, “[a]lthough there 

is ample reason to revisit” certain aspects of this Court’s quo 

warranto jurisprudence, “the Court need not do so here.”

We are persuaded by the respondents’ threshold argument 

and therefore need not address the others.
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B

Our Court’s authority to issue a writ of quo warranto derives 

from article V, section 3(b)(8) of the Florida Constitution. See W. 

Flagler Assocs., Ltd. v. DeSantis, 382 So. 3d 1284 (Fla. 2024) 

(discussing this Court’s quo warranto case law). Quo warranto is 

an extraordinary writ. Warren v. DeSantis, 365 So. 3d 1137, 1142 

(Fla. 2023). Such writs “may be denied for numerous and a variety 

of reasons, some of which may not be based upon the merits of the 

petition.” Topps v. State, 865 So. 2d 1253, 1257 (Fla. 2004). The 

granting of an extraordinary writ lies within the court’s discretion. 

Warren, 365 So. 3d at 1142; see also State v. City of Eau Gallie, 126 

So. 124, 126 (Fla. 1930) (“A writ of quo warranto is not a writ of 

right, but a discretionary writ.”). 

To inform its exercise of that discretion, a court “may and 

should consider all the circumstances of the case.” City of Winter 

Haven v. State ex rel. Landis, 170 So. 100, 108 (Fla. 1936). 

Relevant circumstances include those which would establish 

“acquiescence or estoppel as against a private person.” Id. It is

self-evident that “one cannot deliberately acquiesce in the act 

complained of and then ask a higher court to step in when he later 
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changes his mind.” Alto Adams & George John Miller, Origins and 

Current Florida Status of the Extraordinary Writs, 4 Fla. L. Rev. 421, 

459 (1951). 

Applying these principles here, we must conclude that the 

petitioners waived or forfeited their opportunity to seek 

extraordinary quo warranto relief challenging the Estimating 

Conference’s authority to adopt the revised financial impact 

statement. The record demonstrates that those who participated in 

the Estimating Conference’s revision process, including the 

petitioners, understood that the Conference was acting on its own 

initiative. As explained earlier, the circuit court order invalidating 

the original financial impact statement was stayed throughout the 

period when the Estimating Conference reconvened and worked in 

July. Moreover, the Estimating Conference’s clear charge was to 

exercise discretion in deciding whether revisions to the original 

financial impact statement were necessary.

Yet the petitioners never questioned the Estimating 

Conference’s authority to voluntarily adopt a revised financial 

impact statement. Instead, they actively participated in every step 

of the revision process without objection. They offered oral and 
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written presentations at each of the Estimating Conference’s three 

July meetings, thoroughly and forcefully advocating their position 

on what the revised financial impact statement should say. Later, 

in opposition to dismissal of the appeal then pending in the First 

District, the petitioners told the district court that the appeal was 

still necessary to settle whether the circuit court could review “the 

redrafted statement.” In other words, in the First District the 

petitioners themselves adopted the premise that the revised 

statement had become the legally operative one (even if, in their 

view, it was substantively flawed).

These actions preclude the extraordinary relief the petitioners

now seek. We hold them to their decision to accept the legality of 

the Estimating Conference’s revision process and instead to focus 

on influencing the content of the revised financial impact 

statement. And, as the petitioners themselves acknowledge, the 

substantive legality of the revised statement is not before the Court 

in this proceeding.

III

The petitioners waived or forfeited their opportunity to seek 

extraordinary quo warranto relief challenging the Estimating 
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Conference’s authority to adopt the revised financial impact 

statement. Therefore, we deny the petition, without addressing its 

merits and without expressing any views on the substantive legality 

of the revised statement itself.

No rehearing will be permitted.

It is so ordered.

CANADY, COURIEL, GROSSHANS, and SASSO, JJ., concur.

FRANCIS, J., concurs with an opinion.

LABARGA, J., dissents with an opinion.

FRANCIS, J., concurring.

I fully concur in the majority decision today. I write only to 

express my continued misgivings with our treatment of writs of quo 

warranto, see Worrell v. DeSantis, 386 So. 3d 867, 872 (Fla. 2024) 

(Francis, J., concurring in result), and my view that Whiley v. Scott, 

79 So. 3d 702 (Fla. 2011), stands as, perhaps, the most egregious 

example of the writ’s “drift[] from its common law moorings.” 

W. Flagler Assocs., Ltd. v. DeSantis, 382 So. 3d 1284, 1286 (Fla. 

2024). Under Whiley, we now entertain private-citizen quo 

warranto petitions simply because the petitioner is a citizen and 

taxpayer. But prior to Whiley, private-citizen standing without 

statutory authorization was unprecedented. This “high writ” 
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historically served to guard the State’s “sovereignty from invasion or 

[intrusion],” and no individual could petition for the writ without 

the consent of the Attorney General (subject to certain statutory 

exceptions). State v. Gleason, 12 Fla. 190, 206 (1868); see generally

3 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England *262 

(defining the English conception of quo warranto as a “writ of right 

for the king, against [someone] who . . . usurps any office, franchise 

or liberty” of the Crown). Nevertheless, today is not the day to 

revisit Whiley and its progeny. But we should do so at the earliest 

opportunity.

LABARGA, J., dissenting.

