GOP idea to overhaul Florida judicial circuits rejected by panel

TALLAHASSEE – A Florida Supreme Court-appointed panel is poised to finalize a report rejecting a Republican-backed idea that critics warned was intended to expand conservative control of Florida’s justice system.

The Judicial Circuit Assessment Committee spent two hours Friday reviewing its recommendation against Florida’s 20 judicial circuits undergoing any merger or consolidation of their boundaries.

The report, set to go to justices at the beginning of next month, is the result of the panel spending four months analyzing the proposal to consider redrawing the circuits, made in June by House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast.

Renner pitched the concept a year after Gov. Ron DeSantis removed liberal-leaning, Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren and just weeks before he ousted a second elected Democrat, State Attorney Monique Worrell, from Central Florida.

Some opponents viewed the circuit redraw as aimed at adding more conservative-leaning counties to those circuits that currently tend to elect more Democrats to such posts as state attorney, judge or public defender.

With Worrell and Warren both replaced by DeSantis allies, only four Democratic prosecutors remain out of Florida’s 20 circuits.

Ousters challenged in court

Both Warren and Worrell are challenging in court their removals by the governor. Worrell, who was elected to serve Orange and Osceola counties, will contest the legality of DeSantis’ actions on Dec. 6 before the Florida Supreme Court.

During a series of hearings by the committee and in surveys that drew more than 7,000 responses from the public and those working within the state’s courthouses, opposition to any redraw was fierce.

“The Committee did not identify a significant justification to support consolidation, and instead observed significant opposition to consolidation,” the draft report discussed Friday said.

But 4th Judicial Circuit State Attorney Melissa Nelson, a Jacksonville Republican and committee member, said that conclusion could be beefed-up, saying a lack of “significant justification” wasn’t strong enough: “I don’t think we heard compelling evidence at all for consolidation,” Nelson said.

The committee agreed with Nelson, and unanimously signed-off on the stronger language.

Unanimous vote against any consolidation proposal

The committee earlier this month already voted unanimously against the proposal to rework circuit boundaries before turning its findings into a report.

Still, even with the recommendation against any action soon to go to the seven-member Supreme Court, where five justices have been appointed by DeSantis, it’s hard to gauge whether the committee’s recommendation will kill the effort.

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The Republican-controlled Legislature could revive circuit consolidation in the 2024 session, set to begin in January.

“The speaker made a thoughtful and timely proposal to study judicial efficiencies,” said Andres Malave, a Renner spokesman, after Friday’s committee action. “We appreciate the committee’s work, and we await the court’s determination.

"We will continue to work with stakeholders to ensure our judicial system best serves the needs of our communities,” he added.

DeSantis uses removal of prosecutor in debate

Two weeks after removing Worrell, DeSantis cited his attack on voter-elected prosecutors in the first Republican presidential primary debate, held in August.

“When we had two of these district attorneys in Florida elected with Soros funding, who said they wouldn’t do their job, I removed them from their posts. They are done,” DeSantis said, linking them without evidence to George Soros, the billionaire Democratic investor who is frequently the target of conservatives and antisemitic tropes.

“As president,” he continued, “we are going to go after all of these people because they are hurting the quality of life and they are victimizing innocent people in this country, and it will stop when I get into office.”

While DeSantis’ presidential hopes appear dimmed as he trails badly in most polls, GOP frontrunner, former President Donald Trump, has campaigned on a pledge to investigate “radical” county and state prosecutors whom he accuses of targeting conservatives.

The proposal to redraw circuit boundaries has been ridiculed by many critics as an attempt to keep Democrats from winning seats as prosecutors, public defenders, clerks and judges.

Some see politics at heart of overhaul

The Republican state attorney for the Florida Keys, Dennis Ward, has said the overhaul is intended primarily to prevent Worrell and Warren from winning re-election next year. Worrell is running; Warren said he is still considering a bid to get his old job back.

“The whole point of this circuit revision is to drown out the Democratic vote in Democratic-leaning counties,” Worrell recently told the USA TODAY Network-Florida.

Even the conservative-leaning state attorney DeSantis hand-picked to replace Worrell, Andrew Bain, wrote the committee in October opposing the proposed reworking of the circuits.

“I implore you to look at the evidence and come to the recommendation that consolidation is not the answer to creating a more fair, equitable, and just court system in the great state of Florida,” Bain wrote.

John Kennedy is a reporter in the USA TODAY Network’s Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jkennedy2@gannett.com, or on X at @JKennedyReport

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Panel will recommend against GOP court consolidation idea in Florida