Elections have consequences, as election winners like to say whenever they do anything unpopular.
In Florida, elections have consequences except when the winner is a Democrat in an urban area. Then, the governor sometimes decides that elections don’t really count.
And so, the governor has removed another Democratic state attorney from office because of policy differences rather than misconduct. Gov. Ron DeSantis announced last week that he was suspending elected Orange-Osceola prosecutor Monique Worrell. The suspension will become a removal when the state Senate votes to do so. And because the governor wants her gone, you may assume the Florida Senate will rubberstamp the decision.
Customarily, Florida governors have been reluctant to remove elected officials. Overriding the will of the voters is a serious step in a democratic republic. That’s why in recent times, this has generally been done when criminal charges have been formally filed or a grand jury found wrongdoing. (An exception was when Gov. Rick Scott removed Broward County elections chief Brenda Snipes in 2018, a move decisively slapped down by a federal judge. Snipes resigned in 2019.) But so far, DeSantis has removed four elected officials who were never formally accused of wrongdoing. All Democrats.
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Who did Ron DeSantis suspend?
Last year, DeSantis had suspended Andrew Warren, a Hillsborough County prosecutor who had been reelected in 2020 with 53% of the vote. The governor cited Warren’s pledge not to prosecute those seeking or providing abortions or gender-affirming health care.
The governor suspended Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, a Democrat, in 2019, citing his officers’ failures in reacting to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shootings. A special master investigating the case for the Senate concluded there was not enough evidence to remove Israel. But the governor pledged to get the official out, and the Republican-controlled Senate dutifully voted to remove him.
That same year, DeSantis removed Palm Beach County elections supervisor Susan Bucher, a Democrat, citing a slow ballot count. “Those of us who have dealt with Bucher in her 10 years as Palm Beach County’s elections chief know that the charge of incompetence is bunk,” The Palm Beach Post editorial page said of that removal. She resigned, saying she doubted she’d get a fair hearing from the Senate. A reasonable suspicion.
It’s almost like there’s a pattern here.
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The move comes as the DeSantis-for-president campaign is floundering in Iowa, a place where the governor needs to come out of the gate strong if he is to stay in the race. Using the word “woke” in every third sentence has not been making it with ordinary Republican primary voters. Maybe a tough-on-crime, law-and-order theme would work better. Highlighting this by ousting a progressive, Black prosecutor voted in by Democrats might be just the ticket as part of a broader campaign reset.
Worrell, who won election with 66% of the vote in 2020, slammed DeSantis as a would-be dictator intent on nullifying elections: “This is simply a smokescreen for Ron DeSantis’ failing and disastrous presidential campaign. He needed to get back in the media in some positive way that would be red meat for his base.”
DeSantis appointed a Federalist Society judge to replace Worrell, Andrew Bain. Bain quoted John Calvin, a 16th century theocrat, witch burner and executioner of heretics (talk about a law-and-order message!) about the need to use the law to restrain evil. He blasted Worrell for allowing “lawlessness to take root in our community.” And he announced an immediate suspension of jail diversion programs. Lock ‘em all up!
Which is pretty much the opposite of what Worrell’s voters were looking for in 2020. But those votes don’t matter anymore. And if those voters didn’t matter, who will be the next group of Florida voters to have their decisions reversed?
Mark Lane is a columnist at the Daytona Beach News-Journal, where this column first published. Reach him at mlanewrites@gmail.com.
