Andrew Warren accidentally lists endorser who didn’t endorse, a seemingly honest error that’s opened a can of worms

Image via Andrew Warren.

Andrew Warren, the former Hillsborough County State Attorney whom Gov. Ron DeSantis removed from office in a game of politics, is now running to get his old job back, and he’s got a bunch of people supporting him in the process.

But is Warren, a lawyer who absolutely understands the law, following the rules when it comes to gathering endorsements?

Maybe he is, but we don’t know. He could have told us, but he didn’t.

Here’s the background.

Earlier this week, Florida Politics received a tip from a reliable source claiming that one of Warren’s endorsers, Hillsborough County Tax Collector Nancy Millan, hadn’t actually endorsed him.

Janelle Irwin Taylor, our previous editor who is now spearheading a sister publication of Florida Politics called Southeast Politics, started looking into it. She didn’t hear directly from Millan, but a source in Millan’s orbit confirmed that the endorsement hadn’t been made, and that Millan was hoping to avoid a fuss over it. The matter, Taylor was told, was being handled amicably and was a simple misunderstanding.

And Warren’s campaign initially responded, offering this canned statement:

“The duly-elected State Attorney is focused on making Hillsborough County safer and returning to the office the people have twice elected him to hold. Among more than 40 endorsements from local and state leaders, his campaign staff overlooked this. Our apologies to Ms. Millan for an honest mistake.”

Fantastic. We love to see simple oversight corrected and handled to everyone’s satisfaction. And Millan is no longer listed as an endorser on Warren’s campaign website. Problem solved!

But while I’m glad to see this chapter end well, it kind of opened a whole new one, and one that the Warren campaign seems bent on skirting: Florida law requires candidates for elected office to gather written permission from people before publicly announcing them as endorsers

Florida Statute 106.143 explains that “it is unlawful for any candidate or person on behalf of a candidate to represent that any person or organization supports such a candidate, unless the person or organization so represented has given specific approval in writing to the candidate to make such representation.” There are a couple of exceptions for newspaper editorials and other media circumstances, but they don’t apply here.

This is important because, had Warren’s campaign obtained written approval from Millan of her endorsement, this little oversight would not have occurred. So it begs the question, if he didn’t get it for her, did he get it from anyone?

A look at Warren’s endorsers suggests those listed probably are on board. The list is a bunch of Democrats and left-leaning organizations that, especially considering the Republican Governor’s snub, are likely to support Warren’s stab at getting his job back.

But Taylor directly asked for the written permission from those endorsers. She asked for documentation on Tuesday evening. On Wednesday morning, she again emailed asking again and providing a 1 p.m. deadline on Wednesday. By 12:30 p.m. on Thursday, the campaign had not only not provided the documentation, they hadn’t responded at all.

Given the more than 24 hours the campaign had to respond, even if they hadn’t initially gotten the written permission, it seems like they could have scurried about and gotten it after the fact.

But the bottom line is, ignoring a media request asking for statutorily required documentation is, in fact, a big deal — especially for someone running for a position that deals in the law.

Warren, as his campaign’s statement pointed out, was duly elected to the office of State Attorney for the 13th Judicial Circuit. And his removal was controversial, to say the very least. There are a lot of eyes on this race as he campaigns for another shot, and the chance to snub DeSantis in the process.

Let us not forget that the whole reason DeSantis removed Warren from office (even though a Judge declared it unconstitutional) was because the Governor felt Warren was not upholding the laws of this state. He cited Warren’s pledge, among others, not to pursue abortion-related offenses against defendants.

Now Warren finds himself in a situation where even if he did follow the law on obtaining written permission from endorsers before announcing them, he’s sure making it look like he didn’t.

So let this now serve as a public call to Warren to prove he’s following the law. Where’s the written permission, sir?