Meeting devolves into campaign clash
DeSantis and Fried spar over police, local control, environment appointee
TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis and Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried clashed over local control of police budgets and DeSantis’ appointment power Tuesday, during the first Cabinet meeting since Fried announced she is running for the Democratic nomination to replace DeSantis in 2022.
The only statewide elected Democrat in Florida, Fried has been a consistent critic of DeSantis, but only made her gubernatorial run official on June 1.
At the meeting in Tallahassee, Fried asked DeSantis when he would appoint a new Secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection. DEP deputy secretary Shawn Hamilton took over as interim leader of the agency on June 4, when Noah Valenstein left the office.
“Well it’s an executive appointment and so that’s our prerogative, and we’ll do it when we want to and we’ll let folks know about it,” DeSantis replied.
“Except, Governor, it has to go through the approval or denial through the Cabinet,” Fried responded.
DeSantis then cited a portion of the state constitution that allows for Cabinet-level appointments to be approved by the Cabinet or confirmed by the Senate, and indicated he could bypass the Cabinet approval process in naming Valenstein’s replacement.
“My sense would be the Legislature would retain their authority rather than give the Cabinet authority, so that’ll be a live issue potentially if we end up with a conflict,” DeSantis said, then moved on with the rest of the meeting.
The Senate, though, hasn’t retained that authority. Every DEP Secretary has been approved by the Cabinet, including Valenstein. He was approved unanimously by the Cabinet in 2017, was
first appointed by then-Gov. Rick Scott in 2017, and then again in 2019 when DeSantis reappointed him after taking office himself.
A DeSantis spokeswoman pointed to Art. IV, sect. 6(a) of the constitution, which states “when provided by law, confirmation by the senate or the approval of three members of the cabinet shall be required for appointment to or removal from any designated statutory office.”
State law, however, specifically says the DEP secretary “shall be appointed by the Governor, with the concurrence of three members of the Cabinet.”
Fried is the only Democrat on the Cabinet, which includes Attorney General Ashley Moody and Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis.
The spokeswoman did not respond to a follow-up email asking why DeSantis would bypass the Cabinet for this DEP appointment, when he didn’t previously.
Later in the meeting, Fried objected to a proposed rule to allow local sheriffs to protest a decision by a county government to cut their budgets. A provision of HB 1, the anti-riot bill signed into law by DeSantis earlier this year, paves the way for that process.
Fried said DeSantis was being “hypocritical,” citing a 2018 statement of his bemoaning rejecting “the idea that government bureaucrats in a faraway capital could plan our lives better than we could plan them ourselves.”
DeSantis pushed back on the criticism, noting that the calls to “defund the police,” which inspired that part of the anti-riot bill, didn’t begin until the Black Lives Matter protests gained traction last summer after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.
“I don’t know what the context of 2018 was, I don’t remember people talking about defunding the police,” DeSantis said. “It’s a very live issue in our society unfortunately, and I think folks in Florida should rest assured that at the state level we’re going to do everything we can to make sure that you’re protected and to make sure that we stand behind the men and women of law enforcement.”
Besides Fried, the only other major candidate in the Democratic primary so far is U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist, who served as Governor from 2007 to 2011 as a Republican before switching parties.