Melissa Ross
Jacksonville attorney Paula Bartlett readily admits she’s a political outsider.
But the Democratic candidate seeking to oust Duval Clerk of Courts Ronnie Fussell is starting to generate some grassroots support, mainly in the form of small donors, in her campaign to reopen the Duval County Courthouse wedding chapel.
Fussell (and a few other Florida clerks) controversially ended the long tradition of affordable courthouse weddings in Jacksonville a day before same-sex marriage was legalized by the Supreme Court last year. The wedding chapel, which was specifically designed for the new courthouse, is now used as an “overflow room.”
“As an attorney and as a citizen, any time a particular group is targeted and excluded from access to the the court I am enraged, and quite frankly, the entire community should be enraged,” said Bartlett.
“We have to continue this tradition. It’s not only hurting the LGBT community, who is the clear target, but it harms the entire community.”
Bartlett, who has never held elective office before, also criticizes Fussell’s management of the clerk’s office, pointing to a recent auditor’s report that finds internal accounting difficulties and what she calls an unwieldy website.
But it’s her vow to reinstate the courthouse wedding chapel that’s her campaign rallying cry.
“We have an elected official who is supposed to be a trustee of people of this county, who is refusing to perform a service because he doesn’t want to perform the service for a specific group of people. It’s the same argument that was used against mixed-race couples back before that was determined to be clearly unconstitutional. This is the same issue. It’s an equal access issue.”
To be clear, unlike Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, Fussell’s office is following the law, and will issue a marriage license to any couple who wants to tie the knot. It’s the tradition of performing marriage ceremonies in the courthouse that ended in 2015 — for both straight and LGBT couples.
Fussell, a local political insider who has a big cash advantage in the race, said at the time that some of his staff felt uncomfortable performing same-sex marriages and that he himself believed marriage should be between a man and a woman.
Whether Bartlett gains any traction in this little-watched race will come down to how successfully she can frame the debate of this election as one rooted in embracing the reality of marriage equality and equal access to the courthouse.
“If you believe that everyone should have meaningful access to the courts, you need to make an investment in my campaign. I’m a political outsider. I don’t have access to the insider money. But I’m getting lots of small donations, some as little as $5, from people who can’t even afford to donate to my campaign, but believe we need a change.”
