Winner and Loser of the Week in Florida politics — Week of 8.6.23

Gov. Ron DeSantis officially suspended Orange-Osceola State Attorney Monique Worrell this week, adding another example of the Governor shirking Republicans’ old calling card of limited government by using his full authority to weed out high-profile actors with whom he disagrees.

From his previous suspension of State Attorney Andrew Warren to his ongoing war with The Walt Disney Co., DeSantis — whether you agree with his aims or not — is consistently exercising a level of executive authority not seen for some time in the state, if ever.

Now there are certainly those who push for the executive branch to use any and all legal means to achieve their agenda. That’s all well and good, but it sure as hell isn’t small government.

Instead, what we increasingly have in Florida is a government aiming to shape everything from social policy to local prosecutorial decisions to the operation of private business by executive mandate. Forget making your case in the public square. Why waste time making a case when you can play judge, jury and executioner?

Florida Politics previewed this possibility in February, when Worrell started taking fire after a man who had faced prior unrelated charges shot and killed a Spectrum News 13 journalist, a 9-year-old girl and another woman. Republicans cried foul that Worrell was too soft on the suspect, allowing him to roam free — even though the facts were much more complicated.

Well, cut to earlier this month, when another man shot two police officers, also after facing earlier charges of sexually assaulting a child. The man allegedly carried out the attack while out on bond.

These types of incidents are ripe for political ads when top elected prosecutors go before voters. But the Governor instead skipped right ahead and removed Worrell from her post. She has said she will continue to pursue her 2024 bid.

Republicans can easily make a case against Worrell being the right person to serve in the State Attorney role. In the past, those cases have been made during an election. This isn’t about whether she’s qualified, it’s about whether we want a Governor running around the state ruling by fiat. Would Republicans want a Democratic Governor to do the same?

And is this going to get worse the next three years if DeSantis is forced out of the 2024 presidential race?

Now, it’s on to our weekly game of winners and losers.

Winners

Honorable mention: Anna Paulina Luna. Republicans battling with the federal government isn’t anything new. Often, conservatives are griping about federal government overreach regarding regulation, taxes or, increasingly, law enforcement.

A new letter from Luna to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers hits on similar themes, as she is pushing for the Corps to stop pushing for perpetual easements on beachfront property in Pinellas County. But that letter also focuses on something a little less novel for her party: beach renourishment.

The Corps wants easements in certain areas before moving forward on beach renourishment projects in Sand Key, Long Key and Treasure Island. And the Corps is pushing for 100% participation before moving forward, citing federal law requiring such easements to work on private property.

Luna is crying foul on that requirement, asking the Corps to back off. While she’s pushing to protect property rights in the area, her letter is more focused on the environmental impacts should these renourishment projects fail to move forward.

“If Army Corps does nothing, our beaches will dissipate, and our homes will be susceptible to destruction,” Luna said.

“Our beaches are eroding before our eyes and many Florida communities are already suffering. We are living with washed-out beaches as we approach the most dangerous time of hurricane season.”

Kudos to Luna for stepping up for environmental concerns here, even if it’s not always trendy in conservative circles.

Almost (but not quite) the biggest winner: Andrew Bain. Bain got a big promotion when Gov. DeSantis decided to suspend State Attorney Worrell.

A member of the conservative Federalist Society, Bain moves up from being an Orange County judge to being the top prosecutor in the region.

“I started my legal career at this office,” said Bain, a former prosecutor as well. “My goals as State Attorney are to restore order and restore the faith in the law.”

We’re not fans of the way he got there. But nevertheless this is a step up for Bain and an opportunity to burnish his reputation. Even Worrell declined the opportunity to bash Bain following the news, recognizing this was the Governor’s decision.

“I know Andrew Bain personally, I think he’s a great guy,” she said. “I’m not going to, you know, take any hits against him. This is the work of the Governor.”

