A.G. Gancarski
In the case of legal disputes, it’s good to pick the Judges.
That’s what Gov. Ron DeSantis argues during an interview with friendly Mark Levin that airs Saturday on Fox News. DeSantis says his decision to suspend and replace Democratic State Attorneys Andrew Warren and Monique Worrell from office in the 13th and 9th Judicial Circuits, respectively, wouldn’t have happened if figures like federal Judge Jeb Boasberg were on the Florida Supreme Court.
“I removed them from their posts and they sued in the Florida Supreme Court and they lost in the Florida Supreme Court,” DeSantis said.
“If we were in a situation where you have people like this Boasberg and these liberal Justices, if they were the ones to pass judgment on my use of my constitutional executive authority, there is no way they would have upheld anything I was doing.”
DeSantis discussed being able to replace three Justices in his first month in office, which “transformed the court” from “4-to-3 liberal to 6-to-1 conservative.”
“And clearly I’m appointing people who understand the text history and structure of the Constitution. They’re not legislating from the bench, and they are going to apply the law as it’s written,” DeSantis said.
The Democratic State Attorneys were removed for “neglect of duty” in Warren’s case and “neglecting her duty to faithfully prosecute crime in her jurisdiction” in Worrell’s.
Warren lost his election to return to office in 2024, while Worrell won hers. Thus far, the Governor has allowed her to stay in place.
Potential suspension of noncompliant elected officials isn’t just limited to State Attorneys. In Fort Myers and Jacksonville, where there has been some dispute about immigration law, DeSantis and Attorney General James Uthmeier point to the state’s power to rein in subsidiary governments.
Even though DeSantis has largely benefited from picking Judges who agree with him in theory, it hasn’t always paid off in practice in the way he described to Levin.
DeSantis and Secretary of State Cord Byrd struck out when attempting to disqualify Rep. Debbie Mayfield from the Special Election for Senate District 19 to replace Sen. Randy Fine, who is a current candidate for Congress.
The high court rejected the executive branch’s argument that because Mayfield had served two full eight-year terms in the Senate that ended after the November 2024 election, she was ineligible to run.
The Justices ruled that Mayfield’s filing “met the statutory requirements” and that she had “a clear legal right to appear on the primary ballot.”
DeSantis also balked at the Supreme Court’s approval of 2024’s failed citizen initiative intended to rollback recent restrictions on the abortion.
“That was a 4-to-3 decision. My view is that the language is very confusing,” DeSantis told Sean Hannity last year.
DeSantis, who has suggested removing judgeships on the federal level as a way of dealing with inconvenient rulings like those from Boasberg, has complained at length about the U.S. Supreme Court as well.
He said earlier this month that a 5-4 SCOTUS decision siding with a lower court Judge objecting to Trump’s desire to stop USAID foreign aid was a “missed … huge opportunity to put a stop to rogue district courts interfering with executive branch operations.”
DeSantis has also complained about how the court isn’t far right enough for him.
“The three liberal Justices, they’re always going to be against no matter what. And then of the six others, you know, a lot of them aren’t reliable,” he said, citing Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito as exceptions.
DeSantis’ critiques have extended to all Trump appointees. The Governor went after Brett Kavanaugh, who, after his confirmation, opted to “go left,” and Neil Gorsuch, who DeSantis said was even worse.
He also included Amy Coney Barrett in the mix, telling Hugh Hewitt that while he respects “the three appointees he did … none of those three are at the same level” as Alito and Thomas.
DeSantis is also lukewarm on the Chief Justice, he said when running for President.
“If you replace a Clarence Thomas with somebody like a John Roberts or somebody like that, then you’re going to actually see the court move to the left, and you can’t do that,” DeSantis said.
As a presidential candidate, he said he expected the President this term to be able to replace up to four Justices and create a path to a “7-2” conservative majority.
23 comments
MH/Duuuval
March 28, 2025 at 9:22 am
Now, this is BOLD. Emrbracing the operationalism that resulted in a MAGA stacked state supreme court — just like the former GOP did on the federal level.
The three-legged stool of government now consists of two legs, which is how the decline of the US empire will accelerate.
JustBabs
March 30, 2025 at 9:54 am
Well said. What the MAGA Leaders tout as “winning” is a detriment to smooth and successful governing, for all Americans. The MAGA Party lacks empathy and forsight. Always. The collapse of American peace and prosperity.
Earl Pitts American
March 30, 2025 at 8:20 pm
Good evening Sage Patriots,
I, Earl Pitts American, thank Ron for “WEIGHING IN” on this “All Critical Issue. Sage Wisdom, Ron “THE RONALD DESANTIS” Sage Leader of The Great Free State of Fkorida.
The “Sage” Earl Pitts American
Ron Ogden
March 28, 2025 at 9:31 am
“. . .with inconvenient rulings. . .” Rulings like that of Boasberg are not merely inconvenient, they are tendentious, weakly reasoned and often destructive in their effects. DeSantis, a Harvard-educated lawyer who is on a path to becoming a legal scholar for the 21st Century, is absolutely right in decrying the kind of judicial activism that has become so common recently on the federal bench. Our Constitution does NOT call for the existence of these federal district courts; the Congress created them as a convenience (lawyers, for you), and as is the case in so many things made for the sake of convenience, they are rapidly getting away from being a benefit and becoming a burden on the governance of the kind of coherent, thoughtful society that all people of good will desire.
