The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) for not scheduling a special election to fill the seat of Republican former state Rep. Juan Alfonso Fernandez-Barquin.
In June, DeSantis tapped Fernandez-Barquin to be the clerk of the court and comptroller for Miami-Dade County, leaving the 118th House District seat vacant.
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Fernandez-Barquin resigned from his seat on June 11 to be sworn into the new office. The ACLU’s complaint notes that the seat has been vacant for more than 30 days, saying, “The governor’s inexplicable period of inaction is longer than any of his predecessors in known history.”
According to the complaint, 65 vacancies opened between 1999 and 2020 took an average of 7.6 days for the governor of Florida to call for a special election. It also described how DeSantis has promptly called for special elections in the past.
Florida’s interim committee weeks for the 2024 legislative session begin in September, which the ACLU says means the 118th could “go without representation” in that period of time.
“Left to his own devices, the governor would deprive the residents of House District 118 of their constitutionally protected voice in the Capitol,” the ACLU wrote, saying DeSantis “failed to perform his statutorily proscribed ministerial duty.”
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The lawsuit asks the Leon County Circuit Court to issue a writ of mandamus to compel DeSantis to set a date for the special election, with the general being held “no later than November 21, 2023.”
Neither the ACLU nor DeSantis responded to a request for comment from the Washington Examiner.
