The Republican Party of Florida is trying to pull a Hope Florida ad off the air and is threatening TV stations with criminal prosecution if they run it. The ad, paid for by the Florida Democratic Party, targets Republican Attorney General James Uthmeier, who is on the November 3 ballot.
The party filed a lawsuit late Friday night in rural Highlands County against the Florida Democratic Party, three statewide Democratic candidates, including governor candidate David Jolly, and 11 TV stations in the Orlando and Tampa Bay markets. It asked a judge for an emergency order pulling the ad before the Democrats can even respond, then for a permanent ban. It also wants a court to declare that the stations cannot legally air the ad.
The party went further. Its lawyers warned station managers that running the ad is a crime and said they were referring the matter to state law enforcement and prosecutors.
At the center of the fight is the Hope Florida scandal. Hope Florida is a state program championed by first lady Casey DeSantis. The controversy is over a $10 million payment from Centene, a Medicaid contractor, that went to the Hope Florida Foundation as part of a Medicaid settlement. A Leon County grand jury later found that the money had been misused and funneled toward political purposes.
The Democratic ad leans on that finding. It says a leaked grand jury report found taxpayer money was quietly moved into a dark money political committee Uthmeier controlled, and it closes with the words “conspiracy, concealment, corruption.”
Those findings were never proven in court. A grand jury report like this one is called a presentment, a written finding from a group of citizens who review evidence for prosecutors. An appeals court ruled the grand jury was wrong, finding the settlement money was never state money because it went to the foundation instead of the state treasury, and the report was ordered erased from the record. It had already leaked by then.
That erased report is the Republicans’ main argument. The party claims the ad illegally relies on it and that airing it would cause the party irreparable harm days before the election.
Democrats see something else. Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried called the lawsuit “a cover-up with a filing fee” and said the party will keep talking about Hope Florida and Uthmeier. Annette Taddeo, the Democrat running for chief financial officer against Republican Blaise Ingoglia, the party’s former chair, said Republicans went to court to pull the ad before anyone could respond. Democratic lawyers also argue the Republican Party has no legal right to bring the case at all.
Free speech advocates are raising First Amendment concerns. A court order that blocks speech before it happens is called a prior restraint, and courts treat it as one of the most serious forms of censorship.
Florida has been here before. In 2024, state health officials threatened TV stations with criminal prosecution over an ad supporting an abortion rights amendment. A federal judge blocked them and wrote, “it’s the First Amendment, stupid.”
No judge has ruled on the Republican request yet. Early voting is already underway in parts of Florida.
