DeSantis looks to appeal in a friendlier court

GOP-appointed judges would get school-mask case

From the minute Leon County Circuit Judge John J. Cooper announced his decision upholding the right of school districts to mandate masks for students, an appeal seemed to be inevitable.

Gov. Ron DeSantis is standing by his position that those mandates violate the state’s Parents’ Bill of Rights, and he’s confident that higher courts will see things his way and restore his ban on mandates. “We’ll end up getting it back,” he said.

On the surface, the politics are on his side. Democrats make up a majority of mask-mandate supporters, but the judges that will rule on any appeal are all Republican.

Party politics is not supposed to matter. The state’s code of judicial conduct requires those on the bench to make decisions without allowing politics to interfere: “A judge shall be faithful to the law and maintain professional competence in it. A judge shall not be swayed by partisan interests, public clamor, or fear of criticism.”

And sometimes, the rulings defy easy political predictions — there’s no guarantee that a Republican appointee will back a Republican governor’s argument, as officials found out in Palm Beach County earlier this year.

At the Fourth District Court of Appeal, Judge

Alan Forst, a Rick Scott appointee, wrote an opinion in February upholding mask mandates, finding that there is no “right to be left alone and free from governmental intrusion” in the Florida Constitution.

Still, DeSantis is banking on the idea of a friendlier audience in higher courts than he received in front of Judge Cooper.

A challenge to a ruling from a case in Leon County would go to North Florida’s First District Court of Appeal, which comprises 15 members. Three were appointed by DeSantis, two by Charlie Crist when he served as a Republican, and two by former Gov. Jeb Bush. A majority, eight of the 15, were appointed by Rick Scott, now one of Florida’s two U.S. senators.

Appeals court and state supreme court judges are appointed by the governor, and a Republican has sat in the governor’s chair since Jeb Bush took office in 1999.

Kevin Tynan, a former chair of Broward’s Republican Party and a former member of the county’s judicial nominating commission, said a process that requires a governor’s appointment is inherently political. “Whoever gets appointed fits what that particular governor is looking for on the bench,” he said. Still, it’s not uncommon for a Democrat to get appointed to the county or circuit bench by a Republican governor.

Democrats at the local level have an opportunity appellate judges don’t: They can run for office instead of waiting to be tapped by the governor. In Broward, Democrats are more likely to run for office than to seek appointment, Tynan said.

In Leon County, which is politically bluer than its surroundings, Cooper rose to the bench in 2002 by election. He has not disclosed his party affiliation.