Federal judge recuses himself from felon voting rights case
The federal judge overseeing a legal challenge to the new Florida law restricting how felons regain their voting rights recused himself from the case — and said Broward Supervisor of Elections Peter Antonacci’s conduct in the matter is “deeply troubling.”
Antonacci, through his spokesman, said he didn’t do anything improper.
The case is a multi-plaintiff challenge to the new Florida election law that implements Amendment 4, which voters added to the Florida Constitution last fall. The amendment is designed to restore voting rights to most ex-felons, but the Legislature and governor implemented requirements this year that former felons also must pay a range of financial penalties before they can register to vote.
The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Florida, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law filed a federal lawsuit on half of 10 felons, the NAACP and the League of Women Voters of Florida.
The plaintiffs filed the case in Gainesville, a choice that assured that the case would go to U.S. District Mark Walker, a Tallahassee-based judge who has consistently ruled against restrictive state election laws and frequently ruled in favor of challenges to Florida election laws. In a different case, he’d ruled that Florida’s previous, cumbersome voting rights restoration process for felons was unconstitutional.
But Walker won’t be hearing the current case, as he explained Wednesday in a brief order.
He cited Antonacci, one of the state’s 67 election supervisors. “Defendant Peter Antonacci has hired George Meros of Holland & Knight LLP as counsel,” Walker wrote. “The undersigned’s wife is a partner at that firm. The undersigned hereby disqualifies himself.” Walker is “the undersigned.”
The judge suggested the hiring was done intentionally to causes his removal, and he wrote that the “conduct at issue is deeply troubling.”
Meros filed a notice with the court on Tuesday that he was serving as an attorney for Antonacci and for Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee, who is responsible for overseeing elections at the state level. Court records show both Lee and Antonacci already had attorneys.
Sarah Revell, spokeswoman for Lee, didn’t have any comment Wednesday afternoon.
Steve Vancore, spokesman for Antonacci, said Meros was hired last week, but it wasn’t a ploy to get Walker to recuse himself.
“George Meros has been retained by this office because Mr. Antonacci has known and worked with him since 1997. As his former law partner and he knows his expertise in this area of law very well. With this professional competence and for that reason he has been retained,” Vancore said by email.
Antonacci was appointed supervisor of elections last year by former Gov. Rick Scott, to replace Brenda Snipes. After the controversy-plagued 2018 election, Snipes announced her resignation. Scott suspended her before her resignation could take effect and installed Antonacci. (After Gov. Ron DeSantis took office this year, he and Snipes reached a settlement under which he rescinded the suspension and allowed her to resign. Antonacci remained as supervisor.)
Antonacci was closely associated with the former governor. Antonacci served as the stop lawyer in Scott’s office, and the former governor appointed him to serve as Palm Beach County’s state attorney, South Florida Water Management District executive director and CEO of the Enterprise Florida economic development agency.
He also used to work for a Democrat, former Broward sheriff and former Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth, who held the Bible used at Antonacci’s swearing-in as county elections supervisor.
The constitutional amendment ordered restoration of rights “upon completion of all terms of sentence including parole or probation.” But the state law that went into effect July 1 — the law that’s being challenged in federal court — defines “all terms of sentence” in a way that includes payment of all fines,
fees and victim restitution.
Democrats and civilrights activists argue that the Republican-passed rules are an attempt to disenfranchise voters and amount to a poll tax.
Poll taxes, used to restrict voting, were a fixture of the South during the Jim Crow era when states enforced racial segregation. Poll taxes were banned by the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in the 1960s.
Republicans have said they’re honoring what voters approved in November. And they point to arguments made by champions of the voting amendment before the election, when they were seeking Florida Supreme Court approval for the amendment language, acknowledging it would include payment of financial obligations. The lawsuit challenging the law said it “unconstitutionally denies the right to vote to returning citizens with a past felony conviction based solely on their inability to pay outstanding fines, fees, or restitution.”