From The News Service of Florida:
Backers of a ballot proposal to legalize medical marijuana are moving toward getting a key Florida Supreme Court review, with nearly 22,000 valid petition signatures submitted to the state as of Thursday morning. The effort, known as United for Care, needs 68,314 valid signatures before the Supreme Court will consider whether the proposed ballot language meets legal standards.
But the number of valid signatures received by the state Division of Elections has grown quickly in recent days — for example, going from 14,758 signatures Monday to 21,977 on Thursday morning. Organizers said July 22 they had sent 100,000 petitions to county elections supervisors, an initial step in validating signatures and passing them along to the state.
The effort’s political committee, formally known as People United for Medical Marijuana, also reported collecting about $770,000 in July to fuel the effort, with much of the money coming from the law firm headed by prominent Orlando attorney John Morgan. Supporters of legalizing medical marijuana received 58 percent of the vote when they tried to pass a ballot initiative in 2014. But that fell short of the legally required 60 percent to amend the state Constitution.
If the Supreme Court signs off on the ballot language, backers would then ultimately need to submit 683,149 valid petition signatures before they could take the issue to voters in 2016.