In fact, it’s one of the few tools we have – allowing citizens to come together around important ideas, gather signatures, and bring issues directly to voters. Often, districts are drawn to make it impossible to have a competitive election. Plus, the influence of big money from the very entities blocking good ideas to help people often drowns out the communities the lawmakers are supposed to represent. And now, lawmakers are trying to take that last lever to power away.

For years, Florida politicians have chipped away at the ballot initiative process, making it harder for citizens to have a say in their own future. It used to take a simple majority—50%—to pass a ballot measure. Now, it’s 60%. Signatures once remained valid for four years; then lawmakers cut that down to just two. And every single petition already goes through a strict review process by local Supervisors of Elections, verifying that only registered voters’ signatures count. The system is already difficult enough. So why make it even harder?

The answer is clear: to silence Floridians and block us from acting when politicians refuse to.

Senate Bill 7016 (SB 7016) and House Bill 1205 (HB 1205) would make the process nearly impossible for grassroots campaigns. These bills would force campaigns to post a $1 million bond, slash the time campaigns must submit petitions from 30 days to just 10, and impose excessive daily fines when a petition is accidentally delivered to the wrong county or a person with past felony convictions touches petitions. This isn’t about protecting democracy—it’s about shutting people out of it by making the process expensive, complicated, and risky.

Now, as we face worsening environmental crises, the Right to Clean Water petition is the latest grassroots effort to hold polluters accountable. But instead of addressing Florida’s growing pollution problems, lawmakers are trying to shut this effort down. SB 7016 and HB 1205 would impose severe restrictions that make it nearly impossible for citizen-led campaigns—like the Right to Clean Water—to even reach the ballot. If these bills pass, special interests will have even more power to block solutions that protect our land, air, and water.

This fight is about more than any single issue—it’s about democracy and protecting our ability to create change when leaders fail us. If politicians succeed in gutting the ballot initiative process, they’ll strip away one of the last remaining tools Floridians must make their voices heard.

Call your state legislators and demand they oppose SB 7016 and HB 1205. Our democracy belongs to us—not just the politicians in power. As the climate warms, we can’t afford to lose the power to protect our environment and our health. We must defend our right to bring real solutions to the ballot—because our water, our communities, and our future depend on it.

Samantha Kaddis is the Advocacy and Campaigns Associate for The CLEO Institute, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, non-partisan organization exclusively dedicated to climate crisis education and advocacy.