Q&A of the Day – Florida’s Move to Change the Resign to Run Law for DeSantis
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
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Today’s Entry: IMAGINE THE SCREAMING HEADLINES EVERYWHERE - CHANGING STATE LAW FOR ONE MAN'S PERSONAL POLITICAL AMBITIONS. BAD MOVE... BENT-LEFT MEDIA SALIVATING
Bottom Line: Today’s note is one of several I’ve received since late last week when two big pieces of news specific to the potential presidential aspirations of Governor DeSantis came public. The first was the news that Governor DeSantis was releasing a memoir in February. As a I mentioned in my Top Three Takeaways at the time... Fox News Digital was the first to report that Governor DeSantis will be releasing a personal memoir on February 28th. Personal memoirs being published aren’t at all unusual with notable figures. Personal memoirs published by 44-year-olds are much more so. Personal memoirs published by a 44-year-old who will just be starting a second term as governor would qualify as highly unusual (as in it probably has never happened before). And then there’s the title and the premise. The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival. Now maybe DeSantis is hoping that Americans will read it and decide to implement the blueprint themselves. Possible. Maybe it’s that he intends to illustrate what he intends to run on as a platform for president. At this point that feels probable. But the related news flow didn’t stop there.
There had been a somewhat poorly kept secret that the legislature was considering tweaking state law to pave the path for a presidential run without any ambiguity. And with advanced planning for next year’s state legislative session entering its final stages, the proposed legislation, and the principles behind crafting it, most notably incoming Florida House Speaker Paul Renner, came public. In an interview Renner said it was a “great idea” to review and revise the law. And with that, along with a Republican super majority in the state legislature, it’s evident there will be legislation advanced which would clean up Florida’s law allowing Governor DeSantis a presidential run, without first having to resign as governor. Now, enter the critics and concerns a la today’s note. To the point of the concern of the listener who offered his thoughts of this proposed change in Florida law, it's not just news around Florida, or even national news, it’s already international news. That speaks to the stature of DeSantis already as he’s yet to even begin his second term as governor. And I’ll share my thoughts as well but first to discuss what Florida’s current law is and how we got here.
Florida’s tweaked the state’s “Resign-to-Run" law twice over the past 15 years because this isn’t the first time the legislature has paid deference to a governor’s potential future political ambitions. In 2007, when then Governor Charlie Crist, was known to have been a potential running mate for 2008 Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain, the state tweaked the law to allow for Crist to accept that invitation (which never came) without resigning. Then in 2018, Crist’s successor, Governor Rick Scott, signed into law the current incarnation of the state’s law which states, state office holders must provide resignations to their current offices to run for federal office at least ten days before qualifying to run and that the resignations would be effective on the date that the federal office holder for that post would assume office. In other words, win or lose, under current Florida law, Governor DeSantis would have to submit his resignation ten days before filing federal paperwork and would no longer be Florida’s governor as of January 20th, 2025 – nearly two full years prior to the term he was just reelected to would come to a close. That obviously raises the stakes super high for both Floridians and America’s Governor and would perhaps be enough of a disincentive for DeSantis not to run for president even if he were desirous of doing so, facing what would likely be a primary fight with Trump with as much or more uncertainty to the outcome as a general election campaign. Just imagine the incredible fall from grace if DeSantis were to go from winning a record election in Florida to losing a presidential primary for president followed by a resignation as governor. The logic to change the law is there for sure. So, about the potential political fallout of the state’s newly elected super majority of Republicans changing state law to bend it in favor of DeSantis’ potential political ambitions.
I’m not at all a buyer that in the court of public opinion it matters at all. Yes, I do believe at some point the sharp knives will come out from the press at DeSantis over this should the law be changed to allow for a risk-free (aside from political capitol) DeSantis run. No, I don’t think there’s a chance in hades that a single potential presidential voter, especially across the country, would give a rip about Florida tweaking its state law to potentially make this easier for him. There are a number of ways I could illustrate the point, but I’ll choose just one. Words of wisdom from the late-great Rush Limbaugh. The only way the media can destroy a candidate is if they made the candidate. The point being that if a political candidate comes to prominence largely because they were propped up by the press in the first place, Biden’s a pretty good example of this, the press can take them out if they turn on them as well. If a candidate comes to prominence because of their bond with voters, there’s nothing the press can do to impede that relationship. Only the candidate who won the trust of their supporters can break that bond. As I mentioned last week, Governor DeSantis has the highest net favorability rating of any national political figure by far. He never had the news media on his side, the endlessly attempted efforts to destroy him based on his bold leadership during the peak of the pandemic and failed so wildly that DeSantis won a gubernatorial race by the largest margin of any Republican in Florida since 1868.
With that in mind, there’s not one thing the GSS news media can do to hurt DeSantis in the eyes of his supporters. And is this policy really the thing that would do it? How many people cared when it happened for Crist in 2007? Expect more of the same this time, regardless of if you think it’s good policy which you’re entitled to your opinion on. As an aside, only a few other states have resign-to-run laws in place. So, if the state outright abolished it, it’d hard to argue the other side of it from a point of intellectual consistency.