Federal Court Blocks Enforcement of Enhanced Financial Disclosure for Mayors and City Commissioners

By Caroline Klancke, Esq., Florida Ethics Institute. 

In a ruling issued Monday a federal judge has temporarily blocked the enforcement of a new Florida law requiring Mayors, City Commissioners, and candidates for such offices to file a more robust form of financial disclosure this year than they have filed in the past. The law, SB 774, was passed in 2023 and was immediately the subject of appeals in both state and federal court challenging the constitutionality of the enhanced form of financial disclosure for local elected officials. 

In the order granting a preliminary injunction in the matter, issued by Judge Melissa Damian, the court found that the law violates the First Amendment rights of candidates and city commission members by compelling content-based speech.

The law, relevant portions of which become effective in January 2024, requires mayors and other elected municipal officers to file a Form 6, “Full and Public Disclosure of Financial Interests” (requiring, for example, the disclosure of a filer’s net worth as well as assets, liabilities, and sources of income over $1,000) as opposed to the less exhaustive Form 1, “Statement of Financial Interests” (requiring, in part, the disclosure of major sources of income, as well as intangible personal property and liabilities over $10,000 and real property in Florida) that they have historically been required to file. The municipal elected officials and candidates challenging the law essentially argued that there is no compelling state interest in having these types of public officials disclose this heightened degree of information, and that even if there is such a compelling interest, there are less restrictive means of accomplishing that interest. 

In Monday’s order Judge Damian found that the Commission on Ethics (and other defendants) have failed to demonstrate “a relationship between the interest of protecting against the abuse of the public trust and SB 774’s fulsome financial disclosure requirements, and history does not support or justify the need for requiring municipal elected officials and candidates to comply with the Form 6 requirements when Form 1, a less intrusive method, is available and has not been shown to be ineffective or inadequate.” In issuing the preliminary injunction in Loper et al v. Lukis et al, Case No. 1:2024cv20604 (US District Court for the Southern District of Florida), the court required that the Commission on Ethics “must take no steps to enforce SB 774 until otherwise ordered.” 

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