Booted by DeSantis, suspended Tampa state attorney won’t run again

Andrew Warren, the Democratic Hillsborough County state attorney whose outspokenness led Gov. Ron DeSantis to yank him from elected office, will not run to reclaim the post in this year’s election.

After months of speculation about his political future, Warren announced Monday morning that he has decided against launching a campaign to return to the office to which he was twice elected. This means he won’t take on Republican Suzy Lopez, whom DeSantis appointed to replace him in August 2022.

Warren said in a news release that since the day he was suspended, he intended to run to get the job back. He said he ultimately decided against it because of a “high risk“ that if he won in November, the governor would simply repeat his removal — and potentially install Lopez to a post she had just lost.

“Donald Trump said he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and get away with it. Ron DeSantis, trying to out-Trump Trump, shot democracy in the middle of our courthouse — and he’s gotten away with it,” Warren said.

The governor’s office did not respond to calls and emails requesting comment Monday.

Lopez has amassed significant financial and political support in her bid to keep the job. She was a longtime prosecutor in the office and briefly served as a county judge before DeSantis picked her to replace Warren. She announced this summer that she would run in 2024.

On Monday, Warren sounded confident about his odds if he did run.

“I defeated a 16-year incumbent,” he told the Tampa Bay Times. “If I ran, I’d win.”

Regarding potential opponents for Lopez, Warren said: “I just know that the office and the community deserve somebody who’s capable and competent. And right now they have neither.”

Lopez is, so far, the only person running.

“The people of Hillsborough County deserve a state attorney who will follow and uphold the law,” she said in a statement Monday. “That is the kind of state attorney I have been and will continue to be.”

If no other lawyer files against her before the April qualifying deadline, Lopez will secure a full term without a vote.

Courthouse talk has centered around Ronald Ficarrotta, who recently retired as Hillsborough County’s chief judge, as a potential contender. But Monday he told the Times he is enjoying retirement and has no plans to run for office.

Ione Townsend, chairperson of the Hillsborough County Democratic Party, said she believes Lopez will have a challenger, but she can’t yet say who it might be.

Townsend decried Warren’s suspension, noting that a federal judge opined that DeSantis was wrong to remove him.

“We have a wannabe dictator running for president who wanted to show his chops and was willing to break the law to do it,” Townsend said. “It’s an absolute shame. The people of Hillsborough County are losing a big advocate.”

In 2022, DeSantis accused Warren of ignoring his duty to enforce state laws. In his suspension order, the governor cited a pair of public statements Warren signed with other law enforcement leaders across the nation pledging not to prosecute cases involving abortion or transgender health care. The governor also cited Warren’s policies that advised the assistant state attorneys in his office to refrain from prosecuting specific low-level, non-violent crimes except in certain circumstances.

Warren called his suspension an illegal political stunt.

In the 17 months since his removal, Warren has crafted an image as a champion of democracy, pointing out that his ouster ran counter to the will of voters who elected him. He also expressed support for Monique Worrell, the elected state attorney for Orange and Osceola counties and a fellow Democrat whom DeSantis also suspended last year.

As of September, the end of the most recent campaign finance reporting period, Lopez had raised more than $100,000 in contributions to her campaign and a political action committee. Her supporters include Hillsborough Sheriff Chad Chronister, former Tampa police Chief Brian Dugan, former Attorney General Pam Bondi and numerous prominent local defense lawyers and retired judges.

In her campaign, Lopez has expressed strong support for law enforcement, a tough posture against juvenile and violent crime, and an emphasis on sympathy for victims. She has sought to contrast herself with Warren, whose tenure as state attorney saw an emphasis on criminal justice reforms.

“The community has a choice to make,” Lopez said at her November campaign kickoff. “Will we have a state attorney who follows the law? Or one who wants to experiment with the law?”

First elected Hillsborough’s top prosecutor in 2016, Warren was an outsider in Tampa’s insular legal community. He spent most of his career as a federal prosecutor based in Washington D.C., dispatched throughout the country to assist in mostly white-collar criminal cases. A Gainesville native, he moved to Tampa three years before his run for state attorney.

His successful challenge to Mark Ober, the longtime Republican incumbent, was seen by many as a longshot bid against a local legal titan. Ober had a long career as both a prosecutor and defense lawyer before he was elected state attorney.

Warren lodged a vigorous and at times bitter campaign, accusing Ober of being out of touch and insensitive to crime victims. He defeated Ober by a less-than-1% margin.

Warren was one of numerous progressive candidates nationwide to seek a district attorney’s post that year, fueling speculation of a veiled and concerted effort to fund and get reform-minded prosecutors elected. Billionaire philanthropist George Soros, known to have funded progressive criminal justice causes, was a frequent target of such claims. Much of the money Warren raised that year came from donors outside of Hillsborough County.

Warren had more local support when he ran for reelection four years later. He frequently spoke about efforts to improve fairness in the criminal justice system while ensuring public safety.

In 2020, he endured criticism from police over a decision not to prosecute a group of Black Lives Matter protesters who were arrested on unlawful assembly charges in downtown Tampa. In 2022, a judge voiced frustration after Warren’s office asked for juvenile sanctions against a teenager who’d been charged as an adult in a shooting that wounded a 9-year-old boy.

Warren occasionally lobbed his own criticisms at the governor who would later suspend him.

A high point of Warren’s tenure was the exoneration of an innocent man.

Warren established a conviction review unit to examine closed cases in which defendants claimed to be wrongfully convicted. The unit examined the case of Robert DuBoise, who’d spent 37 years in prison for a 1983 Tampa rape and murder, and discovered new DNA evidence that did not match him.

DuBoise went free.

Two years later, Warren was listening to testimony before a grand jury that was about the indictments against the two men believed to be the real killers when he got a message: The governor had just removed him from office.

DeSantis announced the suspension in a news conference flanked by local law enforcement leaders, including Chronister, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and others. The event had the air of a campaign rally.

Two weeks later, Warren sued DeSantis in federal court in Tallahassee, arguing that the suspension violated his Constitutional right to free speech.

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle largely agreed, writing in an opinion that DeSantis had violated the Florida Constitution and the First Amendment. But the judge concluded that he lacked the authority to order that Warren be restored to office.

An appeal of the judge’s ruling remains pending.

Warren said he has lately been working with legal groups across the county “that fight back against illegal abuses of power by government” on cases including voting rights, political gerrymandering and other constitutional issues.

”It’s rewarding work,” he said. “But it’s not the job I was elected to do.”