Attorney General James Uthmeier has formally submitted a proposed recreational marijuana constitutional amendment to the Florida Supreme Court, setting the stage for a judicial review of the ballot initiative.
Justices will hear oral arguments on the marijuana proposal on Feb. 5, according to a schedule posted on the court's website Thursday.
The political committee Smart & Safe Florida is sponsoring the proposal to allow recreational marijuana and has far exceeded the 220,016 petition signatures required to trigger the crucial Supreme Court review.
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After receiving notification from Secretary of State Cord Byrd last month, Uthmeier on Wednesday took the step of seeking an opinion from the Supreme Court about the measure.
The Supreme Court reviews issues such as whether proposed constitutional amendments are limited to single subjects and whether the proposed ballot language is clear.
Smart & Safe Florida also must submit 880,062 valid signatures by Feb. 1 for placement on the November ballot. The state Division of Elections website on Thursday showed the committee had submitted 675,307 valid signatures.
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The tally might not reflect the actual number of signatures, however. A representative of Smart & Safe Florida in November said the committee had submitted roughly 1,010,000 signatures to elections officials across the state — not including 200,000 petitions that were invalidated by state elections officials.
Smart & Safe Florida challenged the invalidation, but a Leon County circuit judge upheld the state decision.
Uthmeier’s filing on Wednesday said the number of valid signatures is in flux.
“As of December 17, 2025, supervisors of elections are correcting their records regarding the number of petitions verified valid and invalid,” Uthmeier wrote.
The dispute over the signatures stemmed from an Oct. 3 directive by state Division of Elections Director Maria Matthews requiring supervisors to scrap petitions that did not include the full text of the proposed constitutional amendment. The committee mailed the petitions to voters, and the state alleged signatures were “not obtained legally.”
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State elections officials also argued that the flagged petitions needed to be invalidated because Smart & Safe Florida made changes to the format of the petition form approved by Secretary of State Cord Byrd’s office.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, aided by his then-chief of staff Uthmeier, in 2024 led efforts to defeat a proposed recreational marijuana amendment sponsored by Smart & Safe Florida.
The Republican-controlled Legislature this year made a number of changes to put additional restrictions on the ballot initiative process. Groups including Smart & Safe Florida are challenging the new law in federal court.
