Broward weighs legal action against Scott over Snipes suspension
Gov. Rick Scott’s suspension of Broward Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes stirred up the county’s already stormy political waters Tuesday, with commissioners considering taking him to court and state senators saying the Senate may not agree to her removal from office.
“This is about protecting the people of Broward County to ensure that when they elect someone, that person is not drawn out of office when they didn’t commit any crime,” Commissioner Dale Holness said. “He had no need to do this. She had already put her resignation in based on all the noise that was being made. This is really cruel. It is ruthless.”
Scott’s order said Snipes did break the law in 2017
when she prematurely destroyed ballots in a Congressional race. Among other items, he also listed her missing a recount deadline in November by two minutes, her office’s misplacing of more than 2,000 ballots during the state-mandated recount and the opening and counting of 205 provisional ballots before they had been presented to the county’s Canvassing Board to determine whether they were valid.
Commissioners directed County Attorney Drew Meyers to research the issues surrounding the suspension and report back next week about what legal actions are available to the county.
Meyers said a crime doesn’t have to have been committed for the governor to remove a constitutional officer. It can also be done for “misfeasance and neglect of duties” in office, as Scott alleged Friday in suspending Snipes. He appointed Peter Antonacci to complete the final two years of her term. Antonacci was on the job Monday.
But Meyers said what is at question is how long Antonacci serves, saying it should be only for the balance of the suspension until the Senate decides whether to remove Snipes from office. If the Senate were to approve her removal, “then the question is who would make the appointment,” with the decision possibly falling to Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis.
Two state senators who represent the county said it’s not a given that the Republican-controlled Senate will vote to remove Snipes.
“Do they believe this is the kind of precedent they want to set?” said Sen. Oscar Braynon, D-Miami Gardens, who is vice chairman of the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee, which hears cases concerning removal from office. “If we were to remove Dr. Snipes, who was already asking to resign at the end of the year, do they want that to be how we operate going forward?”
Braynon and Sen. Gary Farmer, DFort Lauderdale, said Scott had ulterior motives behind his decision.
“This is a blatant political move by a lame-duck governor for purely political purposes related to the 2020 election, which will include the president of the United States,” Farmer said.
That was the thinking of Commissioner Steve Geller, who put the item on the commission’s agenda and wondered whether the county would be better off with a DeSantis appointee rather than one from a governor with a grudge.
Although Geller said Antonacci was “an extremely competent person,” he was concerned about news reports that describe him as Scott’s “hatchet man” and “go-to guy.”
Geller said supervisors of elections have great ability to boost or minimize voter turnout through policies they put in place, such as early-voting hours and locations and where polling places are located. That could impact the outcomes in heavily Democratic Broward County, he said. Antonacci is a Republican and not a county resident.
“If Gov. Scott wanted as a goingaway present to Broward County to do everything possible to enhance the chances of his friend Donald Trump to get re-elected in 2020, the
single biggest thing that Gov. Scott could do would be to appoint a Scott loyalist that would attempt to minimize the voter turnout in Broward,” Geller said. “I don’t know what’s in Mr. Antonacci’s heart. I don’t know if that is his goal.”
Snipes has said she will challenge Scott’s decision to replace her and that she was rescinding her resignation. A Scott spokeswoman said Tuesday that the governor’s office had not received anything yet from Snipes about rescinding her resignation.
Mayor Mark Bogen said he was informed Monday by Antonacci that he had terminated attorney Burnadette Norris-Weeks, a close confidant of Snipes, as the legal counsel for the elections office.
Commissioner Beam Furr said the county has to look into the matter to protect the county from a “willy nilly” decision to remove Snipes.
“Somewhere that has to be countered. Somewhere that has to be checked,” Furr said.
The commission voted 6-1 to have Meyers investigate the county’s legal options, with Commissioner Michael Udine opposed. Commissioners Barbara Sharief and Nan Rich were not present for the vote.
“I just don’t think Broward County suing the governor over what happened with this last election puts the county in a good light,” Udine said. “Do we really want to be a plaintiff in a lawsuit, suing the governor over the actions of the supervisor of elections office?. It’s just very tough for me to understand that.”