The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, has been accused of hypocrisy over his rush to fill Republican House seats vacated by Donald Trump’s cabinet picks, as he had previously kept voters in a Democratic-held district waiting for more than nine months.
Critics say his scheduling of 28 January primaries in solid Republican districts held by the former congressman Matt Gaetz, who resigned during his ill-fated nomination for attorney general, and Mike Waltz, Trump’s pick for national security adviser, is a hasty political move designed purely to bolster speaker Mike Johnson’s fragile House majority as soon as possible.
In Waltz’s case, the primary ahead of a special election that will be held on 1 April is only eight days after his resignation takes effect.
DeSantis’s haste to fix those dates contrasts sharply with his lethargy following the death of the congressman Alcee Hastings in April 2021 that further reduced Democrats’ single-digit House majority. He did not set the primary for Florida’s 20th congressional district for seven months, and stalled the special election until January 2022, a full 280 days after Hastings died.
“Of course there’s hypocrisy. Ron DeSantis deprived residents in Broward county of representation in the US Congress and made them wait nine months,” said Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic party and member of DeSantis’s cabinet until 2023 as the most recent Democrat to win a statewide election.
“Now, with the slimmest of majorities that any party has ever held since the 50-state creation of the US, they are rushing to get these elections held because with these two seats open, it creates an even smaller majority for the Republicans in Congress.”
Fried said DeSantis’s hurried approach is also detrimental to citizens who had hoped to vote by mail. A controversial law the governor signed in 2021 to reduce mail-in ballots requires voters to renew their registration every election cycle, instead of every four years, and Fried said many will be unaware their existing approvals will expire on 31 December.
“Because it is so early and he did it so fast, we’re going to have a problem,” she said.
“Come the end of the year, every single resident in our state who has a vote by mail ballot will have to re-enlist for it, so there is going to be a significant disadvantage to the residents of these two congressional districts. Will they be reminded they have to re-register and will their ballots arrive fast enough, in time to participate?”
DeSantis’s office did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.
Analysts of Florida politics, meanwhile, say DeSantis’s maneuvering is nothing out of the ordinary.
“Throughout his tenure in office, to an extent during his first term but in particular after his re-election, he has really been a governor who has pushed the limits of his constitutional authority and power to try to promote both conservative policy priorities and also the fortunes of the Republican party more generally,” said Nicholas Seabrook, chair of the University of North Florida’s department of political science and public administration.
“He scheduled these elections essentially as soon as was possible under Florida law, so it’s hard not to look at that and conclude that, particularly given that the overall House majority was fairly narrow in both instances, a narrow Democratic majority coming out of the 2020 election, and an even narrower GOP majority coming out of 2024, that there’s an element of politics in the situation.
“With Republicans planning a fairly ambitious legislative agenda for the beginning of the Trump administration, it would be a real dent in their ability to get anything done in the House if those seats are not filled quickly.”
Seabrook said DeSantis also appeared to be working for his own personal advantage, helping to re-establish himself on the national political stage after the embarrassment of his failed pursuit of the Republican 2024 presidential nomination.
“He certainly seems to be committed to the agenda he has set out for himself [but] in Florida, a lot of us wondered what was next for Ron DeSantis,” he said.
“He’s term-limited as governor, and it didn’t look like there was any real prospect of another national office opening up, then suddenly there’s two possible avenues. He could potentially run for Marco Rubio’s Senate seat if Rubio gets confirmed as secretary of state, or could potentially become Donald Trump’s defense secretary. So it does seem that things always work out for him.
“The defense secretary job would be potentially a more attractive one as a vehicle to position himself for a presidential bid [in 2028] than running from the Senate. Being a prominent member of the Trump administration, and hopefully not getting into too much hot water and ending up getting himself fired, can be a springboard.”
Fried, too, thinks DeSantis would probably prefer a role in Trump’s cabinet, and be able to utilize his pick to fill Rubio’s Senate seat for further political capital, perhaps with Lara Trump, the president-elect’s daughter-in-law and co-chair of the Republican National Committee.
“If he’s going to be nominated for secretary of defense it’s because a deal was cut,” she said.
“This is not about qualifications, this is not about who’s best to serve this state or country. This is about a quid pro quo between Trump and DeSantis that if in fact DeSantis is nominated it’s because Lara Trump will be the next US senator from the state of Florida.”
