DeSantis defies tradition with aggressive approach to suspending elected officials

In his more than four years in office, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has exercised his executive powers more aggressively and selectively to remove elected officials from office than any of his recent predecessors.

The list includes mayors, school board members, a sheriff and now, the second Democratic state prosecutor, Orlando State Attorney Monique Worrell of the Ninth Judicial Circuit.

Florida law allows a governor to suspend elected and appointed officials for wrongdoing that includes the commission of a felony, neglect of duty, malfeasance, incompetence and habitual drunkenness. The governor also has the constitutional right to replace the official with someone more closely aligned to his political views. The suspended official can challenge the suspension with a court motion but only the Florida Senate has the power to reinstate the officer.

Unlike DeSantis, former Republican Govs. Rick Scott and Jeb Bush and now-Democrat Charlie Crist, refrained from using their power to suspend elected officials for ideological reasons and instead suspended elected officials after they had been charged with a crime or, in the case of Bush and Scott, when they believed an official mishandled an election.

Since 2019, DeSantis has suspended 23 elected officials, according to his office.

A 2022 review of records from the state Senate analyzed by the Tampa Bay Times found that Bush suspended at least 17 elected officials during his eight years in office, Crist removed at least 13 officials from office, all of whom were charged with crimes, during his four years, and Scott suspended at least 15 people from office, 14 of whom committed crimes, during his eight years as governor. Scott’s exception involved Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes.

DeSantis’ litany of suspensions

The majority of DeSantis’ suspensions were for what the governor called neglect of duty, incompetence, or misuse of authority but not all of them were accused of a crime:

▪ On his first week in office in 2019, DeSantis suspended Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, accusing him of mishandling the response to the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The decision was strongly supported by the families of more than a half-dozen shooting victims, including some who campaigned against DeSantis. Israel, who was never accused of a crime, sought to get his job back, but the Senate refused.

▪ In the same week in 2019, DeSantis suspended the elected superintendent of Okaloosa County schools citing grand jury reports that teachers were abusing special needs children at two different schools. The superintendent, Mary Beth Jackson, challenged the suspension before the Florida Senate, and DeSantis revoked the suspension. A day later she resigned.

▪ In January 2019, DeSantis removed Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher alleging that she violated state law by not completing recounts before a state mandated deadline and by mishandling ballots. Bucher resigned a week later.

▪ In 2021, the governor suspended Destin City Councilwoman Prebble Ramswell after she was charged with a felony for alleged official misconduct and a misdemeanor charge for allegedly violating public records laws. Ramswell pleaded guilty to the public records violation, and the felony count was dropped.

▪ In 2020, DeSantis removed Darryl Daniels as Clay County sheriff a day after Daniels was arrested in connection with a sex scandal in which he allegedly had ordered deputies to arrest his mistress. Daniels, a Republican, was later acquitted and in 2020 was defeated for re-election.

▪ In 2022, DeSantis suspended four Broward County School Board members after a grand jury called for their ouster due to “neglect of duty and incompetence” in managing a multimillion-dollar bond for campus security. One of the members, Donna Korn, ran to get her seat back and lost.

▪ In 2022, DeSantis suspended Miami-Dade County Commissioner Joe A. Martinez who was charged with two felonies related to unlawful compensation. DeSantis replaced him with Roberto Gonzalez, a lawyer and former Republican candidate for the Florida House.

▪ Also in 2022, DeSantis suspended two Sumter County commissioners, both residents of The Villages, after they were charged with committing perjury during an investigation into complaints that they had communicated about county business outside of public meetings. One took a plea deal, the other was found guilty.

▪ In June, DeSantis suspended North Miami Beach Mayor Anthony DeFillipo nearly a week after he was arrested on voting fraud charges related to his living outside of the city.

With many of his suspensions, DeSantis replaced the ousted officials with Republican allies, giving him expanded clout — often in Democrat-leaning metro areas.

But he also has avoided some calls to suspend Republicans.

After evidence mounted that Gregory Tony, DeSantis’ appointee as Broward sheriff, lied about his past on official documents, DeSantis ignored calls to remove him.

But while DeSantis’ efforts have served him politically, he has also been dogged by criticism from Democrats that he is overreaching and allegations that his actions violated the law.

Suspension of Warren deemed unconstitutional

When the governor removed Andrew Warren, the Hillsborough state attorney, from office last August, he accused Warren of “putting himself publicly above the law” by pledging to not enforce laws that criminalize abortion and prohibit gender-affirming care for minors. At the time, the state had no laws on gender-affirming care that Warren could have refused to prosecute.

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle concluded that DeSantis broke the law when he removed Warren from office, violating Warren’s First Amendment rights.

The judge found no evidence that Warren was engaging in misconduct, or that his policies constituted blanket refusals to prosecute certain crimes, but he also concluded he didn’t have the power to restore Warren to office.

Democrats on Wednesday accused DeSantis of making the same mistakes.

“Ron DeSantis’ autocratic removal of yet another elected official, purely because he disagrees with her decisions, is the epitome of the weaponization of government,’’ U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Weston, said in an e-mailed statement. She called it “a direct affront to voters” and the lawsuits that follow “will not only litigiously waste more taxpayer dollars, it needlessly disrupts the administration of justice.”

In his political memoir, written as he prepared his campaign for president, DeSantis described how he compiled a full accounting of his executive powers after he was elected to office and set out to employ many of the powers that previous governors had chosen to use with selective restraint.

He explained that he suspended Warren because he was a “Soros-backed attorney” with “a clear case of incompetence and neglect of duty.” DeSantis was referring to George Soros, a wealthy backer of Democratic political candidates.

“If a prosecutor wants to ‘reform’ the criminal justice system, then the appropriate thing to do is resign from office and run for the Legislature on such a platform,’’ DeSantis wrote. He then called the suspension of Warren “a clear signal to other prosecutors around Florida that the Soros model of enforcing only the laws that you like was not going to fly in the Sunshine State.”

Mary Ellen Klas can be reached at meklas@MiamiHerald.com and @MaryEllenKlas