PeterH
March 28, 2025 at 10:04 am
LOL
MH/Duuuval
March 28, 2025 at 10:21 am
Make mine belly laughs — Ron is a legal dabbler.
The federal courts power of oversight stems from a Supreme Court decision, Marbury v Madison, which can be seen as a slender reed except for two hundred years of doing things this way.
It’s a three-legged stool, and MAGAs are looking to capture all three legs, even if it means amputating one leg.
Ocean Joe
March 28, 2025 at 7:52 pm
As for judicial activism, you guys had no problem with Gore v. Bush, as I recall. And that Martha’s Vineyard stunt was hardly the act of a legal scholar that a thoughtful society of people of good will desire.
Access to the courts is required as a part of due process, which is in the constitution under the 5th amendment, and the district or trial level courts provide that. Not sure how the court system would function for a country of 330 million without them, unless abolition of the courts is the point.
KathrynA
March 30, 2025 at 3:01 pm
It appears DeSantis is totally wrong and the rule of law is followed less by the very far right, conservative judges. I think there are many good conservative judges, but not those who tilt way to the Maga side of things.
Larry Gillis, Director-at-Large, Libertarian Party of Florida
March 28, 2025 at 9:49 am
PARTHENOGENISIS* WOULD BE BEST OF ALL.
There is no elegant way to appoint justices to any Supreme Court. I suppose the “retention” approach is the best choice among a miserable lot.
Vote Libertarian. We promise to appoint judges who won’t start drinking until 5:00 PM and who will accept Bitcoin when being bribed. (LOL. Cut me some slack, Bro)
* “Virgin birth”, as with Mary and You-know-who.
PeterH
March 28, 2025 at 10:26 am
Big sell off on Wall Street this morning! All this winning is taking my breath away!
Peachy
March 28, 2025 at 10:52 am
The world is coming to an end and it’s all Orange Man’s fault. 🤣
Ocean Joe
March 28, 2025 at 7:21 pm
What’s going on in the market is definitely his fault. You gave him credit for the run up after the election, right? But even if you didnt knee jerk support whatever nonsense comes to his mind and gets spouted out, the tariff game he’s playing most certainly is causing uncertainty, and begging for a recession.
MH/Duuuval
March 29, 2025 at 2:24 pm
Peachy can’t help himself. He’s invested in a future autocracy in which he imagines he’ll have access.
It's Complicated
March 28, 2025 at 11:04 am
Take the personalities out of the calculus – the Mayfield v Byrd case was the right decision. Mayfield had been elected to and sworn into the FL House after terming out of the FL Senate. The “eight is enough” amendment has, since its adoption, always been interpreted to apply as ‘eight consecutive years’ to members of the FL House and FL Senate, with a fudge factor of up to 10-years due to redistricting.
It's Complicated
March 28, 2025 at 11:17 am
In the history of retention voting for the Florida Supreme Court, voters have chosen to NOT retain only one Justice, who was appointed by Governor Claude Kirk (R), in the 1960s. Kirk was a one-term anomaly at the time as Florida was then thoroughly Democratic, and no surprise voters tossed out his pick for the court a year later. Which begs the question, “Does retention voting for appointed judges actually work?”
MH/Duuuval
March 29, 2025 at 10:20 am
The exception you pointed to “tests,” or proves, the proposition that the retention process usually results in favorable returns for sitting judges in Florida. (William James said it first: Exceptions prove or “test” a rules validity.)
Skeptic
March 28, 2025 at 11:35 am
It’s good to have unelected politicians in robes enable the disenfranchisement of voters, no? Why not just get rid of the elections and let the executive appoint the prosecutors as well as the judges? Save the pretense that your vote matters.
It's Complicated
March 28, 2025 at 2:01 pm
Votes do matter. It’s just that retention votes for judges have not been effective in removing problematic judges – from either end of the spectrum, largely because the public generally does not pay much attention to what judges do. Much of what judges do is in the weeds from the public’s perspective, too. Even with organizations across the idealogical spectrum putting judicial races on their voter guides, it has not impacted these retention votes, with a 20+% voter drop-off from the top of the ballot to those retention races.
I was a kid when the lone “no” retention vote occurred in 1969 (Justice Wade Hopping), and have not seen a history of what occurred to lead to that ouster. My guess is the media was a part of it, and likely the Democratic Party vote cards handed to voters had it as a “vote no” ballot item. Be interesting to hear from someone who is old enough to remember.
MH/Duuuval
March 29, 2025 at 10:22 am
You must be older than you purport to be if you can remember Democratic Party vote cards.
tom palmer
March 29, 2025 at 1:40 pm
I wonder if he realizes how pathetic he sounds.
KathrynA
March 30, 2025 at 3:02 pm
Never!
SuzyQ
March 29, 2025 at 4:09 pm
Of course, that’s what elitists and Democrat plutocrats do.
woke up
March 30, 2025 at 11:17 am
For the life of me, I can’t imagine why Rona DeSatan is often on Fix Entertainment TV flapping his gums about inappropriate attacks on those with whom he disagrees except for his obsession with becoming POTUS. Sadly, he doesn’t seem to realize that he will NEVER be President. What a pathetic loser!