I dissent to the denial of the quo warranto petition on the 

grounds of waiver or forfeiture. This Court should decide the 

legitimate questions about the respondents’ authority to reconvene 

the Estimating Conference and to reconsider and revise the initial 

financial impact statement. As the majority describes, this case 

involves an extremely fluid procedural history. In my view, that 

procedural history placed the petitioners in an impossible position 

and, as a result, the petitioners should not be precluded from their 

claim to extraordinary relief.
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It is not an overstatement to say that the circumstances of this 

case are quite convoluted. Even the initial financial impact 

statement was submitted to the Attorney General and the Secretary 

of State during a period of legal uncertainty. At that time, in 

November 2023—in two separate cases—the ballot placement of the 

proposed “Amendment to Limit Government Interference with 

Abortion” and the substantive law relating to the right to have an 

abortion were pending in this Court. Those cases would not be 

decided for several more months, but a statutory deadline required 

that the initial financial impact statement be completed anyhow. 

Not only was there legal uncertainty at the time that the initial 

financial impact statement was submitted, but also later in the 

form of (1) legal proceedings relating to the legality of the initial 

statement, and (2) the reconvening of the Estimating Conference to 

reconsider and possibly revise the statement. All of these 

circumstances led to a legal quagmire, one that does not lend itself 

to today’s outcome. This case, involving unique facts, untested 

legal issues, and a time-sensitive matter of statewide importance, 

calls for more.
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The majority’s reasoning exposes the quandary the petitioners 

were placed in once the Estimating Conference was directed to—

and did—reconvene. As the sponsor of the amendment, Floridians 

Protecting Freedom was entitled to contribute to the process of 

reconsidering and revising the financial impact statement. Had the 

petitioners not engaged in the process, they would have lost their 

opportunity to participate and to potentially influence the finished 

product. Because they did participate, they are now penalized, and 

their arguments are deemed waived or forfeited.

But consider if, perhaps in deference to the ongoing legal 

proceedings in the First District Court of Appeal, the petitioners had 

remained out of the process and had not “focus[ed] on influencing 

the content of the revised financial impact statement.” Majority op. 

at 13. Under that scenario, the same quo warranto petition might 

have been denied today, except on the basis that it was untimely. 

These are among the reasons that I strongly object to the 

respondents’ characterization of the petitioners’ actions as those of 

intentional delay and gamesmanship.

Further, I take exception with how the majority frames the 

salient legal issue. The petition is about more than whether the 
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Estimating Conference could revise the financial impact statement 

on its own initiative. Framing the question in that way minimizes 

the surrounding circumstances, namely the actions of the Senate 

President and the Speaker of the House in their June 10, 2024, 

letter directing that the Estimating Conference reconvene on July 1, 

2024, “for the purpose of reviewing the Financial Impact Statement 

for the proposed constitutional amendment entitled ‘Limiting 

Government Interference with Abortion,’ and making changes, if 

any, the conference deems appropriate.” The majority emphasizes 

the actions of the Estimating Conference, despite the record 

evidence of both the June 10, 2024, directive from legislative 

leadership and the Conference’s July 15, 2024, submission stating 

that “[t]he President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of 

Representatives directed that the Financial Impact Estimating 

Conference reconvene regarding the initiative petition entitled 

Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion 23-07.” 

(Emphasis added.)

Whether, under Florida law, the legislative leadership had the 

authority to direct that the Estimating Conference reconvene, 

reconsider the initial financial impact statement, and possibly 
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revise it, is part and parcel of the quo warranto issue before this 

Court. That question should not be separated from the question of 

the authority of the Conference to issue the revised statement.

Finally, today’s decision has significant implications beyond 

the present proposed amendment and related financial impact 

statement. Despite the majority’s focus on the actions of the 

Estimating Conference, make no mistake that today’s decision 

opens the door to the legislative branch leadership to intervene in 

the citizen-driven constitutional amendment process—even in the 

midst of ongoing legal proceedings such as were taking place here.

The quo warranto petition should not be disposed of on the 

ground that the petitioners waived or forfeited their claims. For 

these reasons, I respectfully yet strenuously dissent.

Original Proceeding – Quo Warranto

Michelle Morton, Daniel B. Tilley, and Samantha J. Past of ACLU 

Foundation of Florida, Miami, Florida, and Nicholas L.V. Warren of 

ACLU Foundation of Florida, Jacksonville, Florida; and Margaret 

Good of Margaret Good Law, PLLC, Sarasota, Florida,

for Petitioners, Floridians Protecting Freedom, Inc. and Sara 

Latshaw

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Henry C. Whitaker, Solicitor 

General, Daniel William Bell, Chief Deputy Solicitor General, David 

M. Costello, Deputy Solicitor General, and Myles Sean Lynch, 
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Assistant Solicitor General, Office of the Attorney General, 

Tallahassee, Florida; David Axelman, General Counsel, and Hannah 

Dushane, Deputy General Counsel, The Florida House of 

Representatives, Tallahassee, Florida; and Carlos Rey, General 

Counsel, The Florida Senate, Tallahassee, Florida,

for Respondents, Kathleen Passidomo, in her official capacity 

as President of the Senate, Paul Renner, in his official capacity 

as Speaker of the House of Representatives, Chris Spencer, 

Rachel Greszler, Azhar Khan, and Amy Baker, in their official

capacities as Principals of the Financial Impact Estimating

Conference, and the Financial Impact Estimating Conference