Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) had a brief period in which right-wing punditry celebrated Florida’s relatively low Covid-19 infection rate earlier this year. Then, tragically, his state leapt to the top of the infection lists, and his refusal to follow expert advice, and the possibility that numbers were being manipulated, exposed him as another Republican incompetent, despite his Harvard Law School degree.
But he’s not letting that stop him from trying to prop up his political patron, President Trump. Florida is easily one of the most competitive States this cycle, as it is often is, and with the black community an anchor for the Biden campaign, Republicans are frantic to split it. One tactic is the attempt to put rapper Republican Kanye West on the ballot in a number of states. But another is DeSantis’ nomination of immigrant Jamaican American Judge Renatha Francis to the Florida Supreme Court, which would make her the only black immigrant woman on the Court. There’s only one little problem with his nomination, which is part of the ploy:
The court ruled on Aug. 27 that Francis is not qualified because she has not been a member of the Florida Bar for 10 years, a constitutional requirement, and concluded that the governor violated the Constitution by attempting to prospectively appoint someone who was not eligible to hold the job. Francis will not have been a member of the Florida Bar for 10 years until Sept. 24 and only then is she eligible to serve on the state’s highest court. He appointed her on May 26. [Miami Herald]
So will DeSantis appoint someone else from the list of judges he’s constrained to select from, a list that mysteriously and improperly had Francis’ name on it?
The high stakes legal battle continued into this week as the court gave the governor until Wednesday to answer why it should not order him to immediately appoint someone who was qualified. The governor had asked the court to reconsider the ruling but the court rejected that request and, in a unanimous ruling late Tuesday, said that the petitioner, state Rep. Geraldine Thompson, could amend her lawsuit to recommend a remedy for the governor to choose another candidate.
Rep Thompson may have saved the State from costly embarrassment. Suppose Francis had been made a Supreme Court Justice, began participating in decisions – and then someone else sued, citing Francis’ ineligibility, when a decision went the wrong way?
What happens to those decisions?
What happens to Judge Francis? Is this a sophisticated attempt to oust her from her current position?
But Thompson, herself Black, has put her fellow Black Democrat community leaders in a bind, because they badly want that seat:
Francis, who is Black, also attended [DeSantis’ tiz-fit], surrounded by Black legislators and local elected officials from Broward County, most of them Democrats. They used the event to urge Thompson, of Windemere, to withdraw the lawsuit.
“Given the current setup of the court’s position, we risk losing the chance to have a Black justice on the Supreme Court,’’ said state Rep. Dotie Joseph, a North Miami Democrat and a lawyer. “Please drop this lawsuit. And instead, direct our energies on bringing forth real reform on things that we can agree on, like criminal justice reform in light of the Black Lives Matter movement.“
No, no, no! I sympathize with their position, but they shouldn’t be advocating for breaking the law. At this point, DeSantis is holding a hammer and these leaders need to decide which finger they least want to keep, because he’s going to crush one of them.
I suggest they stop urging Thompson to withdraw her suit and accept that Judge Francis is not yet qualified for the Florida Supreme Court. In the face of dubious Republican behaviors, having a reputation for being law-abiding is not a bad rep at all. Communicate to the community members the importance of following the law, and to remember, when entering the ballot booth, that it was DeSantis that tried to lure the Black Democrats into committing a crime, and not allow that to split the community.
And then, in 2022, go out and win the gubernatorial election. Elections have consequences, and this is one of them. Stop barking for an illegal position and remember that DeSantis is Trump’s closest political ally, and thus, by Clyburn’s Dictum, no friend to the Black community. And don’t let this carrot, this poisoned apple, this ploy, lure people into voting Trump just because they didn’t get their Judge onto the Supreme Court. It would be only a symbolic victory, and this nation cannot stand another symbolic victory.
