Jacob Ogles
Florida State University’s Election Law Center now has a place in state statute, even if it didn’t receive full funding.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed legislation (SB 892) formally establishing the Center, which has existed since 2023 at the Tallahassee campus. Sen. Corey Simon, a Tallahassee Republican, spoke to the Senate Higher Education Appropriations Committee in April and explained the law’s impact.
“This bill builds on the accomplishments by enabling the Center to remain in existence and be eligible to receive recurring funds to continue its important work,” Simon said at the time.
But while the Senate OK’d the legislation, it did not approve $950,000 that the House Higher Education Budget Subcommittee wanted to include in the state budget.
This year, the Center hosted an anniversary looking back 25 years at the famous Bush v. Gore legal fight over Florida’s electoral votes in the 2000 Presidential Election.
In committee, Michael Morley, a professor at the Center, stressed that the work of the Center has always avoided taking political sides. “We’re nonpartisan, evidence based, objective,” he said.
Sen. Tracie Davis, a Jacksonville Democrat, questioned at the time whether the Center could ever become involved with issues like redistricting. Morley said the Center wasn’t around in the last process but could foreseeably bring in speakers or hold events looking at that process. But the Center has always been a public service, not a tool of the Legislature, he stressed.
The legislation does authorize the hiring of faculty, development of further courses and authorizing hosting more events.
The Center remains part of the FSU College of Law. It will study a range of legal issues around election law, including redistricting, election administration, voting rights, election integrity, cybersecurity and Florida Statutes specifically addressing elections.
The measure also expands areas that can be studied to include historical, empirical and comparative studies of specified topics, as well as philosophical and theoretical discussions on democracy, democratic theory and republicanism.