Bain has earned few fans among defense attorneys as a judge. According to the Orlando Sentinel, he ranked dead last among Orange County criminal judges, according to rankings from the Central Florida Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys.

His apparent favoring of the prosecuting side will surely be less of an issue in his new role.

“My goals as State Attorney are to restore order and restore the faith in the law, restore our public trust, restore our relationship with our fellow justice partners and law enforcement, and to create lasting relationships for local service agencies and nonprofits that are here to help serve our community,” he said.

The biggest winner: Jeff Roe. Thanks to yet more shake-ups within DeSantis’ presidential campaign (more on that later), it now looks like Roe has even more control over the Governor’s political operation.

With Generra Peck out as Campaign Manager and James Uthmeier in, a few other staff reshuffling moves caught our attention.

David Polyansky, is coming on as Deputy Campaign Manager. That’s in part to help DeSantis’ Iowa efforts, as Polyansky previously worked for U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa.

But Polyansky also comes over from working for Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting DeSantis, where Roe also serves as a strategist. Polyansky and Roe have worked together for years, and now a member of Roe’s orbit has a top role within the campaign operation proper. And given that the 35-year-old Uthmeier has zero experience running a campaign, Polyansky could have significant sway.

The campaign side had been aligned with Phil Cox and GP3, a firm also tied to Peck. With her getting a demotion and the aforementioned other moves, Roe’s sway is only increasing.

These moves allow Roe to exert influence over the entire DeSantis operation without having to come over from the super PAC himself. The question remains whether Roe or anyone else can reignite DeSantis’ bid, but Roe is looking like he’s going to cash in regardless.

Losers

Dishonorable mention: Carolina Amesty. The Orlando Sentinel published a deep dive into Amesty — a candidate who ran for a Florida House seat on her record as a businesswoman — by detailing several instances of Amesty failing to pay tens of thousands in taxes or other payments owed.

The outlet also called into question Amesty’s statements about Central Christian University, which she runs. “It operates out of a former church building that seemed nearly deserted during four visits by Sentinel reporters and had a broken window on their last visit in mid-July,” the Sentinel found.

“The university has not paid the 2022 property tax bill on its upscale Mediterranean-style house where Amesty lived and now owes Orange County more than $18,000 in taxes and late fees.”

In addition, the Sentinel found inconsistencies in the university’s tax documents, citing experts who said those reports do not fully account for money accumulated by the school. Some experts also questioned whether Central Christian violated its nonprofit status by hosting political events with Gov. DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence.

One would think, if the most serious allegations here aren’t clearly rebutted, that it would shatter Amesty’s credibility as a serious businessperson and drive her out of public life until she cleans things up.

After this piece was submitted, Amesty posted a lengthy thread seeking to question much of the Sentinel’s reporting. Some of her points were quibbles with the outlet’s framing, but others were direct refutations of the Sentinel’s facts. In addition, at least one source has said his words were misrepresented in the Sentinel’s piece.

She also said “CCU’s auditorium is available for public events” in response to questions about whether the school ran afoul of nonprofit rules.

But several of the larger points about delinquent payments and other activities by the school were not directly addressed in Amesty’s response.

Amesty did push back on the Sentinel’s mention of unpaid taxes on the home she lived in, pointing out it belonged to her parents and not Amesty herself. That’s a fair point from Amesty, and the Sentinel’s wording in that sentence — that Amesty “failed to ensure taxes were paid on the $1.3 million home she lived in” — is trickily worded.

Nevertheless, there are still multiple payments in the thousands mentioned in the piece where Amesty has yet to provide a full explanation for why those bills went unpaid. She also hasn’t answered all of the allegations about the school’s activities, such as why CCU bought a Keene’s Pointe home for Amesty and her parents to live in and attempted to designate it as an educational institution, thus exempting it from property taxes.

That request was denied.

Amesty, who represents parts of Central Florida, has allied with Gov. DeSantis in his war against The Walt Disney Co. That allegiance will likely help shield her from any serious repercussions from state Republicans, who are increasingly valuing adherence to culture war issues over anything else.

