DeSantis could have chance to fill commission seats

Commissioners looking to replace Hastings will need to resign posts to run for Congress

The longstanding goal of two Broward County commissioners to succeed the late U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings will give Gov. Ron DeSantis the opportunity to place two Republicans on the county commission.

Currently, all nine commissioners in the overwhelmingly Democratic county are Democrats.

But commissioners Dale Holness and Barbara Sharief want to replace Hastings, who died Tuesday. Sharief formally announced her candidacy months ago. Holness hasn’t officially done so, but he’s been informally running for months as well.

If Palm Beach County Commissioner Mack Bernard runs for Congress, the same thing would happen there. Six of the seven Palm Beach County commissioners are Democrats.

Under Florida’s resign to run law, the county commissioners would have to submit resignations to run for Congress, said Mark Herron, a Tallahassee attorney who practices election law. The resignations are irrevocable.

And once the county commission offices are vacant, DeSantis gets to pick the replacements.

The resign to run law complicates the calculation for several state senators and representatives who are considering whether to run. The lawmakers would have to resign to run for Congress, although the governor would not fill their positions. State legislative vacancies are filled in their own special elections.

Timing

The timing is unknown. Florida law gives DeSantis the discretion to set the special primary election and special general election to replace Hastings whenever he wants.

Under a Division of Elections schedule cited by Herron, it can take about five

months from the time the governor calls a special election and the time it actually takes place. State and federal laws, such as the timeframe for mailing ballots to military voters, lengthen the timetable.

When state Sen. Jeff Clemens, a Palm Beach County Democrat, resigned in October 2017, then-Gov. Rick Scott set the election schedule about two weeks later. But the special election wasn’t held until April 10, 2018 — a month after the legislature finished its annual session.

And DeSantis doesn’t have an incentive to move quickly.

The district Hastings represented until his April 6 death is overwhelmingly Democratic, and a Democrat is virtually guaranteed to replace him. So keeping the seat unfilled makes life somewhat more complicated for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose party has a slim majority.

“The expectation is that the governor is going to drag that out as long as he can,” said Sean Phillippi, a Broward-based Democratic campaign consultant and data scientist.

STOCKER / SOUTH FLORIDA SUN SENTINEL SUSAN When Broward County Commissioner Dale Holness, left, officially becomes a candidate for the late U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings’ seat, he’ll have to submit his resignation. The Democratic commissioner’s replacement will be picked by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, right.