15-04-2025
DeSantis: Lawmakers pulled ‘out of their rear ends' bill ending remote work for agency heads
Gov. Ron DeSantis bashes the TRUMP Act during a press conference in Destin on Jan. 31, 2025. Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Mark Glass stands next to the governor. (Screenshot Florida Channel)
Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo lives in Pinellas County, nearly 260 miles from the Florida Department of Health's central office in Tallahassee, but lawmakers want him and other executive branch appointees to move to the state capital.
Gov. Ron DeSantis signaled Tuesday he would veto the legislation, which he said would have the effect of firing agency heads who don't live in Tallahassee.
Proposals that a Senate panel approved unanimously Tuesday and the House could vote on Wednesday would end remote work for agency heads and other appointees of the governor by Oct. 1.
'They're saying all the agency heads must live in the swamp,' DeSantis said during a press conference in Pensacola. 'I want to drain the swamp; I don't want to refill the swamp. Where are they getting this? It's an asinine proposal.'
While the governor's bashing was aimed at the House, the Senate is also moving forward with the proposal.
'They're pulling it out of their rear ends and trying to jam it through this process. Over my veto pen,' DeSantis said.
Vero Beach Republican Sen. Erin Grall's bill, SB 1760, additionally would require university trustees and members of the Board of Governors to be U,S. citizens and state residents. Trustees must be alumni of the university they're appointed to and members of the board must be alumni of a state university if they don't live in the state.
The Republican senator said she wasn't trying to target any specific agency heads with her proposal.
'We have agencies that have leaders — the secretary or the executive director, or the chief administrative officer — who need to be present. This is to further the conversation about what does this mean,' Grall said during the Senate Appropriations Committee on Agriculture, Environment, and General Government meeting.
She added: 'If they choose to live in another place, should we be reimbursing the cost of that travel?'
Trustees must move to Florida by Jan. 6, 2027, to keep their posts under the proposal. New College of Florida Trustee Christopher Rufo is an example of a DeSantis appointee who is neither a Florida resident nor an alumnus, yet has helped lead the governor's culture war on higher education at the Sarasota institution.
Most recently, a panel of senators recommended against confirmation of one of DeSantis' nominees for the University of West Florida Board of Trustees. Lawmakers criticized Adam Kissell, a Heritage Foundation fellow, for living in West Virginia.
'I think that it's unfortunate when you look at the number of trustees that that are on our slate for confirmation, and you look at where a lot of them are from, and you look at one individual, particularly, who is not even from our state,' said Republican Sen. Jay Trumbull, who represents the area, during the March 27 panel.
Kissel has faced criticism for advocating defunding of public universities and suggesting the GI bill led to over-enrolled four-year colleges.
While the Senate bill has to get through one more committee, the House version, HB 1445, from Melbourne Republican Rep. Debbie Mayfield, is up on the floor this week.
A provision prohibiting unelected state employees from conducting campaign-type activities while they're working is missing from the Senate version of the bill.
Under Mayfield's proposal, state employees couldn't participate in political campaigns, solicit contributions, or use their authority to influence people's votes. Those prohibitions would apply both to candidate and issue campaigns, and employees could face a first-degree misdemeanor penalties if they do so.
The move from the House comes after NBC News reported that state employees in the governor's office called lobbyists to request donations for a political committee aligned with DeSantis as he and the First Lady hinted that she was mulling a run for governor.
State employees also engaged in activities that could be banned when they joined DeSantis' campaign against last year's ballot initiatives to legalize recreational marijuana and protect abortion access.
Both Ladapo and Jason Weida, former secretary of the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, were targets of lawsuits over the health department's letters threatening broadcasters that aired ads on behalf of the pro-abortion-rights campaign, Amendment 4. The surgeon general also appeared in press conferences against the passage of the marijuana constitutional amendment.
AHCA's creation of a webpage stating that Amendment 4 'threatens women's safety' and Weida's promotion of it prompted a complaint to the Florida Supreme Court, which ultimately sided with the DeSantis administration because the plaintiff lacked standing.
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