But we really don’t think it’s too much to ask that if you run for public office playing up your business bona fides, the least you could do is pay your bills on time.

Almost (but not quite) the biggest loser: Anthony Sabatini. “In a high school photo, Sabatini and a friend were pictured in blackface. In his freshman year of college, he was photographed in brownface.”

So says Sabatini’s Wikipedia entry. Though unlike the former state lawmaker and former (and likely future) losing congressional candidate, we know how to properly cite to the website.

Excellent reporting this week shows Sabatini appears to have plagiarized large portions of his honors thesis at the University of Florida (UF). That work put him on the path to graduating, attending UF law school and eventually gaining the ability to serve as a massive tool in the public sphere.

All of that could have been different had his adviser or other faculty caught Sabatini’s fraud (except for Sabatini being a massive tool, that likely was bound to happen anyway).

The Daily Beast walks through multiple, clear examples or Sabatini lifting passages entirely from other sources, including Wikipedia, without attribution. They are too lengthy to spend time repeating here, but boy are they obvious.

UF declined to comment on Sabatini’s specific case or whether anything would be done retroactively.

Sabatini is seeking to mount an insurgent GOP challenge to incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Daniel Webster. Sabatini already failed at a bid for an open seat last cycle. With a full-fledged plagiarism scandal now uncovered, it’s unlikely that a man so repulsive his own Florida House colleagues relegated him to an office in the basement will court enough support to oust a sitting GOP Congressman.

If so, he’ll likely have to be content with his current work: being an off-putting jerk on X, the site formerly known as Twitter. At least that will allow Sabatini to tap into his clear long-held love for writing (other people’s words).

The biggest loser: Peck. As DeSantis spent the last few weeks slowly shaking up his staff every few days — drawing out what should have otherwise been a swift, decisive staff slashing — many wondered whether Peck would ultimately need to fall on the sword as the Governor’s 2024 bid continues to sputter.

Sure enough, DeSantis unnecessarily drew out that decision as well. He decided this week to fire Peck as his Campaign Manager, prolonging yet again stories about campaign resets and disarray.

Uthmeier is moving out of the Governor’s Office, where he served as Chief of Staff, to join the campaign and replace Peck. Peck, meanwhile, will stay on as a chief strategist on the campaign.

But the move is a clear demotion and a failure for Peck, who was tasked with leading DeSantis to overtake Trump as the party’s standard-bearer. Instead, DeSantis has done nothing but nosedive in the polls since launching his campaign.

It is important to note, however, that DeSantis deserves the brunt of the blame here. However many people he fires, he’s the one who hired them in the first place, and blame for his campaign’s poor decision-making ultimately lies with him.

Peck was Campaign Manager for the Governor’s historically dominant re-election bid in 2022. So it shows both she and the Governor are capable of running an effective campaign under the right circumstances.

But national campaigns are obviously different than state-level bids. And both Peck and the Governor made two baffling mistakes that almost every other season political expert could have caught: They underestimated Trump’s hold over his base, and they also failed to bring any substantive plan to knock him off his perch.

Team DeSantis’ strategy has seemingly been to play nice with Trump voters — only criticizing the President when it’s in an effort to appeal to his rabid fan base (Trump wasn’t conservative enough!) — while privately hoping Trump would be taken out by legal troubles. Oh, and that’s all while publicly defending the former President regarding said legal troubles.

It’s a baffling and incredibly passive plan that has done nothing but see DeSantis’ poll numbers drop. Perhaps the plan will work in time. Perhaps he’ll win the next giant Mega Millions jackpot and can retire with Casey. But putting all your eggs in “maybes” over which you have no control is no way to run a political campaign.

If things shift under Uthmeier and lead to more success, he’ll get plenty of credit. If things stay the same, by and large, we’ll know who the real problem in this campaign really is.